Who killed the netbook?

Almost exactly 5 years ago on this blog, I asked whether Asus's Eee PC netbook was a Toshiba Libretto for the 2000s. And it turns out that it was for the late 2000s, but not for much longer in the  - 2010s - the Guardian reports that most manufacturers have now stopped making netbooks. 

I've always liked the netbook format - as long as it's running an operating system that's suitable for the relatively feeble Intel Atom processor inside the hardware. The original Asus Eee ran Linux, mainly because the processor wasn't fast enough to run Microsoft's Vista OS. This led to a period of approximately 3 months where Linux was taking over the bottom end of the PC market and Microsoft was basically shitting bricks that this was the thin end of the wedge. 

But Microsoft are canny buggers and they hit back with that perennial favourite, Windows XP - brought back from the dead specifically for OEM release on netbooks. This led to a decline in Linux netbook sales and also raised the average retail price of the format (because of the need to pay licensing royalties to Microsoft for each copy of Windows sold pre-installed). Neither of these were a killer blow to the format, however. For me, that was Windows 7 "Starter" version, which replaced XP on netbooks  from late 2009 onwards. 

I'm writing this blogpost on a netbook (Toshiba NB500). It's dual-boot, running Linux Mint 11 LXDE and Windows 7. In general I use Linux 95% of the time and Windows 7 maybe 5%. Windows 7 is just a dog running on the Atom processor - it's as simple as that. Something like opening Google Chrome can take 30 seconds in Windows compared with maybe half a second in Linux (that's with a lightweight Linux window manager like LXDE, mind you - I've not tried the netbook with e.g. KDE, nor do I much intend to). 

So I think it was the sheer crapness of Windows 7 running on an Atom that killed the netbook. The tablet revolution of the iPad and Android which started in 2010 has also played a role, but I think it was a dying format even before that. I like Android tablets for web-browsing, but for writing blogposts I always choose the netbook over a tablet because of the real keyboard. (I know you can get a bluetooth keyboard to go with a tablet but I haven't found a keyboard I like yet). 

Weirdly, Microsoft's recent Surface tablet is more like a tablet/netbook cross as it has a keyboard built into the case. But I think that one is DOA... It runs an ARM processor rather than the Atom (which I think everyone has decided was the shittest processor in decades), but because of this it has to run a special version of Windows called "Windows RT" which isn't compatible with all the existing Windows applications. So it's Windows, but it isn't Windows. Now I'm confused about this and I follow computers pretty closely, so what chance have the general public got? 

So, RIP netbooks. But they won't be dead in this house, not for a long time yet. With lightweight versions of Linux still being released and maintained, there's no real reason for me to want to change to anything else. So f*** Microsoft and f*** touchscreens... I'm happy with this computer just the way it is. 

The Box - More great stuff from Asus

On a happier note, blog readers with long memories may remember that this time last year I was singing the praises of the Asus Eee mini-laptop - a £200 marvel which packed a 7" screen, 4 Gb of flash memory storage and a Linux operating system into a tiny footprint.

One year later and the mini-laptop market is the biggest boom area in computing and the original Eee has been joined by several newer models, some of which have crossed over into the low-end 'big' laptop market.

Asus's plan for world domination of the low-end PC market continues with the Eee Box desktop PC - which is aiming to do for the low-end PC market what the Eee laptop did for the mini-netbook market. For several years now in my idler moments I'd been thinking about building a really small computer - perhaps based around one of the VIA processors that don't require fans as their power consumption is so low - to use as a media PC by the TV: for watching iPlayer, playing MP3s, etc. A couple of things stopped me: (1) the components seemed very expensive for such a low-powered machine, and (2) I wasn't sure the machine would actually be powerful enough to do the job - particularly the onboard video chips. 

And now, along comes the Eee Box, answering both those concerns and then some. 

This thing is minute - measuring 22 x 18 x 3 cm. That's smaller than my Freeview box, ferchrissakes. It's built around an Intel Atom processor, which is the new ultra-low powered Intel chip, and total power consumption of the machine running flat out is about 25 watts.

In terms of spec, you get 1 GB RAM, a 160 GB hard disk, USB ports, ethernet and wireless, and an SDHC card reader. In operation, this is the quietest PC I've ever used. It's quieter than our DVD player. 

