The roaring out Microsoft Surface and Windows 8 announced the death of the netbook.
Tablets may have left netbooks bloody and beaten, but it was Windows 8 that did the dirty work of extinguishing the tiny laptops for good.
Manufacturers struggled to make money with netbooks in the best of times; even with low-end processors and a small, low-resolution screen, it’s hard to make money on a PC that will only sell for $200 to $350 at retail.
In fact, screen resolutions may be one of the major factors in the death of the netbook. Most notebooks stick to a 1024 x 600 display; Windows 8 requires 1024 x 768 at a minimum. You need a full 1366 x 768 resolution (seen on most mainstream laptops in sizes up to 15.6-inches) to take advantage of the operating system’s snap feature.
Display costs consume a large chunk of a laptop’s overall component costs. Manufacturers who have been able to draw some slim profits from netbooks would be in over their heads if they add higher-cost, higher-resolution displays to goad Windows 8 into working on the pint-sized PCs… and that’s not even counting the cost of upgrading to touchscreens to take advantage of Windows 8′s finger-friendly features, something tablets sport by default.
Heaping on even more expense, licensing costs for Windows RT are rumored to be $50 to $100, depending on the version, with no low-cost equivalent of the Windows 7 Starter edition found on so many netbooks being available. Compare that to the price of the open-source Android OS that powers so many tablets: $0. To be fair, several manufacturers pay Microsoft a licensing fee for each Android device they make to avoid possible patent litigation — but Asus isn’t one of them.
Meanwhile, all the spiritual successors to netbooks yield higher margins for manufacturers: Ultrabooks, tablet-notebook hybrids, and low-cost ultrathin laptops. Manufacturers will never be able to create profit from sheer netbook sales volumes again. Investing in Windows 8 and its higher-costing display requirements just doesn’t make sense.
