With the booming success of Apple’s iPad, many people have predicted the beginning of the end for netbooks and other mini-notebooks. A recent article from InformationWeek presents this same idea, rationalizing that the birth of the tablet computer will be the end of these other products.
“The last quarter of 2007 heralded the birth of the mini-note PC (netbook)," John F. Jacobs, director of notebook research at DisplaySearch, said in a statement released Tuesday. "Q1’10 signaled the birth of the slate PC, and possibly by extension, the beginning of the end of the mini-note PC.”
With new devices being announced and unveiled every day, we will have to wait to see how the industry progresses in order to determine the accuracy of these predictions; in the mean time, many intriguing devices continue to be released—some even incorporating ideas from both the notebook and the tablet. In a recent press release, Toshiba unveiled the Libretto W100, a dual, touch-screen, hybrid PC—a mix between a tablet and a notebook—in addition to two other new products. This device, which has two 7-inch multitouch screens, will be the first dual-screened device to run on Windows 7, and it will double as an e-reader. An article from Wired goes into more detail about the device.
