Netbook Customer Confusion: Much Ado About Nothing

There’s been a lot of discussion over the last few days based on the summary information based on this NPD survey…

NPD Finds Consumer Confusion about Netbooks Continues

Here’s my take on a couple of items presented there:

1. 70% of people who went out looking for a netbook and bought one were very satisfied. 58% of people who didn’t go looking specifically for a netbook but bought one were were very satisfied. My interpretation is that a lot of people who knew what a netbook is was very happy after buying it. And, over half the people who didn’t really know what it was were also very happy. Personally, I think anytime you get more that 50% of people saying they are very happy with a product, that is a pretty good thing.

2. 65% of young people (18-24) expected better performance than their netbook actually delivered. Assuming this is a random sample of the population (lots of non-techies), why is this surprising?

3. 60% of people said they bought a netbook for its portability but 60% of netbook buyers never took their netbook out of their home. I haven’t seen metrics, but this seems to be the same story with conventional notebook PCs too. Many (perhaps most) people carry their notebook or netbook around their office or home area. Its portability is still important even if it doesn’t see much change in geography.

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