Four years on we're buying better laptops than ever before and, with the netbook class now more or less dead
I still cannot get over the second part of that sentence. It's true though, but I could cry bitter tears over it: when netbooks first arrived on the scene I felt happy like a little elf: small, light, cheap computers made to run Linux? That was exactly what I had been waiting for all these years.
And a netbook has been my main computer ever since I bought one. It's ideal for my personal usage in which I basically run four programs all the time: a browser, an email client, shells, and Emacs. Add a compile every now and then and you have a description of >95% of my computing time. I can code on the kitchen table or on the couch, on the bus, even in bed if I feel like it. It's fun.
I used to have a 12 inch laptop before but the netbook clearly beats it in terms of portability. And the battery life is decent too, even though the device is a few years old by now.
And I paid around $280 for the device.
And now the market for netbooks is dead. Taken over by tablets. Except, I have no use for them. I mean, it's a selfish way of looking at it because apparently many more people want tablets than netbooks. So let the market decide. Unfortunately for me, the perfect match will slowly but surely stop being available.
Ironically, I'm not even using a netbook the way it was supposedly designed to be used: for browsing the web anywhere. As I've outlined above I use it exactly like I use a desktop computer, except that I run heavier jobs remotely on other machines.
Anyway. I am not even sure what point I am trying to make. Probably none. But it does make me sad that a type of computer that is perfect for me is being replaced by another type of computer that is unusable for the same tasks.
I don't see the 11" MacBook Air leaving the stage anytime soon. If anything, the average laptop is converging towards what you want. I am not sure about Linux drivers, but the main difference to a "netbook" seems to be the price point. For a few years' worth of computing, does it matter?
I think the price difference is not a small point. The Apple store has the 11" MacBook Air starting at $999. My netbook was around $280 and is a device that does exactly what I need.
The $719 difference is no small change for me either. But it's still easy to buy a well-supported 11" laptop. Truly replaced form factors have it even harder. Try to find a "dumbphone" that was designed with enthusiasm.
You do realize that you can still get Netbooks, right? They are actually better than they used to be, and if you look you can find the ones sold to schools to run Linux (ie, with great Linux support)
Do you object to getting a Transformer (or similar) dockable tablet and then putting, for example, Ubuntu on it (either completely or a variation of "Ubuntu for Android" when that's an option)? Or is cost part of the problem here?
There is not really "a problem" here. It's just that there was a time where the consumer market offered a perfect sweet spot for my needs and it's not going to be there anymore. I haven't tried out the any dockable tablets but would you agree that it seems like a bit of a botch-up just to get what a netbook delivers at a much lower price tag?
As a happy Transformer owner, I'd disagree. Adding the touchscreen is both useful and surprisingly natural. Sometimes the easiest and most intuitive way to do something is to touch something. Other times it's using the keyboard and trackpad. Having both in one package is delightful - to the point where I'm not mad I paid more for my Transformer than what a netbook costs, I'm mad I can't pay more and get a touchscreen for my laptop (outside of some niche models that don't otherwise appeal to me) or, for that matter, my desktop.
Then there's the insane battery life you get when you join the tablet and the keyboard dock. Aside from a time when I forced the screen to stay on (and didn't disable that later), I can't remember the last time it ran out of battery.
Even undocking turns out to be more useful than I thought. For example, using the tablet while walking or handing it to my daughter for her to play with.
No, I'm not unhappy I paid more than a netbook would have cost I'm getting plenty more than a netbook, too.
In 2008, when the Eee PC was revolutionizing the computing world and driving every manufacturer to make cheaper and smaller laptops, Sony washed its hands of the whole thing. The "race to the bottom," the company said, would profoundly impact the industry, killing profit margins and flooding the market with cheap, terrible machines. Sony was wrong, its stance lasting about a year before joining the competition with its own VAIO W.
I actually disagree with this first paragraph, I think Sony was right. The "race to the bottom" definitely did impact the industry, and for quite some time, no manufacturer even offered a laptop with decent build quality, except for Apple of course. People thought "why should I pay $1,000+ for this laptop when I can get a much cheaper laptop that will do everything I need?" And then the Macbook Air and the iPad come along and all of a sudden, people have no problem paying more for a quality product. If it wasn't for Apple, the OEMs would continue to release shitty machines until they all went bankrupt from negative profit margins.
