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Adventures in Tech – Netbooks: What were we thinking?

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http://cnet.co/1t4J3E2
These oft-ridiculed, low-powered laptops were crushed by the iPad, but had an important part to play in the story of computing. Check it out, and if you’re ready for more Adventures, check out how to subscribe below:
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45 comments

@gorifky November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

If you are watching after 2020 hit like

@JTManuel November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I loved netbooks. Very portable and with just enough power for what I was doing. Now I'm enamored with the new hybrid PC's, which, I think is the natural evolution of the netbook.

@arion9696 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Chromebooks are today's netbooks

@000000242 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

i like netbooks

@Dryde85 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Love how Asus started the Netbook parade and has evolved into the great Asus Chromebook Flip.

@josephc2801 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I love my little netbook, an HP Mini 110. Xubuntu runs great on it, and I can actually watch 720p YouTube with a little known hack at full frame rate

@cmb271 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I own a gateway KAV60 netbook, upgraded to 2 gigs of ram and using it for all my basic word and internet needs, I have a desktop but this is alot more convenient, the draw backs are the lack of power for HD videos but I can get by 480p with little issue, it's not perfect by any means but It's all I can really afford at this time and I'm not going to cast it to the dogs yet while it's still kicking and for 80 dollars barely used (AKA out of box but never used) I say over the years I've had it that it was a good investment, I'm running Elementary OS so severe lag and slow downs are inevitably but not as bad as they were on Windows XP.

@r1k185 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Netbooks are still more powerful than iPads

@s3atothemoon November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

It's like recent tablets with lower resolution and non touch

@chipethecat November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I Just went straight from a desktop to a 15 laptop I skipped the stupid things called a netbook.   

@e.y.6893 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

From the moment I saw a netbook I thought they were stupid

@heyitshunter98 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

If Netbooks were still around, my advise to manufacturers is to run Android on the Netbook.

@Megafanman703 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

The Acer Aspire One 756 Was a 11" netbook with a 1366×768 display and 4gb of ram for 300$. It was probably the one useable netbook out there I didn't regret buying.

@icydragon68 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

No thanks. Just give me an iPad or a MacBook Air. I never loved those hideous things. Sorry.

@Cashman94 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I would not buy a netbook rather using this teeny tiny things. Imagine watching a photo on that..

@lukepedersen6138 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I hate netbooks and chromebooks because they are netbooks go macbookair

@JoRosieQueen68 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

The surface pro 3 is better than a shitty netbook even I had one of those in my old days!!

@TheJ1s November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

yeah never bought one thought about it but none of them seem perfect enough for to put money down.

@journ9er November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I had a Dell Mini 9.  Picked it up for Boxing Day.  Kept it until I got an iPad 2, which I still use everyday.  Nuff said.

@cadexbox360 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I do miss netbooks, but haven't they been replaced by Chromebooks, stream books and cheaper tablets. So they only left for a while but came back as what they are today.

@Lovejazz01 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

My sons both had HP Netbboks that were really pretty good just for surfing and the like, they ran Windows 7 which was better than our old home PC still running XP. They were a tad bit slow but they got the job done. Me, I wanted one , like he said, until the iPad came out, which I got(iPad 2 that I am typing this on lol)….

@kn1t30wl November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I was hoping Luke would mention Chromebooks as being a kind of psudo-sucessor of the Netbook. Since I got one just to run Linux lol.  

@DPCB01 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Steve was right, netbooks are the most useless thing made in the PC industry.

@hamfish225 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

i use my old netbook as a router, its got pfsense installed on it and i have a usb ethernet adaptor because i needed an extra ethernet port.

its handy in a power cut, it has a built in battery and its one less thing my UPS has to power.

@KOSAMAGAMES November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Netbooks were the floppiest flop of flops. Web browsing sucked, applications sucked, they were pretty much useless at everything. I bought one to do homework on and google lagged, GOOOGLE!!!
I remember when I told myself I wouldn't get a affordable computer ever again, either go all the way or get a decent smartphone.

What changed my opinion? Well 2 things, the iPad of course cause regardless what anyone says tablets needed to have been created and luckily Apple drove the face of design choices. But surprisingly ultrabooks took me by surprise, ultrabooks are the unsung heroes and brothers to netbooks, get an ultrabook with good specs and be surprised at the cost and what power it delivers, hate to say it but Asus has some of the best ones.

@TheGamingDandy November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I had nothing but positive experiences with my netbook. Had the original Acer aspire one, and favourite thing to do with it was see how far I could push it. I regularly played Diablo 2 and Ragnarok online, even WoW at the time worked. Original Unreal Tournament, and with some modding, Civ 4 and KOTOR worked. It was fun, and for just web browsing I had no issues at all. I feel like judging the whole netbook scene on how rough the original eeepc was is unfair. I got used to the small keyboard, and it was a great laptop after that.

