NPD: 51% of 18-34 Year Olds Would Prefer Notebook to iPad

John Brownlee ()

NPD: 51% of 18-34 Year Olds Would Prefer Notebook to iPadThe iPad may be selling like gangbusters, but an interesting survey done by NPD suggests that it’s still not the ideal device for a slim majority of computer users: amongst surveyed 18-34 year olds, 51% said they would rather have a more conventional portable like a laptop or netbook than an iPad. Even Apple owners aren’t totally convinced: 44% said they’d rather have a MacBook than an iPad.

According to NPD’s vice president of industry analysis, Stephen Baker: “The most interested potential iPad customers see it primarily as a music device, or for its internet access capabilities.”

He continued: “Considering what people are planning to use the iPad for, it’s not hard to understand why people who have these capabilities on other devices, such as the iPod Touch or a notebook/netbook, may not want to spend $500 or more on a similar device. This points to the need for Apple to close the content deals that focus the iPad on what is likely to be its best long-range value proposition around high quality media consumption.”

I think it’s rather strange that so many people think the iPad is a music device, since that actually seems like one of the things the iPad is going to be least used for. Sure, the iPad will be a fine music player… but the iPod is still going to be people’s go-to platform, just by dint of portability.

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Of course, the beauty of the iPad is it isn’t an either-or proposition. Jobs said it himself: this is a device that is supposed to sit between a laptop and an iPhone. My guess is that there will be a lot of people reconsidering their position on the iPad once they actually get to play with one in their hands and see what it can do.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iPad, News |

  • Joseph

    Amazing that these results are presented in the negative. You really have to have blinders on to see those results as bad news for Apple, considering we’re talking about a new category of device and not even a single unit has shipped. For example, from the conclusion in the survey link:
    “Sixty-six percent of both the all consumers surveyed and 18-34 year olds don’t foresee an iPad purchase in their future, and 60 percent of Apple owners felt the same way.”

    In other words, 34% of ALL consumers surveyed (not even Apple owners!) do not rule out the purchase. Again, that’s nothing short of amazing considering not a single iPad has yet shipped.

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @Joeseph

    People werent asked whether they would purchase one in the future, just if they would get one. So its still negative news, unless you start reading all sorts of assumptions and looking at obscure angles.

    Although I do want an iPad, and am thinking of getting one, id get the macbook too. Its worth double the money!

  • CaryMG

    Jesus Christ, will ya STOP with the fucking word/number spinning.

    iPad will be a MONSTER hit for Apple.
    And by Q410, a new version will be out with more storage & a camera.

  • Betamax

    iPad is (technically) not even out yet. So these “preferences” polls are worthless speculation at best.

    This poll, John Brownlee, is about as stupid as saying “I prefer to buy a conventional Honda Accord in the next 12 months instead of buying a Tesla Motors Flying Grav Car, which does not yet exist and is not yet for sale, but may ship sometime in the next century.”

    And even if the first-ever flying grav car was about to ship, it would not be adopted by the multitudes right away. The vast majority of consumers would likely be skeptical at new (unproven) technology. That’s just human nature.

  • charli

    we know nothing about the survey methods which make the results a tad suspect. Just the fact that they used such a broad age group skews things cause those 18-22 year olds could all be college students that need a full computer for school. same for a decent number of the 23-25 year olds that might be in grad school.

    but even with this the headline should be that notebooks only beat the ipad by 2%. that small margin is impressive.

  • http://www.joseph-sims.com Joseph Sims

    I don’t see how the choice between an iPad and Macbook would be a reasonable question… it’s not like they are the same thing with different form factors, a Macbook is immensely more capable, even though an iPad is meant for specific situations where it doesn’t have to be as capable as a Macbook. Heck, you can’t even max out an iPad to get it as expensive as a lowend Macbook.

    Now, if the question was, would you rather have a $500 iPad, or a $500 Windows laptop, those answers might shed some interesting light on things.