I don't think the tablet market is experiencing the same race to the bottom because people are not buying these shitty tablets (which the Nexus 7 isn't). Everybody is still buying iPads and will continue to do so until a tablet that can actually compete with the iPad is released. (I have only seen two that even come close, the Galaxy and the Transformer, and still...) I think Apple has proven that consumers are willing to pay more if the product is good. And this is all coming from someone that does not own a single Apple product.
I am huge ThinkPad fan. That is one exception that I was thinking of mentioning, but really, ThinkPads (NOT Lenovo in general) do not appeal to the average consumer. They are built great, and I have owned a few, but to everyone but the techies, they look like boring/old machines. I actually had a few people tell me that my 2 year old ThinkPad looks like something from the 90s.
And the build quality and fit/finish of the new unibody Macbooks are still better than that of the ThinkPads.
The cheapest officially refurbished iPad 1 is $379, and you'd be buying a product with no further major software updates (and possible future app incompatibility).
Anyone can still develop for iOS 3, which was released several years a go.
Also, 10" tablets with comparable features as Apple's iPad are priced the same or higher than the iPad.
7" tablets like the Google/Asus tablet and the Kindle Fire are devices for media consumption, 10" tablets like the iPad are suitable for media creation.
Had there been a microSD slot, it would've been an instabuy. Without it, however, I fear that in 6 months I'll be juggling which applications or media I want to keep on it.
I understand that Google's "everything in the Cloud" is an answer to this. Why keep music and movies on the device when you can offload storage? Because I don't want to depend on connectivity, and the device doesn't have native 3G.
Still, even phones have them. My Nexus One has a microSD card slot (currently populated with 32GB for quite cheap) and is a good deal smaller than the Galaxy Nexus what does not have one.
And that is why it has neither. At $200, you can't include throwaway features that don't appeal to a majority of your target market. For myself, I don't know why I'd care that my tablet was a phone. I already have a phone; if I want to put the tablet on the internet I tether it to the phone.
The problem is you will always want to put the tablet on the internet, because it is useless without it. It is an extra burden to take your phone out and turn tethering on everytime you want to pick up your tablet.
On the other hand, why pay for a 3G plan for every device when you pay for just one and share the connection? Extra batteries are cheap compared to 3G data plans.
It doesn't have 3G, so I suspect it's probably not meant as a mobile device and you are expected to back it up with some local wifi enabled file server.
Google says they are selling Nexus 7 at cost. So what is the revenue model?
If the idea is to follow Amazon's Kindle Fire (where revenue from content sold in future, justifies the at-cost pricing of the device), is it not a huge risk? Google Play is not established as a revenue generator yet.
What about the content itself? Does Google have agreement in place with content owners? Even if Google has agreements, in reality that won't cover all geographies. What happens in those geographies where Google can sell apps and other stuff but not media content? Won't the tablet be sold there or will it be priced higher?
Also, how does Asus make money or are they just a contract manufacturer?
I guess it's an economic calculation. Moreover, it would be foolish to assume that consumers are rational agents: I expect that the perceived value and user's attachment to a free tablet would be much lower (again, another study would find the "sweet price". Maybe they found it?).
This is the single biggest difference between Google and Apple. Apple designs very elegant software (and hardware) so that they can sell hardware at a high premium. Google views all monetization through search optimization. Search, Maps etc. Now maybe there will be commerce streams (Play, Wallet?) too soon which makes having a direct relationship very key.
So somewhere Google has a stat that says "A regular user is worth $22 a year to us" or something (more sophisticated) but like that. If those users buy an Apple device it's less and less clear they'll have a path to Google services now.
If they can acquire that consumer "for free" (sell them a device that hooks them into the platform at a wash) then it's a good deal. If they gave it away for free then it would take x number of years to break even on that person. So that $200 or whatever does matter. And Google has a very good idea about what an Android/Google services tablet user is worth to them.
