Has Apple’s iPad Finally Killed The Netbook, Or Is It Dying Of Its Own Shortcomings?

CNET’s Dan Ackerman observes that It’s hard to believe that before 2007, a laptop was considered low-cost if it sold for less than $1,000. Then came the netbook revolution spearheaded initially by Asus with its original Eee PC, and from that point on, every PC maker was forced (some more reluctantly than others) to embrace this new subgenre, and suddenly netbooks were everywhere.

Then they weren’t, and Ackerman notes that the netbook fad’s nemesis has clearly been Apple’s iPad, which became the new go-to entry-level computing device for people who either didn’t need or want a full PC, or just wanted a reasonably priced travel device for e-mail and Web surfing, leading to a gold rush of sorts, with the same companies that pushed countless me-too netbooks onto store shelves now doing the same with touch-screen slates, and suggesting that perhaps we’ll look back on this phenomenon a year or two from now as the Tablet Bubble.

However, he maintains that the netbook’s demise can’t be entirely attributed to the iPad, et al., and that a major reason netbooks fell by the wayside is that they failed to evolve, instead settling into a comfortable (or so their makers thought) specifrication niche.