For 2008, Netbooks were big news technology-wise. This was the first year they really came onto the market. What else can 2009 be but the year they came into their own.

Gigabyte are already  leaders in the motherboard market, along with ASUS and MSI, they’ve been quietly getting on with making Netbooks for the past year. But there has been something that we’ve not quite managed that Lenovo or Sony have been able to.

It wasn’t always like that though. This time last year they released their Gigabyte Cafe. Interesting name for a Netbooks that managed to make  waves in the handheld PC market when it was first released with a compact design made for portability. The revolutionary touch screen display could be rotated 180 degrees to transform the device into a tablet PC, offering a completely different user experience. Gigabyte’s Netbooks, as a rule, have higher specifications than those of their competitors hence prices are usually $150 more than other leading brands.  At $800 Gigabyte’s Cafe Netbook didn’t come cheap.

The  will feature new Good OS Cloud operating systems. The browser looks like Google Chrome but can be installed with Windows or any other operating system.

The two other Gigabyte 10″ models will be fighting in the same market as the bigger name Netbooks out there. All three will have a more reasonable starting price of US $400 and according to Digitimes one model is set to retail at below US $300 to compete within the competitive emerging Netbook market.

What makes netbooks so attractive, namely their price is one of their biggest weaknesses. Netbooks are much cheaper than traditional PCs but this involves sacrificing performance. As Michael Arrington in TechCrunch points out tetbooks have less RAM, less powerful CPUs and less memory -  typically 1GB. Using Windows XP on a netbook can be a slow and frustrating experience especially if multople applications are in use.

Jolicloud, a brand new Linux-based operating system designed especially for netbooks. Jolicloud has icon based navigation with large colourful icons, making reminiscent of an iPhone. It is indeed joli, meaning attractive in French It has been developed to make low end netbooks perform better and run faster.

Jolicloud is utilising an aggressive strategy. It will be available for download, once it has been installed it will completely replace the original operating system. Good OS and Cloud OS, other operating systems designed especially for netbooks are designed to work alongside the netbook’s original operating system.

Jolicloud has a much higher profile than the other two operating system as Netvibes founder Tariq Kim is behind the project. Crunchbase outlines his impressive career, highlights include:

‘He also became the first french (man) to receive the TR35 (Top 35 Young Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review) for a contribution related to the Internet.

‘In 2008, Tariq Krim was nominated a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.’

The beta version will be available for download in the coming months according to the Jolicloud.com. It is already working and has been demoed on an Asus Eee netbook. 

The rumours have been bouncing around for a while. Larger screen? How big? Oh the netbook possibilities! What wondrous things will it bring.

Finally, we’ve got some hard evidence that the new 10 inch Acer Aspire is being put up for general release and with this new model, more is definitely more.

The newer, slightly, larger 10.1 inch screen, replaces the 8.9 inch Acer Aspire netbook screens of old. A great improvement, it would seem. The slight size increase makes it easier to use and navigate, it can still fit in your bag and it  makes the 8.9 look puny in comparison. An extra 1.2 inches makes all the difference.

The new model also packs in a 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom CPU along with 1GB of RAM, optical 3G SDHC card slot and 3 USB ports. The new bigger screen still packs in the same pixel power, 1024  x 600 display, as existing Acer Aspire netbooks. Nothing too ground breaking there.

This one is more of an evolution of older models rather than a brand spanking new edition to the line. The overall design of the new model isn’t much of a departure for Acer either. The keyboard has a slight brushed metal finish and the touch pad has more of a seamless quality than before.

Elonex, the netbook manufacturer will be selling £99 netbooks in branches of M&S and Next from February. The plan is target the female market by promoting these handbag sized computers that come in a range of colours in shops primarily frequented by women. It seems a bit patronising to target women by pushing the fact that they fit in a handbag but at least they didn’t make them all pink with pictures of kittens on them.

Even though these netbooks are relatively cheap they include all the basic functions you would expect from a computer with email, internet, word processing and photo storage. They are perfect for people who want to have access to a computer but don’t need advanced features that come with higher spec, more expensive models. Netbooks have become incredibly popular in the last year, with brands like Asus above garnering huge sale figures.

