Computer
Even with all the attention lavished on Apples iPhone and Amazon.com Inc.s Kindle this year, your PC likely is still the center of your digital universe. Heres a look at what the seasons computer trends mean for you.
- Were over drives.
Computers have come with “optical drives,” slots for CDs or DVDs, for years. Theyve been useful for installing new software, watching movies or transferring music libraries into digital form. But one of the biggest lessons from the craze for “netbooks” – inexpensive little laptops designed mainly for browsing the Web – is that people were so excited about the small, easy-to-carry size that they didnt miss having a CD or DVD drive.
Apple Inc. got rid of an optical drive two years ago when it introduced the first sliver-thin MacBook Air. That wasnt seen as a trendsetting step at the time because the computer, which cost $1,800 then, wasnt meant for mainstream consumption. But netbooks, which start at $250 on BestBuy.com, surely are made for everyone. The wee laptops popularity is proof that people are finding it easy enough to download software, movies and music to portable computers, especially with the widespread availability of Wi-Fi and cellular Internet service. And plenty of services let you store files over the Internet, eliminating the need to burn backups to discs.
Taking out the optical drive doesnt significantly lower prices. Doing so does let PC makers design much thinner laptops. Companies including Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have pulled DVD drives out of mid-range to more expensive computers, such as HPs Pavilion dm3z, which starts at $550, all the way up to the $1,700-and-up HP Envy and Dells $1,500-and-up Adamo.
You just might want to think twice if youre hooked on transferring CDs into MP3s – or if you spend a lot of time watching DVDs on airplanes and dont want to squint at your iPod screen or get a separate portable video player.
- Good enough is plenty.
It might sound impressive when a PC sales pitch mentions multicore processors, state-of-the-art graphics chips, 4 or 6 or 8 gigabytes of memory and hard drives with a terabyte – 1,000 gigabytes – of storage. But another thing netbooks showed is that with a few exceptions – such as professional video editing, and maybe hard-core video-game playing – having lots of PC power is overkill.
Theres very little software that can take advantage of these powerful computers, says technology analyst Rob Enderle. That means theres no “killer app,” the program thats so cool or so useful it persuades everyday PC users to trade up.
While the microprocessors that act as the brains inside netbooks are less powerful than even those found in inexpensive full-sized laptops, they are sufficient for most Web browsing, e-mailing and word processing. And these computers are getting bigger hard drives, which you need for storing digital photos, music and video. Overall, theyre good enough that to people replacing 3- and 4-year-old PCs, netbooks feel downright fast.
Go for more power only if you watch high-definition TV and films, or edit HD home movies. Those tasks would require beefier machines.
- Everythings getting carried away.
But already the line between phones and PCs is blurring: PC makers are teaming with mobile carriers to sell netbooks that cost as little as $99 as long as the buyer subscribes to a wireless data service. A new buzzword, “smartbooks,” is emerging to describe a device that runs a smart-phone operating system such as Google Inc.s Android but on bigger hardware that is more like a PC than a phone.
To get you to carry their laptops to the corner coffee shop, PC companies are treating their wares as fashion accessories, not just tools. Youll see more colors and patterns, more design-conscious shapes and upscale materials.
“Thin and light is sort of the new black,” says Forrester Research analyst Paul Jackson.
The next frontier: cutting the cord for longer stretches. New chips that require less energy are emerging, and advances in battery technology are expected in the coming years to extend the time people can sit in the airport watching YouTube.
- Hands-on has its place.