Video playback from iPlayer seems fine both in Window and fullscreen on a 1280 x 1024 display (I haven't tested with bigger displays yet). The audio output is on analogue mini-jack or S-PDIF (useful for AV amplifiers).

In short, for £200 this is a superb low-power media PC.

Some of the reviews on the net - this one, for example - have highlighted shortcomings, in particular: 

• mediocre performance - the Atom is a low-power processor and it ain't gonna be sorting you out for video editing, for example;
• no monitor;
• no optical drive;
• it can't play high-definition video. 

This is all fair comment but to me, it's missing the point. Web-surfing, listening to internet radio, playing MP3s and Divx files and iPlayer are not rocket-science applications - anything from Pentium 3 upwards should be able to cut it. Criticism along these lines is like saying that a Smart car isn't any good at Le Mans - it's horses for courses. 

Having no monitor is actually very good when you think about what most new LCD televisions have, which is... a VGA input. Why the hell would I want a monitor in the living room when I've already got one? Absence of an optical drive doesn't matter to me as I've got an external DVD-writer which I just connect whenever I want to install software (as with the Eee laptop). And I don't care about HD video as my TV, despite being labelled 'HD ready' and having an HDMI input, can't play 1080i without downscaling anyway. 

Also, think about the positives in a living room situation:

• it's almost noiseless;
• it's tiny;
• it's (fairly) cheap.

In fact, it's so good, we've just bought another one - my wife's computer (my old PC) just died 7 years into its life and all she really does is use Word, send email and surf the web, and she's got a good monitor, so the Eee Box seemed perfect.

Congratulations, Asus, on another winner. The world may be going to hell in a handbasket but we can console ourselves that increasingly small, cheap and low-power-consumption boxes are coming our way...

Typing this on my wife's new Eee PC!

Great stuff... the Asus Eee sub-laptop, mentioned last month, arrived today having been ordered a couple of weeks ago from play... I was beginning to think that this was 'vapourware' or that stocks had completely sold out, but then... there it was. I did find a stock-checker in the course of my travels, which might be useful for seeing who has one in stock... don't pay more than about £220 for the 4Gb model though.

It's great. Only 22cm wide... the screen has a diagonal of only 18cm (7" in old money) as there are speakers either side of it, but it's very clear, so seeing what you type isn't a problem. Typing on this keyboard is not the easiest for me but then I have big hands... I could get used to it. Anyway it's my wife who's going to be using this one most of the time so I'll get her opinion soon. I must mention the dinky sequence of 4 LEDs at the bottom right of the computer... the wi-fi one is blue, and looks extremely cool. why is it always the little touches that impress most?

I am gonna put a post together on the Super Tuesday results today or tomorrow but it's looking so tight that I want to wait until all the results are in before making comment.

Eee, by gum.

A Toshiba Libretto for the 00s?

And so to technology... I was flicking through Linux Format magazine today (somebody has to) and read a very positive review of the Asus Eee laptop.

For those who don't keep up with this sort of thing, the Eee is a very cheap, small and light laptop which runs Linux as the default operating system (although it is capable of running Windows), has a 4 Gb flash drive instead of a hard drive, a 7 inch 800x600 display, a built in webcam, and weighs only about 900 grams. As a concept it reminds me a bit of the Toshiba Libretto which was a 'sub-notebook' PC of similar size and weight from just over a decade ago; the main selling point of the Libretto was that, unlike the other sub-notebooks of the time, which were jumped-up PDAs, it was fully capable of running Windows 95. A good mate of mine who was very active in the IT industry at the time, bought a Libretto in about 1997 and says that it 'saved his ass' on more than one occasion. The Eee has much of the feel of the Libretto about it - except that, at £220, it is MUCH cheaper than the Libretto, even relative to current laptop prices (if I remember correctly the Libretto was about the same price as an average-spec full size laptop of the time.)

Anyway these things seem to be flying off the shelves - they're out of stock at most of the main online stockists (scan, dabs etc.) Given that you're effectively getting full PC functionality for not much more than a well-specified iPod, it's starting to look very tempting... certainly more exciting than an iPhone IMHO.