DisplaySearch’s latest Quarterly PC Shipment and Forecast Report has confirmed the netbook trend. More than 38 million netbook computers were sold in the second quarter of 2009, it is a jump of over 40% compared to the first quarter of the year.

Sales of netbooks are growing twice as fast as laptops

The strong growth of netbooks helped them capture a 22.2% share of the portable PC market worldwide, up from 5.6% in second quarter of 2008 and from 17.8% in first quarter of 2009. One if five laptops sold is now a netbook.

Sales of netbooks are growing twice as fast as sales of full-size, traditional laptop computers and brands like Acer, HP and Dell are winning shares of the market.

These trends show why Nokia has decided to release their own Nokia Booklet 3G netbook. The netbook market is very competitive but it is also a very fast-growing market.

Lower price – the big advantage of netbooks

The lower price of netbooks compared to the traditional laptops is their big advantage. In the emerging markets, for many first-time computer buyers, netbooks are now the computer of choice. In some Latin American countries and China the penetration of netbooks is higher than the penetration of laptops.

In other countries, the cheap price of netbooks, makes them a good choice for a portable, secondary computer for business and travel.

And with the upcoming release of the netbook optimized, Google Chrome OS, this trend seems to be continuing.

Nokia, the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones, has announced a stylish netbook Nokia Booklet 3G.

The Nokia netbook features a 10-inch HD-ready screen, weighs 1.25 kilograms (2.75 pounds), it runs Windows 7 and connects to Wi-Fi as well as 3G cellular wireless networks.

The Nokia Booklet 3G has an aluminum case, it is about 2cm thick, powered by an Intel Atom processor and has 12 hours of battery life.

Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution

Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices said: “We are in the business of connecting people and the Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution for us. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all day, always on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling. In doing so we will make the personal computer more social, more helpful and more personal.”

One of the reasons Nokia is going into the crowded netbook market is that the cell phone industry’s sales of handsets are expected to decline 10% this year while netbooks are a growing market and the netbook shipments should double this year.

Detailed specifications about the Nokia Booklet 3G will be released next week at the Nokia World conference in Stuttgart, Germany but it is already set to compete against the upcoming Apple tablet.

Will the Apple tablet be the ultimate portable netbook ever is the big question.

Rumors about Apple Tablet device are everywhere last few days. Some say it will be released late this year, some say early 2010. But no one really knows other than few people at Apple.

The ultimate portable web-centric device?

But all in all Apple Tablet promises to be the ultimate device to consume the digital content on the go  through a web-centric operating system. It is set to feature a 9.7-inch touchscreen, will include a camera and a microphone like the iSight on MacBook and MacBook Pro, and will have the anytime and anywhere Internet connection.

The touch-sensitive computer will be the typical netbook size but it would be much thinner and will feature an advanced version of the iPhone OS.

The portable tablet-sized computer will be designed for optimized Internet surfing, e-mail, text documents, music and movies on the go. All in all, optimized for the cloud computing applications that do not involve much data and are mostly run online in the cloud.

Apps, books, newspapers on the go in the cloud

It will also be designed to utilize thousands of the applications from the AppStore. This Apple tablet device might change the way people read books, newspapers and magazines.

The price is expected to be between the cost of an iPhone and the most affordable MacBook. But let us wait and see for the official details before we get more excited about the ultimate cloud computing device.