Netbooks Are Losing Steam?

[KThunder]

Macsturbation  Ha! I love it!

I have a compaq mini that works great. I have a dvd player for watching movies (portable and one connected to my hdtv) What I needed was a small laptop for taking to class and this works perfectly. All around me are these giant laptops that take up most of the desk and you need a bag to carry them and their power brick. I carry my netbook like a paperback book and it lasts over 5 hours in a charge.
I use my desktop for games but this little netbook has suprised me on what it can do graphically. And yes I do have steam installed on it.

[KThunder]

Thanks no, it'd probably cost a grand !

[KThunder]

I got my compaq mini for $178 us, but it has the single core 1.6ghz atom and came with only 1gig of ram.
The newer atoms are dual core 1.8ghz they really aren't much faster for what I use this for.
I think netbooks fill a niche, the small ultraportable, larger than a smartphone, much smaller than any widescreen notebook niche, and they do that quite well. When I got this there was a full notebook for $225 that was a reconditioned return with a full warranty; I didn't get it. I'm not looking to replace my desktop, and portable dvd players are much more suited to watching movies on the run.
The chipset doesn't matter to me as long as I can surf the net, complete online assignments for class, do email etc.etc.
The main requirements were small size and cheap. If you don't fit that niche don't even consider them.

[KThunder]

Netbooks are losing sales because the market is slowly getting filled.

There is limited use for a small system which is incompatible with applications requiring 800x600 displays, decent 3d chips, or *gasp* performance.

The best selling products the last few years has been 13" to 16" notebooks with low-end discrete graphics chips (non Intel/Via) like the Geforce 8400M and 9600M. Those are actively becoming obsolete, and users are looking to replace them.

Netbooks, on the other hand, are still sold with 1.6 GHz Atoms, and five year-old 945 chipsets. While it is amazing that Intel has been marketing the same product for five years, even though it's video part was obsolete at release, it simply does not give any reason for upgrading.

Give me a netbook with good battery life, a decent i7 CPU, a video chip that can play modern video games at 1680x1050 resolution, AND a good looking docking station, then I will get one.

Like I said netbooks are a niche not everyone needs or wants one. As for campatibility I have found very very little that won't run on my compaq mini. and it has a 1024 by 600 display by the way.
The main problem with this chipset and modern games is shaders, not polygon pushing power. the 945 does not have shaders so any game that needs wont work.
That said I use my netbook literally every day. I'll probably kill it from overuse if anything.


Making fun of a netbook for its lack of gaming ablity is kinda like making fun of an xbox 360 for its poor office suite benchmark scores, or a desktop machine for its poor portability. I do run lots of emulation and open source games on mine though.

[KThunder]

my comment on making fun wasn't aimed at you. there are several posts here that talk about performance etc. that are totally missing the point of netbooks it was aimed at them.

I can't comment on all netbooks but mine has run everything I've thrown at it. some of the older netbooks may have problems but mine is pretty average. newer ones have even better displays, dual core cpu's, and more memory.

some internet discussions make very little sense (not saying anything about you, your comments have been pretty good) like when people sit around discussing some product none of them actually own or have any direct experience with.

[KThunder]

...still sold with 1.6 GHz Atoms, and five year-old 945 chipsets. While it is amazing that Intel has been marketing the same product for five years, even though it's video part was obsolete at release...

you did write this though, Intel has not been marketing the 945 for 5 years. It is still available but they have much newer chipsets the newest GMA chipsets have shaders, much faster clocks etc. If intel really marketed video chips and developed them as much as they could, with their chip fabrication capabilities nvidia and ati would have a tough time competing.

they have upgraded significantly from the 945/950 I ran some benches in our office computers with one of the newer chipsets and they really weren't too bad.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-014257.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

[KThunder]

Riiiiight... I'll believe that when I see it.

Just because netbooks are not focused on performance doesn't mean we can't talk about their (lack of) performance in comparison with other products.

You don't know what you're talking about. For all it's worth, GMA950 "supports" shader model 3. The question is not why it can't run modern games, the question is why it can't even run older games at a playable speed, and the answer which I already pointed out is polygon count. GMA950: 10Mtriangles at best, GeForce 2 MX: 17Mtriangles.

Intel has far more and better chip fabrication facilities than nvidia, ati, and matrox combined. their focus is on cpu's, chipsets, and then video chips, they don't seem to care about performance video chips. just because they don't care doesn't mean they can't. they provide basic video.

You can compare the performance with whatever you want, it doesn't mean it will make any sense. netbooks aren't very good supercomputers, or servers, or smartphones either.

According to the links I provided above the 950 has shader 2.0 support but no hardware t&l so most directx shader stuff will not use shaders. vista aero etc. will but that isnt game support.
I do know what I am talking about, I am sitting here typing on a system with a 945 chipset, I have run halo, quake III, and many other games on it including open source games with shader support which i had to turn off. all these games ran at playable speeds, with hardly any framerate issues. My athlon64 system with geforce 8 series video is much better and can run any shader stuff, but this is fine for light gaming.

do you have a 950 or 945 chipset system? have you actually run games on one? do you know what you are talking about?

[KThunder]

lol you are dancing around my point.
like them or not Intel has some of the most advanced and capable chip fabrication facilities in the world and can produce literally any design they want. the don't directly compete in high end video chipsets for reasons of focus or antitrust avoidance.
this doesn't mean they are incapable, incompetant of whatever. chipset video shares a die with other motherboard functions so there are limited transisters available for video function. therefore there will not be all of the functions available for video t&l shaders etc.
my whole point is have you actually used a 945 or 950 chipset system to provide a real objective view
the 945 in my objective view provides more than sufficient capabilities for a netbook for all internet and office software and older and limited gaming. I have actually run benchmarks on this and other systems and can campare them realisticly. I have this 945 based netbook as well as pcs with 845g, 865g, geforce2, geforcefx5200, geforce6200, geforce 8100, radeon 9800pro, and radeon hd 3200.
I have run many games like halo, quake III, elder scrolls marrowind, as well as many opensource games such as cube2 sauerbraten, open arena, and others and many demos and benchmarks including glexcess.
I have tested these systems and played games on them I can tell you for real and honestly if they work and what they can do.