Perhaps, the era of netbooks has begun now that those devices are becoming rather popular on the market, but according to a survey of the U.S. consumers, the vast majority views netbooks as a secondary device to their desktops or notebooks.

The survey carried out by ABI Research market research company among 1000 consumers found that only 11% of potential users would use a netbook as their primary computer, while a massive 79% view netbooks as a secondary device to be used in addition to a laptop or desktop computer.

“While their low price does cause some consumers to view netbooks as a replacement for a laptop given the current economic conditions, the majority view a netbook as being a secondary device,” said principal analyst Philip Solis from ABI.

Netbooks are much smaller and affordable compared to fully-functional laptops, but they do not have optical disc drives integrated and come with rather slow Intel Atom or Celeron M central processing units, moderate graphics adapters as well as insufficient amount of random access memory to perform serious tasks. Netbooks are easy to carry, but they will not be able even to run a large Excel book or multimedia-rich presentation.

“Even as a device that is secondary to the PC, this has to cut into the laptop market somewhat. When considering another laptop as an additional device mostly for browsing the web and using other Internet-based communications applications, consumers will find netbooks to be an appropriate alternative,” added Mr. Solis.

It is very likely that many consumers will substitute their fully-fledged laptops with netbooks or thin-and-light affordable notebooks this year. However, users who utilize desktops at home and office and notebooks while traveling may be unlikely to join the netbook crowd since carrying a laptop and a netbook is not very convenient, meanwhile, netbooks cannot provide performance and functionality of notebooks at this time.

Tags: Intel