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Originally Posted by Russic
I can't back this up with a source just yet (edit: http://foxyurl.com/pnk), but a recently read somewhere that only 40% of netbook users are happy with their purchase. That is not encouraging.
edit: Looks like when it comes to laptops, netbooks are generally rated 40% lower when it comes to satisfaction. |
Well, that metric isn't really measuring satisfaction.
It is looking at online forums/blogs/etc and measuring "advocacy" i.e. are there lots of posts raving about net books or are there lots of posts negative about netbooks.
I would agree that there is probably a correlation but the relatively small market share of netbooks as well as the relative "newness" of netbooks might skew those results to the negative.
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The results of the social media analysis indicate that there is a lot of opportunity for improvement across the board for Netbook products. Netbook manufacturers also face a significant challenge with consumers whose expectations are based on years of desktop pc usage.
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The last line is the telling one. If people bought a netbook and expected it to do everything their desktop does, they are mistaken. Netbooks can't yet play HD content; the next iteration of processor is supposed to address this, but if people try it they are going to be disappointed to see a slideshow. I'm guessing they they will also be unhappy with some of the more extreme flash and/or java apps. Or maybe they bought a machine that had Vista, and even MS has agreed Vista doesn't work on Netbooks. The tricky thing is the hardware manufacturers want to develop this new market, not take away from their laptop market.
Point being, hardware and software manufacturers are still figuring out the netbook market, and the general population's expectations appear to be misguided. That will change as the market matures. Sonic/Rio had the portable MP3 market first before Apple figured it out better. I can see the same thing happening here, eventually.