Netbook overwhelms Asia's largest electronics exhibition

Computex 2009 has officially opened on June 2 in Taiwan, with the star of the festival, nothing else is the cheap netbook and WiMax broadband mobile Internet technology .

For the first time in Taipei's 29-year history of Computex, this year's exhibition attracted 36 Chinese technology firms. Lasting for 5 days, Taiwanese laptop makers will have the opportunity to show off their jubilant glory to Western rivals, as well as show off their latest netbook models.

With more and more netbooks less than 1 kilogram and sold for only $ 250, this crowded market is hot and hot despite the global recession. The trend of shifting to the selection of low-cost products where users promote the strong consumption of netbooks.

A model is demonstrating Asus's new netbook model. Source: AFP As expected, the demand for the world for netbooks this year will more than double from last year, from 13 million to 32 million.

AsusTek Computer, the pioneer in the Netbook business with the Eee PC family, has brought Computex this year with the latest products. Equipped with a 20-inch screen, EEE PC 1008HA clamshell is only 18mm thick and weighs exactly 1.1 kg. With this size, 1008HA is an ideal "travel" machine, not to mention the battery's uptime of up to 6 hours continuously.

Asus rival, computer maker Acer also unveiled the first Aspire One netbook model to install the Android operating system of the Google search giant. Another notable feature of this device is the ability to access high-speed Internet.

WiMax emerged

According to analysts, Taiwanese manufacturers may control up to 60% of the global netbook market in 2009. " The rise of netbooks has brought a whole new growth opportunity to a seemingly saturated market, " said Topology Research.

A topic that is also widely discussed at this year's exhibition is WiMax mobile broadband technology. With stronger data capacity, large capacity, WiMax has much wider coverage than Wi-Fi. Its platform allows deploying to provide voice, video, Internet and other mobile services.

Starting on June 2, the technology will be tested on a Taipei subway train for a year, allowing passengers to send and receive real-time images.

" Perhaps this technology is still incomplete, but its market potential is growing ," said Lin Chih-Ching, an official with the Taipei Computer Association.

Taiwan's potential WiMax networks believe that at around NT $ 800 ($ 25) per month, mobile users will be comfortable calling, playing online games, browsing the Net and enjoying high-quality television.

There is now a local network operator who started offering this service, while the other 5 firms have been licensed to deploy rival services.