DisplaySearch released new numbers today suggesting that netbook sales may be dipping, iPad sales are doing well, and overall portable PC sales including tablets, ultraportable computers, and other notebooks are doing quite well. The research firm notes that 9 inch and smaller netbooks have all-but disappeared from the market, which should be apparent to pretty much anyone who’s been looking…

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Sure, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seems pretty confident that we’ll start to see Windows 7 Slates from big name PC makers before the end of the year. But that doesn’t mean Microsoft doesn’t have anything to learn from the Apple iPad. In fact, the company is inviting iPad users to come to Microsoft’s Redmond campus to participate in a study….

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There are a lot of headlines going around today about how the iPad and thin and light laptops are putting the squeeze on netbook sales… and thus that they might be harbingers of doom for the netbooks. There’s just one problem. Those headlines are tied to a study from Retrovo, which suggests that a significant percentage of people who are…

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Right. So yesterday when I was pointing out that saying that netbook growth from 2008 to 2009 was 641% was kind of like saying that the Apple iPad has experienced infinity-percent growth year over year — because there was no iPad last year, and there were only a handful of netbooks on the market in the first half of 2008….

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Here we go again. Another group is claiming that netbook sales are down largely because of the introduction of the Apple iPad. Yes, the growth in netbook sales is way down this year from last, while iPad sales are clearly up quite a bit over last year — since there was no iPad last year. While we’ve seen people claim…

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The idea that netbooks represented a brand new category of computing device was always a bit shaky. And I’m not entirely certain that anyone aside from marketers ever believed it. The truth is that a netbook is just a small, cheap, and light weight laptop. That’s it. If you look at all the so-called netbooks released over the last 2-3…

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A netbook is a laptop. It’s just smaller, cheaper, and typically less powerful than most other laptops on the market. But those three things are enough to set netbooks apart from other notebooks in the minds of most consumers, and according to a survey from PriceGrabber.com, 55% of consumers think netbooks complements traditional laptops rather than replacing them. It’s not…

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Last year a bunch of research firms put out studies showing that netbook shipments in 2008 were up over 2007 shipments by astronomical figures. That’s hardly surprising since the Eee PC 701 was pretty much the only netbook on the market in 2007, and it didn’t hit the streets until November of that year. But while 2008 was a big…

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In late 2007, netbooks were kind of a fad. By 2008, they were the fastest growing segment of the PC industry. More than 2 years after the launch of the Eee PC 701, where are we today? According to DisplaySearch, netbook shipments are still growing. The research firm’s most recent report shows that netbook shipments are up 103% from last…

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There’ve been a lot of reports indicating that the demand for netbooks might be cooling off. But you knwo what? DisplaySearch reports that 22.2% of all notebooks shipped during the second quarter of 2009 were netbooks. Mini-laptops also saw a quarter to quarter 40% increase in shipments , compared with 22% growth in the traditional laptop space. Part of the…

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[/caption] In our latest episode of “as the netbook sells,” DisplaySearch expects nearly 33 million netbooks to ship in 2009, while shipments of larger notebooks is expected to remain steady. In fact, the analysts suggest that part of the reason for flat shipments in traditional laptops is because netbooks are selling so well. While most PC makers are trying to…

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I always get a kick out of reports that predict what will be happening 4 years from now in an industry segment that didn’t even exist 2 years ago. So I’m taking Semico’s recent prediction that 22% of the mobile PC market will belong to netbooks in 2013 with a grain of salt. According to the report, 59 million netbooks…

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