The screen is 7 inches. BAD JOKE ALERT! But most women wont realize what 7 inches looks like considering all men tell them 6 inches looks like this (insert image of man measuring out 4 inches between finger and thumb). Ho hum (Joke works better as a visual one, sorry).

The netbooks are already available over the internet but if you can’t be bothered with internet shopping just find your nearest Next or M&S if they’re still around. It might have been better if they struck a deal with Tesco instead.

With the incredible success that Acer and Asus are enjoying in the netbook market (going as far as outselling the mighty iPhone this Summer!), many are expected January’s MacWorld Expo to be a place to show off a new mini-Macbook to get the masses excited.

However, the way that Cupertino’s finest has developed products up until now suggests a company that does not operate in knee-jerk reactions or follow industry trends…

These netbooks – small, low speed, low cost computers primarily for word processing and web browsing - have become far more popular amongst cash-strapped consumers in the face of a tumultuous economy.

Eschewing fancy features, massive hard drives and beefy graphics cards for a slimmed down, more practical machine has been the general trend, and bestseller lists on many technology retailers reflect this.
So, in a time when $99 iPhone rumours are doing the rounds, why wouldn’t Apple attempt to take a piece of this pie?

Simply put, Apple are currently in a position where they do not have to enter the netbook sector out of any kind of necessity, nor eagerness to not miss the boat. Apple product launches are calculated, well-orchestrated affairs, taking many years of planning, forecasting and research.

Their methodology seems to be one of re-interpretation rather than of invention. Despite not having come up with the first MP3 player or touch-driven mobile phone, you’d be hard pressed to challenge to ubiquity in the public conscious of the iPod and iPhone. They take existing products and simply provide a fresh perspective on things:

“Why do phones have to work the way they do? Why do phones even have to look the way they do?” they asked.

In doing so, they managed to redefine expectations of what a mobile phone could do, and subsequently the industry as a whole, with the iPhone outselling all Windows Mobile powered phones globally in the third quarter of this year.

Their devices act as replacements for current tech, but arguably more luxurious ones. The Macbook Air is lighter, thinner and more expensive than most laptops in the market, and their netbook would follow the same template.

Apple would still have to provide such additional value or merit to the concept of a netbook, however, that it would cause a seismic shift in the industry. Whether a novel interface, a huge multifunctional tablet replacing the keyboard, a super compact design, it will be sure to differentiate it and justify the higher price.

Rest assured, there would be a higher price point attached to it. Apple has an immediate association with reassuring expense, the premium you pay for having a phone that looks gorgeous, or a laptop that isn’t as susceptible to bugs and crashing on a daily basis.

Creating a netbook that manages to intersect ease of use, that sense of luxury and a low price will be a high hurdle to overcome. Apple’s integration of their operating system with their closed group of computers is something they are understandably protective over. It keeps their machines and software relatively bug-free, granted, but far more importantly it allows them to create a financial barrier to entry for enjoying the slick charms of Mac OS X, whilst also preventing resellers undercutting their prices with similarly specced machines.

The lawyer-inflicted assault on PsyStar and their ‘open’ machines which run Apple’s software (but not for much longer) are proof of this.

Apple’s maestros of manufacturing and marketing have already purported to have ideas for their own mini-Macbook. When it sees the light of day, they will undoubtedly have made a computer that is very small (although not so small as to tread on the iPhone’s toes), very sexy to look at, and very intuitive to use.

But it won’t be right now, and it certainly won’t come cheap.

Building on the success of their Aspire One netbooks, Acer hopes to release a larger screened version of the portable PC as early as February of 2009 according to the president of Acer Taiwan, Scott Lin.

The current model has enjoyed great success amid the netbook boom, with the cute stylings and 8.9 inch screen of the Aspire One series appealing to many.

Whilst the specifications of the new model are relatively scarce, the screen size will be increased to 10 inches, with the natural advancements of increased RAM and improved battery life and some 3G connectivity aren’t beyond the realms of possibility.

Whether this means an imminent price drop for the current Aspire One will be interesting to follow…or do you just wait until next year to get one?

Source: CNET News