To quote:
"But there’s one big problem with Google’s small tablet: It lacks a business model. As Amazon did with its Fire, Google is selling the Nexus 7 at cost. Amazon could afford to do so because the Fire is a gateway to its online store. After you get the Fire, you’ll buy a lot of books and movies from Amazon, and you might even become a subscriber to Prime, Amazon’s highly profitable subscription service.
But Google, unlike Amazon, doesn’t sell physical stuff, so it can’t justify the low price of the Nexus 7 on the expectation of huge e-commerce sales. Sure, the search company does sell media—you can buy books, music, and subscribe to magazines from the Nexus, but the selection is thin compared with what’s available in Amazon or Apple’s media stores. If you get a Nexus 7, you’re better off relying on other sources for media. For books, install the Kindle app and buy from Amazon. For movies, use the Netflix app. For music, use Spotify.
Well, what about advertising? Google makes most of its money from ads, and boosting advertising revenue is the central goal behind Android. The more Android devices Google sells, the more people use its services, and thus, the more people see its ads. So if Google sells a lot of Nexus 7s, couldn’t it make a lot more money from ads?
Not really. Google makes only about $4 per year in ad revenue from every Android device, according to an analysis by Asymco’s Horace Dediu. So if Google sells 10 million Nexus 7s—far more than anyone expects—it would make $40 million a year from the device. For a company that made nearly $12 billion in profits last year, that’s nothing to crow about. (What’s more, two-thirds of Google’s mobile advertising revenue comes through Apple devices. If people choose the Nexus 7 over the iPad, Google might not be making any more money than it would have anyway.)
Google’s real goal with the Nexus 7 can’t be to make money. Instead, the tablet is a marketing device. Google wants to hop on the tablet train before it’s too late. It’s been two years since the iPad was released, and so far no one has managed to create a plausible alternative. The Nexus 7 is an effort to get people to believe that Android tablets aren’t terrible. It’s good enough to be usable for most people, and just cheap enough to get a lot of folks to give it a try. And if you get the Nexus 7 and find that it isn’t so bad, maybe one day you’ll be willing to give other, not-so-cheap Android tablets a try.
It’s a circuitous plan, and it could well fail. In the meantime, though, you might as well enjoy Google’s pretty good, cheap tablet."
I'm assuming since it's Asus made they did not want to interrupt sales of transformer primes (essentially the same specs with a larger screen/keyboard-plugin). I would love to see a 10" transformer as the next Nexus tablet device.
Yes, the size and price makes it far more appealing for kids.
And women who want a Kindle++ that fits in the purse they already carry everywhere (but is too small for a 10" tablet) could make a stronger case than most.
But, in general, half the size of a 10" tablet doesn't make it half as useful as a 10" tablet and thus worth half the price. Half the size makes it really hard to argue that the apps or browsing experience is notably better than a phone. And not being able to pocket the thing, thus necessitating a bag only raises the question of: is this thing good enough to justify bringing a bag when you otherwise wouldn't? And half the size of a 10" tablet again makes this a hard pitch.
Even if you're extremely price-bound, I just don't see the point. The price-bound have, at this point, waited three years to make a tablet decision anyway. Going without for a year or so to save for something that makes a stronger case can't be all that unacceptable.
I don't see how that works logically. A 7" tablet is just about exactly as much bigger than a 4" phone as a 10" tablet is bigger than a 7" tablet. Why is one quantum more important than the other?
I could just as well say "Double the size makes it really hard to argue that the iPad is notably better than a 7" tablet." with exactly the same justification.
I think it's very much taste-dependent. I've used an iPad and been broadly unimpressed with the form factor; you have to "put it on something" to use it, it's too big to hold for long periods in one hand. I've never used a 7" tablet but it seems like for simple browsing on a plane or whatever like it might be a better fit.
>Why is one quantum more important than the other?
I've owned both. Long story short, things like comics, magazines, non-mobile web, etc are terrible on a 7". Consuming this media often involves lots of tapping and zooming. Its annoying. Two people can sit together and watch a TV show or movie comfortable with a 10" tablet. With a 7" its almost like crowding around someone's phone.
Oh, and the 10" opens up this world of remote desktop/citrix apps that suddenly are usable.
I'd also argue that a 10" is just a sexier and more futuristic device. A 7" is typically fatter and has a larger bezel while a 10" has a lot more area to spread this stuff out. There's something really fun about having a thin 10" screen that weighs next to nothing in your hands. This is sci-fi territory here.
