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Netbooks, those tiny, underpowered computers that were once held up as the saviour of the laptop market, have long since fallen from favour. When Dell announced it was ending production, the end was nigh—and now the last remaining manufacturers, Asus and Acer, have confirmed that the netbook is officially dead.
The Guardian reports that Asus and Acer ceased production of the teeny-weeny, Intel Atom-powered computers as of yesterday. Kicked off by the Eee PC all the way back in 2007, the netbook was—for a short period at least—a new hope for the PC industry. Highly portable and affordable devices with decent battery life seemed rather attractive five years ago—but a lot’s changed since.
With the arrival of tablets and ultrabooks, the netbook’s claims of portability suddenly weren’t quite as impressive. Similarly, their performance—both in terms of speed and battery life—began to appear laughable. Combined with the fact that the margin on netbooks was terrible for manufacturers, as one of their key selling points was low price, and their fate was sealed.
So, the netbook has become a discontinued line: no longer will it have to face the sneers of the the Mac-toting coffee shop crowd or the derision of the power-PC user. But don’t worry: Windows 8 hybrids are the new netbooks—go poke fun at them instead. [Guardian]
Rumor Says Acer and Asus 15-Inch Ultrabooks Will Be Fiberglass
Samsung Might Be Discontinuing Netbooks Next Year
Remember Netbooks? No One Else Does, Either
sooooo the Chrome book.. HAHA..
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108/ref=zg_bs_nav_e_2_541966
OH YOU.
tl:dr – Chromebook fastest selling laptop device on Amazon.
sorry should be top selling
ok.. but who really buys laptops etc from Amazon, is it the first place you think off when shopping for a new Laptop??
Also, i really dont see it living that long.. i could be wrong but i make this bed and ill lay in it!!
1. Better prices vs bricks and mortar
2. Convenient
3. Free shipping
4. Relatively good returns policy
5. Well established e-tailor
6. Huge selection
I could go on but I won’t =D
’5. Well established e-tailor’
I didn’t know Amazon did suits!
im not denying these facts, im just saying if you asked a 100 random people the first place they think of when wanting a new laptop i bet Amazon is not top.. they might get there once they google mind.. Also not always better prices over retail.. just assumed, mostly ill grant you but not always. good for reviews i think too…
I still have and use an Advent 4211 (re-branded MSI Wind), I actually wanted to upgrade some time last year but the technology had barely advanced. And yet I feel like I can do so much more on it than I can on any top end tablet, except of course gaming and HD video. I wish the netbook hadn’t been killed by tablets, it could really have gone somewhere. That little atom processor runs Win 7 like a dream.
My wife has a 3 year old Samsung netbook, and still uses it for office-type stuff every day. I used it until 18 months ago when I got my Asus Transformer, and as much as I love it the netbook can still beat it for certain tasks. Netbooks were of their time, and shouldn’t be denigrated by changes in the tech market!
I really enjoyed using my old Samsung netbook. At the time, it was still faster than the aging Dell that I was using before and given that I already had a desktop machine, it meant that I could use my netbook for mobile essay writing, web browsing, music, movies (up to 720p stuff only) and lots of 8/16bit console emulation. I got between 3 and 7 hours of battery life out of it as well – unheard of with the Dell that only managed 20 to 60 minutes.
For two years, I was using my netbook more often than even my desktop machine and it was a damn sight more portable than anything else I had owned – but these things do show their age after a while. In the meantime, tablets had come in and being affordable and snappy, the Nexus 7 replaced my netbook for pretty much all the uses I had a netbook for, although I can still appreciate a decent hardware keyboard for doing blogging and writing.
Friend at uni has an ASUS Eee PC. I had a 2010 MacBook Air :p
My day to day computing device is my 10″ Samsung N145P netbook which originally came with windows 7 starter. It ran like a dog. I threw in 2GB RAM and replaced Win7 with Xubuntu and I’ve never looked back. It does everything I need it to do and it’s a lot easier to cart around than a full sized notebook. I’ll be gutted when it finally kicks the bucket as there will no longer be anything new that could replace it.
I think really, we are at the stage now were most things are powerful enough. I use a 2 year old HP DM1 with a little amd fusion APU and honestly, I don’t need anything more powerful from my laptop. I run autocad on this thing and it does an decent job most of the time, office works fantastically and the battery lasts for a good 5 hours. I will be disappointed if cheap, small laptops stop getting made. To me, power should be reserved for desktops and laptops should be all about portability (without having to pay £1000 for an ultrabook whose power I will never utilise)
I know what you mean. The PC im working on, may be souped up to an extent, but its intended to last me at least 5 years. I cant imagine another time when you could expect that realistically.
it also helps that windows is gradually getting less heavy with each edition now. Windows 8 has gave my little laptop a nice little boost!
It certainly seems to be. about time too really
The Netbook has always sucked, just useless hardware based in Laptop form…. basically they’re bloated Tablets.
Just get a Laptop.
I know the argument well, and its a fair one. However, if you want a fully functional laptop, dirt cheap, and awesome portabillity, then they’re a good shout. My Aspire one was bought as a companion to my old laptop, a Dell Inspiron D250. within 3 months I sold the original machine, as this actually outperformed it. It even ran Far Cry. For the £200 I paid brand – new for it, i didnt expect much more.