Since the introduction of the OLPC XO laptop last year, more than a dozen manufacturers have leapt into the space, spotting the potential for sales to children and schools, and, perhaps surprisingly, to adults keen to work while moving around but unwilling to carry fully fledged laptops.
Manufacturers have very high hopes for the burgeoning category. Intel said earlier this year it thinks shipments of low-cost ultraportables could exceed 100 m by 2011, while Asus forecast in April that it would sell 10m of its Eee PCs this year, and 20m in 2009. Even Dell has moved into the space, launching its E4200 and E4300 models earlier this month. They use solid-state drives based on Flash memory – a common feature of ultraportables – and the company claims they can achieve up to 19 hours of battery life, though that requires an add-on battery.
The rise of ultraportables was forecast in March in Technology Guardian, which noted that the Eee PC’s first version had won plaudits from users, and that nobody seemed to have noticed that it used Linux rather than Windows. That suggested that ultraportables would provide a huge boost for Linux over Windows because using the free operating system would give them a price advantage over Windows, for which manufacturers have to pay a licence for installation, and what that might mean for Microsoft. Now even high street companies are beginning to use liliputers as a come-on for customers, while barely mentioning that they run Linux. Maplin has begun selling its own-brand “Minibook” costing £170, which only mentions amid the other details that it uses the “easy to use Linux operating system”.
Gartner has forecast that ultraportables (which it prefers to call “mini-notebooks”) will show strong growth over the coming years. It reckons that this year 5.2m will be sold, 8m in 2009 and as many as 50m in 2012.
Annette Jump, research director at Gartner, said: “Potential users are likely to include both first-time buyers seeking a low-cost introductory PC as well as experienced users seeking a low-cost second or third PC for themselves or a relative.”
The Guardian
