There’s been a flood of mini-laptops with 11.6 inch and 12.1 inch displays over the past few months. Call them netbooks, ultraportables, thin and light notebooks, or what you will, but it seems that these machines are targeted at people looking for something in between a small, low power netbook and a larger more powerful laptop. But 10 inch netbooks aren’t going anywhere just yet.
Chippy at UMPC Portal conducted a somewhat unscientific study by counting the number of devices available in Germany at Geizhals.at. Specifically, he counted thenumber of devices available with 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 inch displays.
This is his third SKU count of the year, which makes it easy to see trends over time. And this the major trend: There’s a growing number of 10 and 11 inch laptops and the number of machines with smaller displays is shrinking. I kind of had a feeling that this was the way the market had been moving in the last year or two, but it’s nice to have a pretty chart to put with the hunch, even if it’s specific to the German market.
Do the 9″ netbooks get grouped in with the 8″ devices? I guess they’ve technically got 8.9″ screens, but I’ve never thought of them as 8″ devices before.
The 11.6 and 12 inch models were just introduced several months now. Give it a few more months before it shoots up.
The 11.6″ devices are nice, but that’s totally a notebook if you ask me. I wish they’d put more horsepower in the 8.9’s to be honest. The extra vertical rez on the 11.6’s is a big bonus though, 600 pixels is a bit too small.
SKU count is one thing, but I’d be really interested to see sales numbers. 10″ is a weird form factor, IMO, but 11-12″ is good enough for me to do real work, and I wonder if sales are reflecting that. I’d have picked up an 11-incher by now to replace my aging Blacbook, but I decided to hold out for USB 3.0.