Laptops UK
 
 
Consumers Expect Too Much From Netbooks, Carphone Warehouse Says
Fri, 14 Nov 2008
Despite claiming to account for ten per cent of UK laptop sales, the Carphone Warehouse is to stop selling one of their Linux netbooks after 20 per cent of purchasers returned the machines. The company have asserted that the Elonex Webbooks have not, however, been recalled. The Carphone Warehouse are citing high expectations as the main reason for the returns, as people are expecting a netbook to function as well as a normal laptop and are unhappy when it doesn’t.

Andy Tung, Director of US Sales for MSI, said, ‘Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux . People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don't know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realising that it's not what they are used to. They don't want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.’

In the UK, the DSG claimed they are attempting to inform customers of the differences between the two. Head of Consumer PR, Anina Castle, said, ‘We are making big efforts to educate consumers as to the usages and limitations of netbooks versus laptops ’. She added that ‘Netbooks are for viewing, Notebooks are for doing’.