Global notebook sales finally beat desktops

Market share...

A lot of the growth in laptop sales is down to the appearance of the low-cost notebook, which makes it more financially viable than a desktop when you take everything into consideration. How that can play into Apple's hands I don't know, as they do not offer a "low cost notebook", so this Silicon Valley "insider" may just be talking out of their arse.

Unclear

Noteboooks that rival desktops have been available for quite some time. This article would tend to give the impression that this is a new thing. This report seems to combine "netbooks" with "notebooks" for some measurements and then criticizes Apple for not selling a "netbook" while grudgingly admitting that Apple sells a lot of "notebooks". Why is Apple's total "desktop" sales brought out in an article that seems mainly concerned with "netbooks" anyway. What exactly is the point of this article ??????????????????????

"Apple... is increasingly a notebook company" ??

I agree apple should release a Netbook but it can't be priced any higher, or spec'd any lower than the Dell Mini netbook, and should run some form of OS X. I personally wouldn't buy it but i'm sure a lot of people would be tempted to.

I wouldn't agree with the Silicon Alley Insider that "Apple... is increasingly a notebook company..." Without knowing details of their business I would think it's fair to predict their iPod / iPhone sales are making a rather larger chunk than their notebooks, and of course the iPod has a much larger than 3.2 market share in the MP3 Player Market, It must have atleast around 70%?

To stay more on topic to this article it is obvious to see why notebooks have taken over from Desktops in recent years, part of that being down to the fact it is "cooler" to have a laptop than a desktop computer. Especially for students these days. A lot of them will either buy a new computer / get a new computer bought for them and i'd say 9/10 they will get a laptop.

It has practical reasons too of course, rather than just being "cooler".

@Goat Jam

They are also pretty useful if you have a limited amount of space to use the computer, like if you mainly just use it for general web browsing in your front room on the coffee table, you can put it away when you are done and store it somewhere safe.

I see your point about buying them for gaming...It just isn't what they are good for. But I wouldn't agree they are all bottom of the range pieces of crap. You can get decent spec'd ones plenty good enough for most tasks other than gaming.

Of course for the same money you can get a desktop system which is much more up to date for the same money.

It's all down to personal preference. But as I said in my first comment there are a lot of people who buy them just because it is the cool thing to do these days.

Personally I take my computer around with me a lot, but don't use it on trains or anything like that as I drive everywhere. But it is very useful for me to have it to hand. The thing I don't understand is the huge 17"+ laptops.

I see how they are convenient to move around the house if you just want one computer to use in different rooms but you wouldn't want to regularly take one of those around with you ;-)

One of the main advantages of a laptop is the space you save and they generally run cooler which helps if you are using it in a small room that heats up fast!

Where I used to keep my desktop computer it would overheat in the summer months if it was a really hot day because the room would get way too toasty lol. Always found it funny but annoying.