Netbooks witHh HD displays

[codedivine]

I got to use a HP Mini 210 with a dual-core Atom and 1366x768 10'' display. Other configuration was standard: Atom N550, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, Win7 starter.
I must say the HD display made the experience quite a bit more enjoyable than the retarded 1024x600 displays most netbooks come with.
The keyboard was also excellent and the machine is quite slim and looks great. Battery life is quite long too (at least 6+ hours). All this for $299.
Overall quite happy with little machine.

I wonder why more netbooks don't come with this display resolution. People keep saying that tablets are killing the netbook but I think its the artificial limitations such as the display resolution and limited RAM as well as poor design choices in keyboards or batteries by some OEMs were also responsible for the netbooks decline. Intel GMA probably played a part too

edit: Changed demise to decline

[riviera74]

Unfortunately, you ran into a common way for OEMs to push mobile technology at cheaper prices and lower costs: lower resolutions for their screens. That 1024*600 is standard (and by extension) cheap to acquire for netbooks. That is why most notebooks between 13-17.3" are only 1366*768 rather than, say, 1920*1080 or so. Cheaper is better: nobody wants to pay for true HD on a netbook. Many people may not want to pay for 1080p on a notebook either.

[codedivine]

An update. I nuked Win7 and installed Kubuntu and it is running like a champ on this thing. I did have to disable desktop effects, but otherwise looking good.
I hope the expected 32nm Atom refresh (Cedar Trail) will breathe some life into netbooks. And hopefully this time OEMs will bring out some innovative models instead of mass producing models with the exact same specs. I wonder what restrictions Intel and Microsoft will place though.

[riviera74]

An update. I nuked Win7 and installed Kubuntu and it is running like a champ on this thing. I did have to disable desktop effects, but otherwise looking good.
I hope the expected 32nm Atom refresh (Cedar Trail) will breathe some life into netbooks. And hopefully this time OEMs will bring out some innovative models instead of mass producing models with the exact same specs. I wonder what restrictions Intel and Microsoft will place though.

Innovation ? In Netbooks ? Not with the profit margins that barely exist.

[codedivine]

Innovation ? In Netbooks ? Not with the profit margins that barely exist.

Not sure what is the cause and what is the effect here.

[riviera74]

Not sure what is the cause and what is the effect here.

Poor profit margins per unit usually means that very little actual innovation can be funded. Unless one sells like, 100 million netbooks, there is little or no reason to innovate because the rewards are so slim.

Netbooks are essentially commodity products. Nobody can really innovate and charge higher prices unless they want far lower unit sales.

[ludi]

I wonder why more netbooks don't come with this display resolution.

Margins, as noted. Most people buying netbooks aren't looking for up-market features and most netbook platforms can't drive the higher resolutions very cleanly in video and 3D, anyway.

If you start shopping the Acer Timeline series and similar, then you can easily get features like 13x7 displays as well as HDMI output, and enough stuff under the hood to make them worthwhile. But of course, you're also in the $500-and-up range.

[thegleek]

I got to use a HP Mini 210 with a dual-core Atom and 1366x768 10'' display. Other configuration was standard: Atom N550, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, Win7 starter.

Figure I'd chime in here since I just picked up an HP Mini 1030NR (Atom N270) from dposcorp (at the TR BBQ swap). It's kinda dated, running WinXP SP3 on a 16gb SSD with 2gb of ddr2 ram. I removed the 2gb "disk-on-key" (basically a thin usb stick made by Transcend) with an 8gb stick by verbatim. Everything runs at an acceptable rate so far. Probably will replace the 3-cell LION battery with a 6-cell LION battery I saw on amazon for under $40.

What I'm curious about doing (if it can handle it) is either installing Win7 (32 bit only as this atom cpu won't handle 64bit) or Ubuntu linux on it. Hopefully not to run into any driver issues with linux of course... If I went the win7 route - I'm thinking I'd have to tweak all the fancy UI stuff way down.