Netbooks have been considered a fad and written off by many experts from the get go. While these devices are highly capable and very portable for those looking for a mobile computing solution, bloggers and top technology analysts have given handhelds, tablets, and smart-phones a better chance of succeeding in this mobile world than netbooks. Every-time a new gadget is released to the market, a few bloggers and analysts go out of their way to write off netbooks. Can they be right this time around?

There is no question that devices such as the iPad put extreme pressure on netbook manufacturers. Netbooks are never going to be as shiny or “cool” as the iPad or HP Slate. High-end netbooks are being heavily challenged by more capable CULV computers and low-end netbooks do not offer enough value for consumers to pick them up.

According to CNET, netbooks could have reached their peak at this point of time, which means the players involved in this market will need to innovate and find more ways to provide value to their customers or the netbook market could be in trouble:

Atom in Netbooks is plateauing… With the market recovery, I think end users are going to be looking for more value than just low-cost devices. This is an opportunity for higher-end mobile PCs, for example, that have better performance, bigger screens, bigger hard drives

I am not ready to write off netbooks chances at this point, but it is obvious that even laptops are not safe from the wave of tablets and powerful handheld devices that are making their way to the market. The iPad is never going to replace your quad-core business laptop, but it does offer enough features for some people to choose it over those super portable, mid-level laptop units. The importance of hardware itself is diminishing. Think about it. What makes Apple iPad and iPhone so popular is not only just the hardware, but the whole ecosystem that Apple created for its products. Let’s not forget about thousands of apps that are available for those devices either.

The future of mobile computing belongs to apps and clouds. The open source movement will play a role as well. Laptops and netbooks won’t be going away completely, but they won’t dominate the mobile computing market as they used to a year ago.

Your take: are netbooks dead?