Panvamp's back! And talking about subnotebooks.

Hello friends, Panvamp is back. Many of you are wondering what happened to me...

Alright. Lets be realistic. Not many people read my little snippet of geek heaven, so if you are reading this, you probably were not wondering what happened to me at all. As it stands I have 19 posts and ZERO comments. I was going to make up a whole lot of excuses as to why I haven't posted all that much. But that is one advantage of not having any readership at all: I don't have to explain myself.

So, on to today's topic is the newest, hottest, greatest trend in mobile computing - Subnotebooks .
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of years, most of you have probably noticed the recent trend of small, light and extremely portable notebooks popping up all over. With Asus's EEPC and of course the ubiquitous OLPC project, subnotebooks look like the next lucrative mobile market. Intel is dropping mega money on its new Atom processor. In your mind you can see armies of the ultra-hip carrying these subnotebooks in trendy bags over their shoulders, while riding their Segways, through vast, friendly, urban outdoor settings, each tipping their designer hat at each other.

In actuality, however, one wonders exactly what the heck these people are really going to do with these tiny masterpieces of mobile technology. I really think that subnotebook products that are marketed as "personal learning devices" to children (such as the aforementioned OLPC) are seriously underestimating the devastating effect that children have on technology. It isn't only OLPC, I saw an article about a similar machine here today. The author of this article clearly states "so it’s not up to Panasonic ToughBook levels of ruggedness, but it should be able to survive life in the hands of a primary school student." I'm betting that the author has never seen primary school students and technology mix, but believe me, it isn't pretty. And giving them a computer with an LCD in it? That ALSO has a rotating touchscreen? I'm willing to bet that they get roughly half of them back with cracked LCD's, and the other half swiveled so much that the screen breaks off. Heck, half of the adults that I know can't even handle their full size laptops without breaking them.

I think that on a marketing level, subnotebooks will never be more than a niche market. Many of the people that I know ( including my wife ) have said that they wish that they had a really portable machine that they can take anywhere, and just plop down and open up and start working. Of course, none of them even considered how FREAKING SMALL a 7 inch or 8 inch display is. Oh sure, its totally usable for reading documents and writing documents, playing some music or watching a video. However... my T-Mobile wing can do all of that and more. And with a GPS module, its a pocket GPS. Oh I know what you are saying, "well the cell phone screen is even smaller!" True. But alot of people are looking to use these as a desktop (or laptop) replacement. Use it for a little bit. Many of them only have a resolution of 800*600. Yeah, have fun surfing the web on that. Because most sites are going to look like HALF sites and you are going to be scrolling left, right, up, down... the thought of browsing the web like that makes me sick to my stomach. I can use my phone to browse the web if I have to, but it is always by necessity. It is not enjoyable at all. But for music, videos, even email I find myself using my phone far more.

Right there, I am not a good candidate for a subnotebook. I mean, if I am going somewhere and I know I'll need my laptop... I will take my full size laptop and not have to bother with the Lilliputian screen. Do these marketers really think that this is going to work in the corporate market? Can you just see walking into a business meeting and taking out your pink, Willy Wonka styled EEPC and people are going to take you seriously??? I can see meetings now "Ok, everyone follow along with this spreadsheet... except for CHARLIE who can only see three lines at a time!" Also, I spend my days in a support center and I am constantly looking at people's machines over their shoulder. Making a 14 inch screen into a 7 inch screen is not going to make anyone's job any easier. Trying to share that is going to be a nightmare.

I just don't see the need for this product. Especially if you have an ipod/iphone or smart phone. If you want to make notebooks more portable, make them thinner, or use different materials that make them lighter. Solid state storage is a good idea as well. But making a laptop the size of a paperback book just seems unnecessary. You want to make a classroom computer? You want it to be wireless and a touchscreen? Make a tablet system that students pick up when they walk into the room - preloaded with today's lesson. There is no need to give them a whole computer that they can browse the porn sites with and hang out on youtube.

Of course I have been wrong before... but this really smells like a passing fad.