Hardware (5183)

Intel boss says netbooks only good for an hour

"It's not something you're going to use day in and day out"

1 December 2008 11:25 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Intel, the company that makes the Atom processor that is present in a large majority of netbooks sold, has spoken out to criticise the small form factor.

Stu Pann, vice president in the sales and marketing group at Intel, was quoted at a recent IT conference stating: "We view the netbook as mostly incremental to our total available market".

Pann went on to suggest that the mini notebooks might not be the ultra-portable laptop replacement they've been angled as: "If you've ever used a netbook and used a 10-inch screen size - it's fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out".

Although these quotes may seem surprising to those who have bought into the netbook craze, or can use such a device for more than an hour, Intel is not alone, rival AMD's chief executive Dirk Meyer was quoted earlier this month stating:

"We're ignoring the netbook phenomenon - just thinking about PC form factors above that form factor".

Full tags

Hardware, Biz, Intel, AMD, Netbooks