Netbooks - an expensive blunder

Over the last few weeks, I have been on the desperate hunt for a laptop. One that will do all the things I need and still have the specifications for the odd World of Warcraft session at Mugg & Bean.

My old laptop lost the will to live after a rough year of hard beating and extensive travel. It was a trusty machine, it just wasn't built for the paces I put it through - besides, it ran World of Warcraft and all but the latest expansion pack.

You would think finding a new machine wouldn't be a difficult task - and, as you can see, I am not asking for much. Something with a dual core, I am not fussy about RAM, although I would guess a Gig would be nice; and perhaps reasonable onboard graphics - although I see Nvidia is now lopping cards onto notebooks.

I have come to learn that what I am asking for would have been quite affordable some time last year, but now it is not even vaguely in my price range.

I blame the netbook. The little sneaky thing has driven the price of the laptop through the roof.

The whole netbook phenomenon really started out with the first Asus EEE PC, which came to the market at an astounding price. Corporates were giving them away as gifts to VIPs, like they were dishing out Smarties. The tiny machine had barely usable hard drive space and the tiniest keyboard in existence - the qwerty on my mobile phone was easier to use.

But people swamped the retailers to get their hands on the device, being played off as the cross between the smartphone and the laptop, and great for the traveller (which is still true).

Other vendors saw the spark of possibility in the device and a new term for the mini notebook was coined. The netbook became something of a fad, and some companies had international designers create covers for the machine (and sold them at incredibly ridiculous prices).

What the vendors never understood, and clearly don't even now, is that the netbook's appeal was never in the form factor. I have never liked using the tiny keyboard; I have never been pleased with the fact that I had best run the lowest usage operating system, with none of the features of a laptop. The best the device offered me was access to the Internet.

The real value of the netbook was the price value it offered. People previously unable to find R5 000 for a low-end laptop could afford the R2 500 for the netbook. I found the Asus EEE low-spec machine on special for R1 800 while doing the research for this column.

I blame the netbook. The little sneaky thing has driven the price of the laptop through the roof.

Candice Jones, ITWeb telecoms editor

If the original worth of the netbook had been in the size, Sony would be rolling in far more riches and would have dominated the laptop market by now. Even before the EEE PC was a twinkle in the technology eye, Sony released the Vaio laptops, which were as small as the netbooks, but they were full laptops.

The crux of the misunderstood value is that it has created a new value - that of popularity. Every laptop vendor now sells a mini version and every girl in the northern suburbs wants her Vivienne Tam-designed netbook.

The cost of a netbook nowadays, besides the Asus range, lies anywhere between R3 000 and R5 500; I have seen an Atom machine with a R9 000 price tag. I mean, who are they trying to kid?

Near the beginning of last year, I paid around R5 200 for my laptop, with CD drive, USB ports deluxe, WiFi access - okay, so I only had a 60GB hard drive and 512MB of RAM, but I could still fight the Orcs in the Barrens with it.

In fact, I could do so much more with my laptop; I never took my netbook overseas, I never took it with me to a conference or interview, I barely looked at it for months, before I gave it to a teacher in a public school to use for presentations.

And the hunt continues for a replacement for my notebook, which is - as we speak - headed for the recycling plant. The problem now is to find a laptop with a reasonable specification that links in under R8 000.

When I bought my laptop last year, it was not the bottom-of-the-range machine, and the laptop it replaced would have been proportionally similar. Every year that I have bought a laptop, I have gone for a middle-range machine, and usually they come out with the same or at least similar price.

This is no longer the case. To get an updated computer at a price point that would be considered reasonable is impossible. While I will miss the mobility of a good laptop, I have decided that a desktop would suit my pocket better - and at least then I can expand my gaming collection.