Discussions

In our last episode we discussed taking a regular notebook further with a dock that added over-clocking capabilities. Not surprisingly, many comments pointed out that netbooks would benefit the most from such a device.  I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve never met a netbook owner that hasn’t wished it could perform a little better and/or had a longer battery life due to their physical limitations.  Then it hit me:

Netbooks are like lethal midget wrestlers. 

Have you ever watched midget wrestling?  It’s serious. These guys are proper athletes.  They’ll eat your face. Their adoring fans wouldn’t put The Rock in the ring with them, but they can do damage within their own class. Like these guys, netbooks must overcome impossible physical limitations to compete, and any additional strength would have to come from the outside.  This brings me to my next absurd statement:

Netbooks need to pull a Clark Kent -- or better yet -- a Tony Stark.

Anthony Edward Tony Stark was a scientist kidnapped during the cold war to build a powerful weapon for terrorists. Suffering severe heart injuries in captivity, he secretly created an external nuclear power cell to keep him alive, then a weaponized flying suit of armor to escape. Outside of the armor he’s a playboy billionaire living a double life.  In the suit he fights crime as the Iron Man.

We can safely assume that a midget in the Iron Man suit would kick The Rock’s ass, no contest.  While tempting to Photoshop Iron Man as a dwarf in a wrestling thong, I think you get my drift.  Now, let’s borrow this mythology and apply it towards midgets, eh, netbooks:

Netbooks were mobile underpowered internet computers that became popular around the WePC.com launch year.  Suffering persistent criticism for being underpowered, Asus created a netbook “Iron Man” jacket to escape its power and battery limitations. When not attached to the thing, the netbook remains ultra-light, sexy, and battery efficient. When in the suit it has longer battery life, more power, and capable of playing intense video games like big PCs. It becomes an instant powerhouse as needed, and then sheds the weight when it’s no longer called for.

Thus, the netbook needs a powerful exo-suit to stay true to what it is, but also transform into something more powerful when we need it to be a hero.  Obviously it would be even if it was always silently powerful like Clark Kent, but that’s asking for alien technology.

Back to reality:  Who wants a 20 pound netbook?  Nobody.

If “dock” means “bulk” and thus blasphemous to the entire netbook lifestyle, it beckons next-generation notebook design questions:  What would you think if your notebook could become a powerful gaming-class notebook when docked, and when undocked, it would then become a mobile device with a long battery life? 

Or perhaps another idea – would these individual wants be more successfully achieved as lower-priced individual snap-ons?  I’m talking about component-specific, stackable docks.  Slim things.  A thin layer that gives more battery.  A thicker video card option.  They would install like a delicious snap-on stack of buttermilk pancakes.

Who wants nuclear midget robot pancakes?  Everybody.

The diagram below shows a netbook with 2 snap-ons I’d like to see come to market that fall somewhere between a dock and a minor accessory that’s perhaps more portable and addresses a singular task/function well.

Top Right: The first snap-on is a flat clamp-on battery – a simple technology that already exists.  I own an older model called the “Ncharge” (pictured) that I frequently take with me for 4-6 extra hours of battery life on occasions such as long, international flights.  As soon as I hit the hotel it goes into the briefcase and my notebook loses 10 pounds.  Unfortunately it does not snap on to my computer, so carrying both around is annoying.  Nevertheless, it’s cheap and easy to get into.  A big powerful dock would be an investment.

I wish I had the equivalent for gaming – I don’t always need to carry 4 GPUs around everywhere, but I’d like the to option to, and also the luxury to buy it later or upgrade only that piece as better ones come to market.  Nice external video cards have been a buzz for years now. A Blu-Ray/DVD and extra hard drive snap-on could be neat, too.  The technology exists.  The key fault here is that these technologies are available but don’t play nice with netbooks (or) nobody has taken the time to add ergonomics to their handling.  It also has to snap-on firmly or we may as well make it out of duct tape.

Heck, we could go all Iron Man and get very silly with this, as mocked-up in the diagram below.  Sure, it’s an 18” computer, but there’s a midget in there driving that thing.

This is obviously an extreme concept, but perhaps something more modest might be viable for the mainstream. I believe Asus could innovate in this space and make their entire notebook like more extensible while keeping netbooks tiny, cheap, and light.

Similar ideas from the WePC community:

MyPC by Jake Miller calls for a bargain-priced $199 no-frills netbook that docks into something more substantial.

The Netbook Living Room dock by JGE adds multimedia functions and uses the TV as the large screen instead.

This weird modular thing by some modular weirdo.

Does a powerful all-purpose dock appear more to you, or might you favor smaller one-purpose cheaper snap-on?  How might you use products like these?  Also, pancakes?