ARM Thinks Tablets Should Have More Features than Netbooks

Once again, the long-lasting debate over what relationship there is between netbooks and tablets has gone a step further, this time with ARM's president speaking on what the latter should be capable of when compared to the former.

While tablets are already said to be eroding the market share of netbooks, ARM appears to think that they need some more advantages before they can really steal their turf.

Netbooks were designed as entry-level laptops meant for basic web browsing and document viewing/editing, among other things.

Since then, they did get some multimedia capabilities, but their purpose, and pricing, is still the same and users still need to buy an actual notebook for more demanding applications or games.

Since tablets are more or less of comparable performance but lack a keyboard, they can't exactly claim to be better at document tasks.

As such, ARM president Tudor Brown believes that slates need to get better and better at multimedia and value-added services.

Tablets, thus, should offer services from both the manufacturer and the network operator they may end up being sold through.

They will also need to be capable of advanced video and other multimedia while still providing a long battery life. After all, it's irrelevant for a slate to be able to play Full HD if it can't last through a whole film.

Regardless, ARM thinks tablets, being aimed for entertainment, still need to gain access to various features that netbooks lack.

“Netbooks are designed specifically to be portable, primarily capable of basic Web surfing, email and word processing,” Mr. Brown said in an interview with Digitimes.

“When people find out that their newly purchased netbook does not have any capability when it comes to multimedia applications, they just go back to the store and pick up a mainstream notebook with better performance and features.”

"Customers have a growing appetite for tablet PCs as more new features and value-added services will be added to the devices. The trend is tablets will be more multi-functional," he concluded.