Some of the most coveted laptops out there are also the most lightweight,
with plenty of higher-end models weighing three pounds or less.
But did you know that not long ago, a whole category of super lightweight laptops
failed miserably after a few years in the sun? They were commonly referred to as netbooks,
and they often didn't weigh much more than just two pounds or about one kilogram.
Although there was a trademarked product called the Scion netbook that dates back to 1999,
it was quite different from the more recent products that used the term
netbook in a more generic way. These netbooks showed up on the market circa 2007,
around the time that we were starting to get used to the idea of computers being
internet machines, where large numbers of tasks were being done through a web browser
or through the cloud in general. Remember, this is the same year that the original iPhone came out,
by which time we already had Google Docs, country-specific versions of YouTube,
and the ability to join Facebook even if you never went to college.
Seeing as there was now a market for simpler PCs primarily designed for connecting to the
internet and other basic uses like word processing, the netbook seemed poised to fill a seemingly large void in the computer market.
One of the first notable netbooks was the ASUS E-PC-700,
which was only about nine inches long, featured a seven-inch screen,
and had a solid state drive instead of a mechanical hard drive.
Uncommon for laptops at the time, but useful for cutting down on weight and power consumption.
Instead of Windows, the E-700 ran a Linux distribution that emphasized ease of use
and low resource requirements. So while there wasn't much appeal for power users, its low $399 price tag made it a hit for
folks who didn't need a laptop with advanced features they didn't have much use for.
The success of the E-PC started a trend. Other computer manufacturers started pumping out their own netbooks into the market,
and ASUS released a huge number of other E-PC models,
some of which featured Windows instead of Linux. Part of this growth was buoyed by Intel's 2008 launch of their Atom Processor line,
which used very low voltages suitable for netbooks. But if netbooks were so popular relatively recently, why have they basically vanished today?
Ironically, even though the availability of Windows surely attracted users who otherwise
may not have considered a netbook, Windows actually contributed to the netbook's downfall.
You see, although Microsoft didn't want to see the netbook space to Linux,
they also wanted to make sure people weren't buying cheap netbooks instead of a more powerful
Windows device if they could afford it. So netbooks often shipped with stripped-down versions of Windows
that Microsoft would only provide to netbook manufacturers if their machines
fell below certain specifications. For a long time, Microsoft wouldn't license Windows to run on netbooks
with more than one Gigabyte of RAM. Although netbooks eventually accounted for about 20% of the laptop market at their
zenith in 2010, the problem for the netbook was that competing technologies were catching up.
Although their small size and low price point made netbooks convenient,
they were at the end of the day underpowered devices running stripped-down software that
you had to operate using a very cramped keyboard. 2010 was the year that both the iPhone 4 and the original iPad were released,
and the public quickly got used to the idea that sleeker devices like tablets
and even some smartphones could replicate the functions of a netbook and perform them better,
especially as netbook manufacturers were often trying to compete on price,
meaning they weren't exactly the best quality a lot of the time.
At the same time, mainstream laptops were getting cheaper and lighter.
For example, the 2012 Acer V5 had a full-on Core i5 and only weighed about three pounds,
but could be found for less than 500 bucks.
The availability of laptops like these meant the netbook was getting squeezed
from two directions until it didn't really have a role to fill in the marketplace anymore.
By 2013, manufacturers had essentially ceased netbook production,
meaning the netbook didn't even last as long as the band NSYNC's original run, so it was bye-bye-bye.
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