And netbooks aren't really dead, the asus transformer line are basically netbooks that you can take the screen off. They didn't die off, they evolved, taking advantage of the tablet craze. Now every major computer maker has a "2-in-1" which is the new netbook. Small, inexpensive laptops that aren't blazing fast, but are pretty damn good.

@PKNeoHaseo November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Before their we're a "netbook", their was a "NoteBook"! Back in 2007! With a 14-15" screen with about 1.3GHz and 512RAM was OK thing at it times but AV protection started to get heavy with all the updates but soon later started requiring 512MB of RAM o.o which made the Notebook slow as a turtle (Boot time and loading the WinXP Home OS took 30+min to run the damn thing).

NetBook (WinXP to Win7) were great in 2009. 1GB RAM, With a GPU and CPU speed of 1.60GHz-1.66GHz were nice when watching netfilx to youtube or while using M$Office 2007 Student Edition. But later on Apple iPad started to rule over the Notebook & netbook era…probably due to the computer at it times on how much tasking one person nneeded or wanted like emailing, note and voice taking, YouTube, web surfing, video chat, netflix…while you can do the same thing on a netbook but those WinOS/Linux ran too many application in the background which made lag the PC or while having too many windows task are open! IPad/iPhone/iPod touch kept it simple when multitasking an use far less CPU usage on the mobile OS unlike blackberry or palm pda's since they didn't have a full web experience on HTML pages or process the images on a page.

…I rather stop reminiscing now. We already have tablets to hi-res netbook which have far better OS or specs needed to run daily day-to-day task! Those year of netbook and notebook should be buried compare to what we have today! Let's ask ourselves, what do need in a OS that's light on the hand or compact???

@BryceLovesTech November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Watching this on my iPad

@MrVnick1 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Love these segments!

@Keyoung44 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I had one. It was good at what I wanted it to be good at, small and cheap. I was traveling so much. Once I had more time at home I tired of the scrunched keyboard and screen, but it ran EVERYTHING. Just a little slow.

@monsterous289 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Netbooks aren't dead. Instead we call the majority of them Chromebooks.

@BernardBrunu1 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

look at craple burrying the netbook { No disrespect to steve jobs and his innovations}

@bobbyjeff32 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

our school steal uses a hp netbook

@alejandromadariagaangeles8278 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I owned a netbook, and i suck hard, i managed to used photoshop, and program on it.
(With the help of a lot of changes to the windows registry).

@TheWolfHowling November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

What about Chromebooks? The arguement could be made that networks could be much more useful than chromebooks as the latter of which is almost functionally useless without a connection to the Internet & Google's servers. Netbooks had full operating systems whereas Chromebooks make to live in the browser. Yet Chromebooks have had much more market success that netbooks ever did

@wyzemann November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

How curious, just as netbooks were fading into oblivion and iPads were rising to preeminence; I actually started the move toward building my own Desktop PC(s).  After 6 yrs and numerous trials and errors, I almost always prefer Desktops over notebooks, tablets, and celluars.  LONG LIVE DIY TECH! 

@danielb2644 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Netbooks aren't even good for web browsing, the track pad is too small, the screen is too small, and the display has a shitty resolution.

@IAMMUSIC2420 November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I use a Asus g750

@StevenEveral November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Not really successful per se, but the netbook, if you squint at it, really was a portent for the mobile revolution that led to the iPad, phablets, and even better smartphones.

@supercakefish November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Netbooks still live on, to a certain extent. You can still buy low-powered <13" laptops to this very day. 

@willvaughan November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Meh..I don't agree that netbooks weren't better at anything (at the time). Before tablets they were the most portable keyboard and screen computing gadget available. I loved my Toshiba netbook, perfect for lugging around campus and typing up papers. I just see them as a logical iteration in the evolution of mobile computing.

@Wehiremonkeys November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

I still think that the original I pad was overated.
it has a rediculous 256mb of ram which was just 1/2 of the then current I phone and just 1/4 of the standard netbook configuration; what more they charged people £600 for switching a real keyboard with a touch keyboard and a slightly higher resolution screen.
I would argue that equally "I pad's are not better at anything" as modern tablets have always been giant smartphones.

@callmemarc November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

Of course CNET uses this as a way to make an Apple product look good and it makes no sense.  Please explain how a $500 (starting price) Ipad should be compared to a cheap netbook.  Why not make one of these videos about the Apple Newton or other failed Apple products?

@Servo1k November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

One thing they don't go over is net books where simple machines. It was only suppose to be used for Internet and basic productivity. I have ADHD and writing was to difficult but I learned typing was would free up resources in my brain making class a lot easier. Netbooks are great for school and basic work which they where designed for but people wanted to use them as a laptop replacement which was why it became hated. But I still use my netbook from 2009 for basic note taking and windows products which rt tablets and iPads can do but need a constant wifi connection but not a netbook. They still have a place because an ultra book is to expensive and tablets have memory limitations and need a constant internet connection.

@gshab November 3, 2024 - 9:08 pm

you can do an episode for the PSP

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