Maker of expensive printer ink, HP, and Tinman Michael Dell seem to think that 10 inches is far too small, at least for a netbook.

According to Digitimes, HP is planning to pull out of the 10-inch netbook market and turning its focus to AMD-based 11.6-inch notebooks. This is because profits from Intel Pine Trail-based netbooks have been lower than expected.

Dell on the other hand is also less than impressed and is cutting back on research and development on the 10-inch screen. This is seen as a precursor to dumping the technology.

Digitimes notes that most of the second-tier and white-box netbook vendors have already quit the market after first-tier players started cutting their netbook prices in the second half of 2009 to compete for market share.

However there is still a lot of gear out there. Acer, Asustek Computer and Samsung Electronics remain active in the netbook market, with netbooks accounting for large portions of their overall notebook shipments. Then of course there is Apple's iPad which is basically just a netbook without a keyboard.

Microsoft and Intel are encouraging people to see netbooks as only having 10 inch screens by restricting software and hardware use. It is starting to look like the great unwashed are voting with their feet about smaller screens anyway.