I'd also argue that no 7" is really pocketable. Unless you're a woman with a purse or are wearing massive cargo pants, you'll be carrying a bag anyway.
Well my Nook Color (first gen) is a 7" device, and I can easily slip that in the back pocket of my dress pants or jeans. Of course it is good to remember to remove it afterwards. Usually I would slip it in my back pocket on the way to the car, take it out, then repeat for entering the office -- no bag needed. It does work really good for regular books, but around the house I mostly use it to look stuff up online when someone else is at the computer. Things like checking the weather, looking up a channel listing, etc. The one thing that it really stinks at though is PDFs. For some reason, almost every PDF is formatted for 8.5x11 (or A4) -- even when there is a load of white space around the document. Now if I have the source for a PDF document and reformat it for this size screen, it works great.
What I think would be a killer feature is having a print driver on your desktop that sends formatted PDF printouts directly to your tablet device, sized for the screen. Then you would have a true replacement for your printer for many use cases (such as printing off some quick notes for a meeting, etc).
> Consuming this media often involves lots of tapping and zooming.
That depends on your vision. If your vision is good leave everything small and just read it.
If not, put on some supermarket reading glasses to magnify everything and enjoy.
If it has the resolution, you can make a small device appear big by magnifying it to your eyes with glasses, while still leaving the device physically small.
Right: taste dependent. I see what you're saying on some of that, but others just sound ridiculous (e.g. Watching a movie on 10" is bad enough, but sharing the screen? Not in my lifestyle, sorry.)
And some of your points (non-mobile web, remote desktop) mostly just amount to "10 inches is closer to a laptop", which prompts the question of why bother with the tablet when you already have a laptop?
And the rest just sounds like fanboism: why isn't it "really fun" and "sci fi territory" to have a 7" screen that weighs next to nothing in your hands? (And as I stated before, I have to quibble with the weight comment: the iPad is definitely not a one-handed device; I get tired using it like that.)
I'm not really defending the "paperback" form factor, as I haven't used it. I'm just very surprised at the level of resistance. It looks cute to me.
I've read arguments claiming fullsize pages can be read from 7" (or that the reflow of pdfs works well). I've never seen anyone do that regularly in real life and don't really expect to.
But sure, if you're rich, retired and only read literature -- not documentation, documents, code, etc... :-)
I routinely read full-size PDFs in duplex on my laptop screen, which is barely larger in physical size than a 7" tablet and actually lower resolution. That's a clear functional use case, right? So by your logic that makes you objectively wrong, not simply subject to different taste than me?
Stop it, this kind of flaming is beyond dumb. To claim that you prefer a 10" screen is fine. To claim that you can't read a PDF on a 7" screen is absurd.
> A 7" tablet is just about exactly as much bigger than a 4" phone as a 10" tablet is bigger than a 7" tablet.
I'm surprised that nobody else has pointed this out, but that's not true at all - we measure screen sizes by the diagonal, but the actual screen size is a quadratic function of the diagonal. If the aspect ratio were such that the screen were a square (it's not), this would mean that a 10'' screen would be more than twice as large as a 7'' screen, which would be three times as large as a 4'' screen.
That said, the screen size is really only part of the picture. At least for me, I like the size of the Kindle Fire (also ~7'') - it fits perfectly in my hand both when traveling and when reading. A 10'' screen to me feels massive enough that I'd just as rather have my computer (heck, 10'' is almost the size of some ultrabooks or the Macbook Air!)
7" tablet fits in a jacket/coat pocket. 10" tablet does not. I also find the 7" tablet is more comfortable to hold in one hand. I have both a rooted Nook Color and an iPad, and while the iPad is undeniably a better piece of hardware, I find Nooks size more convenient to hold and use.
I'm not trying to say it's the wrong size or anything.
I have a friend who lives in a warm climate, wears cargo shorts year-round and couldn't care less about anything other than long-form reading on the thing. And he won't shut up about how awesome his Nook Color fits his life. I get it, for him. Or for a hypothetical mad-reader who has a purse or pouch they carry everywhere.
