Writing things

These days i do most of my mobile computing on the Asus eeepc. My main computer, the 12in xps sits at home and I don't quite use it except when I need to run some demanding application (which is growing less and less since I can now ssh into the semi-supercomputers at work) or view a movie on a bigger screen with more abundant memory.

So I'm keeping a keen eye on how the cheap and portable computing market is developing. Asus really hit the spot when they first realized that so many people were in the market for cheap laptops that doesn't weight as much as a similar sized stone slab (I'm being sarcastic here), so I think we can expect to see such class of products more often from now on, not necessarily from Asus, of course. There already a similarly sized competitor on the horizon, running on gOS, with hard drive based storage that is around 4 times the highest capacity Asus model. The preliminary reports on the model suggests some room for improvement in both the speed and design of the unit (both soft and hardware wise), but it's really to be expected. I mean, we are not talking about Apple folks.

That brings me to the next train of thought, I get this grim feeling that Apple won't be taking any share of the ultra-cheap ultra-portable market anytime soon. Not only Apple, but also other computer manufacturers with significant international market presence. Over the years they've been digging their own graves designing and manufacturing large, cheap laptops with no apparent reason for the consumer to get it except that it's relatively cheap and labeled as a laptop (though, like I said before some of them are too big to fit into a decent student backpack). The kind average user like you and I just get to browse the net and type things up, maybe run a light number or two etc, basically typewriters with graphics and internet connection capabilities. If any of those short sighted giant manufacturers begin saturating the market with cheap and portable laptop that can practically do anything other computers twice the size of it does, they would end up killing their own line-ups. Imagine, Apple making such a laptop. A 10 in. marvel of a design at a dirt cheap price of about four to five hundred dollars. It will kill Apple's current base macbook line faster than you can say pancake. If the gorgeous 13 in. laptop with already significant brand recognition can't withstand such market change, there is absolutely no way other consumer laptop models of Dell, H.P., Sony or Toshiba can last.

This is a sad sad state of affairs. Big manufacturers grown too complacent in their market mechanics unable to accommodate something that  clearly represents a shift in public wants, instead opting out to reply on marketing strategies and 'business' computer designs.