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January 22, 2009

Netbooks Rank Low Among Laptops for Customer Satisfaction

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Now this is serious: A benchmark analysis of consumer reviews of netbook laptops collected from consumer electronics review Web sites has been released by Biz360, a vendor of market and media intelligence products.



 
Seeing as how this reporter swears by his netbook, could I be… wrong?
 
One of the consumer research study’s findings indicates that consumer advocacy for the Netbooks category "lags behind consumer advocacy for all laptops."
 
Biz360 analyzed over 20,000 online opinions, culled from review consumer electronics sites such as Amazon, Best Buy, CNET, Newegg, PC World, Circuit City and CompUSA for the period May 15, 2008 through November 15, 2008. The company’s Opinion Insights social media measurement product was used to analyze the online comments.
 
Evidently the "Net Advocacy” for Netbooks category is 40 percent lower than Net Advocacy for all laptops. "Performance, display & features/accessories" are the most important laptop product attributes according to consumer reviews.
 
I'd bet aforesaid reviewers haven't had to fly from Auckland to the East Coast of America, which this reporter will do in a couple hours here, thanking God every step of the way through the airport for a lightweight netbook in my price range.
 
"While performance is the #1 attribute driving laptop advocacy, the performance Net Advocacy for the Netbooks product category is predominantly negative," the study found.
 
“Net Advocacy” is Biz360’s proprietary metric that factors the positive and negative sentiment of individual comments, as well as the impact of the source of each comment, to yield an indicator of a product or brand’s referral value in the marketplace. This process is automated by the Opinion Insights product, which lets companies compare advocacy scores of different brands, models, product attributes and features.
 
For laptop manufacturers, four key product attributes accounted for more than 70 percent of all online opinions: performance, display, features and accessories, and general opinions.
 
While Acer (News - Alert) is the Q408 top-seller in the netbook product family, Acer ranks lowest in Net Advocacy among the six laptop brands: "The Acer’s Aspire One series had a 34 percent lower Net Advocacy than the average Net Advocacy of all laptop brands," company officials say. Acer’s Aspire One series, like almost all netbooks, is regarded by the majority of their new owners as not technically performing up to their expectations.
 
Yeah, well this reporter wouldn't trade his Acer Aspire One for any of those laptops. Well, maybe for the latest 'n' greatest Macbook. Maybe I can ask Walter Mossberg if he can send me of the leftovers he has from all those reviews he does.
 
See, when one factors "cost" in with all those other considerations listed above, the Acer shoots pretty close to the top of the list. Much like if you're sitting around designing the ideal wife or husband, after you get done with all the fun stuff – "owns a brewery," "loves kids" – toss "likelihood of marrying me" in. Recalculate.
 
See what I mean? It's fine to sit around technolusting for ideal laptops, but toss in "price" and "convenience" and see where the numbers end up. I'll stick with my Acer One, thank you very much. Unless you're buying.
 
Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. Today’s featured white paper is Fixed Service Strategies for Mobile Network Operators, brought to you by Comverse (News - Alert).

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Michelle Robart







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