I just hear a lot of chatter about how the 7" size is desirable coming from people who don't/can't already wear clothing that makes sense of the form-factor. [1] Or don't have that long-form reading focus. [2]
And I don't get that. I figure there has to be something to it. Which is why I still talk about it. I'm just not seeing it.
[1] e.g. they don't live in a climate or work environment where they can sport cargo pants/shorts all the time, or they don't already wear a jacket everywhere with pockets big enough, etc. And there, "it fits some pockets" sounds more hypothetical and comes off like they've just turned "you have to carry a bag that you don't already" into "you have to carry conforming_clothing, that you don't already".
[2] Personally, that's the only time I wish my iPad was more comfortable to one-hand. It doesn't come up often. But during long reading sessions, while I'm rotating postures and grips, I miss the one-hand grips that are available with a paperback, magazine, or 7" tablet. But I'm not so short on comfortable grips that it matters much. That said, I never found the weight of an iPad to be a problem either. So maybe that's just me.
If the only real good use case for the 7" tablet is long-form reading, why not get an e-ink device? better to read on, weighs less, thinner, cheaper, better battery. My kindle 3 perfectly complements my smartphone and 10" tablet.
I spent all last weekend looking for a bag to carry my transformer in. There seem to be two standard sizes for bags that it falls between; you get the full-sized satchel/briefcase, or the small taller-than-it-is-wide size. (Do a google search for manbag and you'll see the two options I'm talking about). The latter is a perfect fit for my 7" netbook or my kindle, but infuriatingly slightly too small for the transformer, while the former feels like a cavernous void when my transformer's the only thing in it. I guess the logic is "if the guy's buying a larger-than-A4 bag it's because he wants to carry three folders full of papers", but I'm amazed no-one's selling something that's just a minimum-sized case and shoulder strap for a tablet.
So for me the bags amplify the difference between a 10" and a 7". Usually I just carry the satchel everywhere, but I'd feel like a jerk taking it to a restaurant or a gig; the small bag fits on my shoulder without thinking about it and looks good enough that I'm happy to wear it anywhere. I feel like it should be possible to make a 10" tablet this practical - it's not much heavier - but I think the bag industry hasn't caught up yet.
second that. 7" is a great size for a tablet. I used fire for some time and it was quite useful to take it with me. If I am going for a larger tablet though I'd much rather prefer a more functional Surface over iPad... if only it was available :)
I own a 10-inch tablet (Transformer Original) and a 7-inch-tablet (Nook Color with CM7) and I can say that the 7-inch form factor more beautifully fits the hand, and is easier on the eyes (and grip) for things like reading, light browsing, and email.
And not being able to pocket the thing, thus necessitating a bag only raises the question of: is this thing good enough to justify bringing a bag when you otherwise wouldn't?
It fits in a purse, so that's only an issue for us guys (unless you're man enough to carry a man-purse and not give a fuck what people think).
Personally, I already have a 12" laptop and no smartphone (my wifi-less S60 doesn't really count), so a cheap and small tablet would cover the "really portable media/web viewing" nicely.
A 7" fits in my trouser pockets; for a 10" I'd need to carry my satchel, and then I'd just bring my laptop instead.
The iPad or 10" tablets provide a different experience. iPad is a great size but just a little too big to take everywhere with you. The 7" is just so much more portable.
I would say that if you are young and/or have very good eyesight then you will be fine. Most people over 40, for example, will have a hard time reading without zooming well in.
I'm over 40 and wear reading glasses. I love the Kindle 3's form factor. It fits in my bag it's far more pleasant to read on a 7" tablet than a smartphone.
Same here, age and eyesight wise, but I find that text on screens below a certain size is either too small to read confortably or too large breaking the reading flow. I guess this is a personal thing more than a scientific fact.
Having owned both a Kindle Fire and then an iPad 3... The Kindle Fire was nice... but the iPad 3 was a revelation. The 10" screen of the iPad completely changed my perception of tablets. I found the 7" Kindle Fire to be unbearable afterwards and was forced to sell it.
Check out how much Apple is adding for the 3G versions of their iPads - $100. That's half the price of the tablet already. And it's not even in the $500 iPad as default! And you want 3G as default in a $200 one?
