Musing on the Topic of Netbooks

Some of you may have heard about the untimely death of my Acer Aspire One netbook. It was a beloved device, and I was sorry to see it go. As is the way of things, it has already been replaced by a new Eee PC 1000HE. I like it so far, and here are a few of my thoughts on this machine and the netbook market in general.

The Eee PC 1000HE is considered a “third generation” netbook. My original Eee PC had a tiny 7″ screen, tiny keyboard, and tiny 4GB flash drive. Limited as it was, I loved it for its portability, and got a lot of real use out of it before moving on to the second generation of netbooks.

I went through two Aspire Ones, both with 9″ screens, larger keyboards, and the shiny new Intel Atom CPU. The A110 ran off a painfully slow 8GB flash chip, so it was quickly eBayed and replaced by the A150, which included a real 2.5″ hard drive. The ability to actually store data on the machine revolutionized the way I viewed my netbook. That machine served me well (until I accidentally killed it).

So here I sit, typing this from my new Eee PC 1000HE. This one has a 10″ screen, and really doesn’t bear much resemblance to my original 7″ Eee PC, other than its name. It’s larger, has a truly touch-type-able keyboard, and impressive battery life. I used it all day today, and as I sat down to write this, my battery finally hit the 10% mark (and it still had 40 minutes left)! I probably got a solid 6+ hours of “typical” usage out of it.

But at 3.2 lbs and a good 2″ wider than the original Eee, I can’t really carry this in my purse anymore. But since getting my iPhone, I had been carrying my netbook less and less. As smartphones become more advanced, they fill the niche of “portable net-centric devices with limited storage capacity” very well. At the same time, many of the shortcomings that originally “defined” the netbook genre are being overcome with each new generation. They have morphed into small, inexpensive, but fully functional laptops.

And that’s a good thing. But I still want a convertible tablet netbook with multi-touch screen that weighs less than 2lbs and will go at least one full day on a charge. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?