If you’re a fan of netbooks, it’s been a rough ride lately. First you have tablet mayhem everywhere, you have these ultrabooks showing up on the scene and you are sitting waiting and waiting for these new 2012 Atom netbooks to show up. Personally I’m getting a tad frustrated waiting for the new netbooks with the new Intel Atom processors to show up here in North America. I get the fact there isn’t an abundance of netbooks but most of the manufacturers will have a couple models coming out. Dell is out, but the others are still keeping a toe in the netbook pie.

If you follow technology as I do, you hear about numbers, forecasts and pessimism for netbooks in 2012 and beyond. The one missing voice is the consumer. I can honestly say that it just isn’t netbooks that are suffering. Laptops aren’t exactly flying off the shelves and Intel has actually delayed their new processor release until Fall 2012. The reason? Manufacturers need more time to clear out their inventories of the previous Intel processor laptops before coming out with something even newer.  So taking the state of laptops and looking a netbooks with the same colored glasses, can you really say netbooks are being slammed disproportionately to laptops? I actually think they are not that far apart. I just think that you aren’t hearing the numbers in a side by side comparison. People would rather throw around the word “demise” with netbooks.

There is an irony in all of this. Experts suggest netbooks are dead or are dying right now and the ironic part is that this new Atom processor will show the biggest and most impressive improvement in functionality and performance ever. Those feeble Atom upgrades? That was then, but not now. When you get the HDMI out and improved video performance at a very cheap price for consumers, how could people NOT choose a netbook or something like an ultrabook? Don’t argue that people are going to choose a tablet over a netbook. If people do that you’re going to see some consumers going back to the store for another $100 in tablet accessories or they will buy a netbook also. The fact is tablets don’t replace laptops or netbooks. Yes the hybrid Asus Transformer is a threat to netbooks in a sense, but you have to once again consider the $$ people pay at the counter. Don’t underestimate price when it comes to a successful product. Amazon Fire anyone?