Cell modem would easily add $100 to the price; not to mention having to pair it with a carrier (which Google doesn't seem willing to do just yet). They could do unlocked, but contract-free, tablet only SIMs aren't very common in the US yet. Plus, don't believe Asus has shipped many cell-equipped tablets yet.
Am a bit surprised they didn't do some sort of "instant tethering" feature: tap your phone and tablet, they pick up over NFC and negotiate the config automatically.
You dont need a standalone device, a mobile phone with hotspot mode will be enough (my Nexus S with ICS has it, and my wife's HTC with Gingerbread too, dont know about which versions of BlackBerry, Windows Phone and iPhone have this feature)
edit: you need to check if your mobile carrier allows you to do it
Not sure about T-Mobile, but with AT&T, you can walk into a store, buy a SIM in cash, pay-as-you-go, and pick what data options you want. They aren't great offerings (I think $15 for 1GB?) but it's certainly not hard or uncommon.
I would have gladly paid the $100. The portability of the tablet is its biggest appeal to me. Not having a cell modem kills a lot of my potential use cases.
I suspect the lack of a 3G/LTE option is a power play on Google's part. One of the biggest failings of Android thus far is the poor distribution of updates, and carriers do not help the situation.
Without a modem Google controls 100% of the user's experience, with a modem they're subject to the whims of AT&T, Verizon, et al.
I'd be very, very happy if Google wrested some control back, it might mean sane support and updates for future Android devices.
Just because my PC came with a modem 15 years ago didn't mean I was tied to AOL, Compuserve or the local ISP. I gasp bought my service from whoever I wanted.
Yes, a cell modem would add more to the cost, but a contract free 7" google-updated android tablet with 3g that I could use on multiple carriers, unlocked... what's not to like about that?
Just because my PC came with a modem 15 years ago didn't mean I was tied to AOL, Compuserve or the local ISP. I gasp bought my service from whoever I wanted.
You do realize that there were laws protecting your right and ability to do that?
They don't work too well on anything aside from GSM networks. some CDMA carriers (coughverizoncough) have this nasty habit of refusing to activate anything they don't sell. A practice I'm not exactly sure how it isn't against the law.
The problem is, apart from T-mobile, other mobile carriers don't incentivize you to BYO phone. It's buy a $600 phone for $99 and be locked into a 2 year, $70 a month contract or BYO phone and be on a $70 month to month contract. With BYO, you're effectively giving the carrier an extra $20 a month due to lack of subsidy. Other countries have much saner systems where BYO plans are $20 a month cheaper.
It continues to baffle me that more people don't use T-Mobile. Yes, their network isn't quite as solid or blind-spot-free as AT&T's or Verizon's, but you can save so much money on T-Mobile. Hell, it's often more cost-effective to get a subsidized phone on T-Mo with a 2-year contract, then immediately cancel the contract, pay the cancellation fee, and switch to a $20/mo-less no-contract plan.
Back when the Nexus One came out, it was $579 to buy it outright, or $179/$279 to buy with a 2-year contract (depending on if you were an existing customer or not). Buy on contract, cancel, pay the $200 cancellation fee, and just then you're already $200/$100 ahead. Then consider you have 24 months on a plan that costs $20 less each month than it would under contract, and that's $480 saved, not to mention the freedom of not being tied to a carrier for those two years if you do decide you want to move.
And as a bonus, T-Mo is very tether-friendly. They'll throttle you if you transfer more than some amount of data per month (which I've found to be a non-issue in my personal use), but otherwise they don't care what you do with the data connection.
There are a lot of excellent MVNOs worth considering, that don't try to screw over customers and still allow you the benefits of access to a large cell network. Red Pocket, for example, is an AT&T MVNO oriented towards Asian-American customers, and they have a bunch of plans that are very inexpensive while still providing reasonable amounts of service.
If I had not received a Galaxy Nexus for free at Google I/O, I would have likely purchased a device for $350 from Google and then activated it on Red Pocket or some other GSM MVNO.
It's important to realize that often, prices like $600 for a smartphone are deliberately inflated for the sake of encouraging people to sign their money away on cell phone contracts. This is illustrated by the fact that the Galaxy Nexus, a relatively high-end device, is available absolutely unsubsidized, for $350.
