Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Netbooks will make smartphones obsolete within 5 years

When people start estimating smartphone sales for the next few years, I am tempted to throw in my own personal prediction: the smartphone will be obsolete in 5 years time and completely replaced by new netbooks that provide an infinitely better experience than smartphones.

4 comments:

Neal Lachman said...

Tim,

Interesting, but I'd think netbooks are and will remain a bit too big to hold to your ears or to put in your pocket.

Regards,

Neal

Titus Poulus said...

There wuill be simple solutions to that issue: a wired or wireless headset. Tim

GuyJ said...

Netbooks will doubtless come with built in projection technology in the future which allows us to dispense with the screen form-factor and make such devices truly pocketable.

When combined with the wired/wireless audio interfaces Tim describes the the future of smart phones does look grim.

Netbooks have a built-in comparative advantage over smart-phones too - open access

Nicolai said...

Tim, a headset doesn't alleviate the "volume issue". You still need to lug the thing around. Maybe acceptable for business-like usage but certainly not for day-to-day usage in bars, cars, theaters, beaches, malls and whatever other venues.

Regarding projection as the other poster mentions, this is not a competitive advantage as smartphones can be made to project. The same can be said regarding open access .