Netbooks are pretty light and compact, plus they fold to protect the screen. Battery life you may have a point, but how many situations are people really in for 11 hours without a power source?
Windows can hibernate and turn on in a relatively short time.
And I have never had “cognitive cycle time” difficulties using a mouse.
To elaborate on my “cognitive cycle time” comment...
Mouse:
-5. Find mouse.
-4. Find other end of mouse tail.
-3. Plug it in.
-2. Find table to put mouse on.
-1. Put mouse on table.
0. See icon.
1. Identify mouse location.
2. Put hand on mouse.
3. Wiggle mouse to attract eye to cursor.
4. Coordinate motion of mouse with motion of cursor.
5. Move mouse, correcting for errors in cursor position.
6. Stop moving mouse.
7. Click mouse button.
Touchscreen.
0. See icon.
1. Touch it.
Oh, sure, no big deal. Sure I’m overstating it.
Did you know one reason that Chinese are so good at math relative to Americans is that the human mind can process Chinese words for numbers faster than the English words? Tiny improvements in cycle times add up. While you’re looking for the cursor, I’ve already touched & activated the icon.
Turns out that hinge is the reason I need a new computer. The display's flexicable running thru that hinge is breaking. Same thing happened to my folding cellphone. I'm learning the hard way that "folding to protect the screen" is the wrong solution, as it introduces a new and susceptible point of failure.
Battery life is a brick-wall effect. If you need 1 minute more than what the battery will give, you'd better be dragging with you that brick with dangly wires.
11+ hour battery life pretty much assures power source won't be an issue and you won't have to drag that power supply around "just in case". Besides, for the iPad all you'll need is a skinny lightweight USB-iP*d cable instead of the brick should you risk full discharge.
And yes, numerous times I've been irritated at having to sit on the floor in a corner of an airport, within 6 feet of whatever scarce outlet I could find, because my netbook's 3-hour battery life just wasn't cutting it. 4x the battery life for 1/3 the weight woulda been nice.
You might be surprised at how handy "instant on" is over "relatively short startup time".
And with that 11+ hour battery life, I'm not so concerned about conserving power usage: "short startup" gives way to "instant on" gives way to "already on".
Yes I’m a yammering twit.
I’m an engineer. I love thinking about usability in such detail.
Using a mouse? Seriously if you are arguing the mouse, you really are missing why Apples mobile products have changed the game so significantly in the last few years.
The mouse and touchpad are things of the past, those 2 things alone are why the iPad has the potential at least to change the market.
Go pick up a traditional cell phone prior to the iPhone, now navigate to what you want to do and interact with it, even some of the most elegant pre touch screen designed hardware cannot remotely compete with the iPhone multi touch interface.
This is where the game change can come from.. can I survive on a laptop with a touchpad? Yep... is it as easy to use as that same laptop with a mouse nope.. but that means I have to lug my mouse around with me too... and even with the mouse, the interface is not as intuitive and the user experience nowhere near the level that the Apple OS on these mobile devices provide.
Don’t get me wrong, iPad may be nothing but a flash in the pan, and certainly at this moment in time, its more hype that proven game changer, that doesn’t mean it won’t be. Time will tell.
I think that the multi touch interfaced tablet concept is absolutely going to be a game changer, and Apple, by being the first significant mover at least to the masses in this space, definitely has the potential to be a if not the Market Leader in the space.... Time will tell.