Cell carriers each have slightly differing radio frequencies. They would have to sell "Works with AT&T", "Works with Sprint", "Works with T-Mobile" versions all separately, as they all use different radio frequencies.
The alternative is to build a mega-radio (or perhaps cluster of radios) to support all the carriers, but that adds weight and significant cost, and won't work with whatever new carrier comes out tomorrow anyway.
> They would have to sell "Works with AT&T", "Works with Sprint", "Works with T-Mobile" versions all separately, as they all use different radio frequencies.
No, you only need two versions: "Works with all GSM carriers" (with frequencies to support 3G/4G on AT&T, T-Mobile, and almost every other carrier in the world) and "Works with all CDMA carriers" (Sprint, Verizon, etc). And for a first pass, you can ignore the latter entirely.
At this point, most decent smartphones come with a quad-band or pentaband radio.
I don't doubt that SD card slots and 3G radios would have made this a must buy for people, but the biggest issue from Google's perspective is the lack of Android tablet penetration. Android tablets fighting the iPad front have failed to get traction, so Google is going to Kindle Fire route: cheaper cost, quality hardware missing a few bells and whistles. Except in this case the OS running on the device is far superior the Amazon experience.
I am thinking of a small USB 3G dongle and tethering with my phone at other times. The perfect device for me would be a 5" Nexus Note.
I'm really glad it comes with GPS. If I do get it, it is because they decided to include the GPS chip. I travel a lot and having GPS on a larger screen can help when talking to taxi drivers.
I'll be curious to hear if the screen is sufficient for reading. I have an e-ink Nook currently that's starting to feel a little old but the e-ink is absolutely the best to read on. Would consider upgrading but I'm not sure if it will be a good reading experience or not.
Actually, 250AUD is pretty much exactly 250USD. But remember, FX rates are spot rates, they don't take into account the FX risk incurred by holding money over time in the foreign currency. So it makes sense to for a US company to charge a premium to customers using a different currency. (Note the forward prices vs. spot for AUDUSD here: http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/closing.html)
Besides, by the time you pay for shipping and tax in New York, the $199 tablet is $232!
I get the next worst result - the $200 tablet would be £130 at current exchange rates but in the age old tech rate-of-exchange it's £200. An apparent ~50% markup is a turn off.
The 8G tablet is only £159 in the UK, or £132.50 before VAT (US prices typically don't include tax). That's about $205 at current market rates, which is as close to the US price as makes no difference.
Surprisingly, the UK is getting the same deal as the US this time round.
I hope that having these sorts of things (decent display size) will help Google jump start the 'its not a phone' re-write for some of their 'mobile' products. A touch based, high resolution, device for accessing Google products. I use gmail and its not fun on the iPad, its fine on the iPhone. The difference is display size and real estate.
I still cannot get over the second part of that sentence. It's true though, but I could cry bitter tears over it: when netbooks first arrived on the scene I felt happy like a little elf: small, light, cheap computers made to run Linux? That was exactly what I had been waiting for all these years.
And a netbook has been my main computer ever since I bought one. It's ideal for my personal usage in which I basically run four programs all the time: a browser, an email client, shells, and Emacs. Add a compile every now and then and you have a description of >95% of my computing time. I can code on the kitchen table or on the couch, on the bus, even in bed if I feel like it. It's fun.
I used to have a 12 inch laptop before but the netbook clearly beats it in terms of portability. And the battery life is decent too, even though the device is a few years old by now.
And I paid around $280 for the device.
And now the market for netbooks is dead. Taken over by tablets. Except, I have no use for them. I mean, it's a selfish way of looking at it because apparently many more people want tablets than netbooks. So let the market decide. Unfortunately for me, the perfect match will slowly but surely stop being available.
Ironically, I'm not even using a netbook the way it was supposedly designed to be used: for browsing the web anywhere. As I've outlined above I use it exactly like I use a desktop computer, except that I run heavier jobs remotely on other machines.
Anyway. I am not even sure what point I am trying to make. Probably none. But it does make me sad that a type of computer that is perfect for me is being replaced by another type of computer that is unusable for the same tasks.