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Ask HN: Do any netbooks still exist?

24 points by andrewcooke ↗ HN
I guess I missed the boat here. It seems everyone stopped making netbooks, and now I could really do with one. The only thing I can find is made by Asus - http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-1015E-DS01-10-1-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B00BQH8QTI - but it uses a (power hungry) Celeron. Asus have other (Atom) versions on their site, but they all seem to be unavailable (at least for online purchase). Anyone have any suggestions? I want something that is cheap and small, with keyboard, for travel.

57 comments

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carbocation
What about a Chromebook? The Samsung version costs $250 (and there is an Acer model for $199).

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/

andrewcooke
the ubuntu on chromebook thread is what made me ask here, but the chromebook isn't a 10" screen, is it? i thought it was much larger. but i will check your link - i didn't realise there were multiple models.

[update: the acer and samsung are 11.6" and i can find a bunch of similar notebooks with that size screen. what i really wanted was a 10" screen. but thanks!]

dragonwriter
Okay, if you want 10" screen that's a bit hard to find, but "netbooks" were never limited to 10" screens (11.6" was a fairly common screen size for products sold as netbooks.)

The role seems largely to have been taken over by Chromebooks -- Microsoft never really wanted the market to exist and the hardware vendors seem to prefer having an OS vendor to work with. But among notebooks (including ones that are similar to netbooks, whether they are sold as "netbooks" or not) 10" screen size seems to have died off because at that size, the preference is for tablets (possibly with keyboard cases to let them be used like a netbook) rather than traditional notebook form factor.

voidz
No, because Google. Nuff said.
thejosh
why?
iso-8859-1
While it may be efficient to have companies this large, it does not serve society's interests regarding privacy.
thejosh
OK, but using foreign hardware which you have no control over, made in chinese countries is safer?
iso-8859-1
Spy-hardware is nowhere nearly as prevalent as spyware (software), because you'd need hardware TCP/IP implementations and so on. I never heard of this happening to common people in real life. Unlike data privacy, which is almost too easy to disrespect.
tptacek
Done a lot of research on backdoored hardware?
keithpeter
As the Chromebooks are too big, UK ebay shows plenty of second hand and some new/refurbished 10" netbooks (usually 1024 by 600) around with XP.

Linux works fine on most makes. I have a Samsung NC10 with mechanical hard drive and a surprisingly good keyboard that just chugs away endlessly, but the NC10 seems to develop screen 'jitters' as the hinges age.

mikecane
There are bound to be overstock netbooks that never sold available on ebay. But if you're asking does anyone make them anymore, No. Tablets killed them.
discostrings
> No. Tablets killed them.

I'd argue that Microsoft and Intel killed them with their arbitrary restrictions on what could be a netbook.[1] I imagine they realized netbooks would put a huge dent in their sales of more expensive systems, so they effectively put a stop to them. I'm sure tablets didn't help at all, but the limits kept netbooks just below the edge of usefulness in many cases. So they developed the reputation of being slow and people stopped buying them.

[1] http://www.itexaminer.com/microsoft-adds-to-atoms-restrictio...

charlesray
I highly doubt that had much, if anything, do with the netbook's decline. From the beginning it was just a cheap, small laptop. Tablets are as cheap, smaller, and run operating systems that are designed for low-power systems, so they feel faster. The few people (e.g. me) who actually wanted a keyboard moved on to low-end ultrabooks.
discostrings
A lot of people would love a cheap, small laptop. That's what they wish an ultrabook was. Unfortunately, they're only getting the small, not the cheap.

If the specs could have been a bit higher and increased in a timely manner, netbooks would have been perfect for a lot of the market. They were limited in speed just below the edge of what most people would consider to be capable.

jdjb
The specs only need to be higher if you want to run modern Windows on it.

If Ubuntu netbook edition was more user friendly and more windows-like I'm sure a lot of people would've been very happy with a low specs machine that ran smooth enough for the kind of tasks you'd want to do on a <= 10'' screen.

discostrings
> The specs only need to be higher if you want to run modern Windows on it.

I agree, and that's the tragedy of the situation.

The first netbooks shipped with Linux, and Microsoft saw that as a threat, so they started licensing Windows at very low rates for netbooks. When the cost difference was minimal to ship Windows on netbooks, that's what vendors did, and the Windows netbooks dominated the market.

Once they'd conquered the market, Microsoft pulled the bottom out by seriously limiting the capabilities of netbooks. Netbooks then developed a reputation of being slow because most of the netbooks on the market were running Windows and were slow. The "netbook" name was already tarnished, making it difficult for the original Linux netbook idea to succeed.

scholia
See my earlier answer here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272342

> The first netbooks shipped with Linux

The first netbook shipped with Linux but the launch announcement for the Asus included both Windows XP and Linux. Windows sold better and was more profitable.

> Once they'd conquered the market, Microsoft pulled the bottom out by seriously limiting the capabilities of netbooks.

No, the capabilities of netbooks were always limited. The netbook spec was upgraded twice to allow larger hard drives and screens etc.

You could certainly argue that it wasn't upgraded enough, but then, it was limited to protect sales of laptops that were more profitable for Intel, Microsoft and the netbook OEMs.

Netbooks had two main points: (1) provide a portable PC solution suitable for schools -- see Intel Classmate and, indeed, OLPC; (2) to provide a companion PC for existing PC users.

It was nobody's idea to provide cut-price netbooks that would damage laptop sales.

You might think it's a tragedy but it's just business.

jljljl
MSFT certainly didn't help. For example, a lot of netbooks were packaged with Windows 7 Starter, a seriously limited version of Windows.

I'm skeptical that the hardware couldn't handle full Windows (because Starter also provided an Anytime Upgrade option), so it seems likely this was an intentional decision to reduce the features of netbooks at the software level, in order to avoid cannibalizing larger PC's and laptops.

EDIT: link to feature limitations for W7 Starter: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-w...

scholia
The netbook manufacturers were free to install a full copy of Windows 7 or Ubuntu or anything else they wanted (except Mac OS X, obviously).

They didn't want to install a full copy of Windows 7 because they would have had to pay the full price for it (after the usual discounts etc).

After much argument, they came up with a compromise that had acceptable functionality (to Microsoft) at an acceptable price (to the OEMs).

So Microsoft was helping, rather than "not helping".

But you're right: the aim was to sell netbooks without having too big an impact on more profitable sales of laptops.

happycube
Having owned an eee 701, I'd argue that the Samsung ARM Chromebook in particular carries on the original Netbook concept, and Chromebooks as a whole are increasingly successful.

By that token, Netbooks ain't dead, they just broke free of Microsoft and Intel ;)

6ren
I think that's the closest (also asus transformer), but the ARM Chromebook is a lot bigger than an eee 701 (though similar weight). It's more like a super-light laptop - a macbook air.
6ren
Historically, netbooks were exploding in popularity because they were cheap and good enough. One factor to their cheapness was they didn't run Windows, but linux instead.

MS then did something very insightful, courageous and (to me) disappointing: they sold Windows for next to nothing on netbooks (I think it was $20 or something). This stopped them being disrupted by linux.

Sadly, netbooks faded quickly. Putting what others have said in a different context, what killed netbooks was the same thing that killed desktops and laptops: smartphones and tablets. They are cheaper, more convenient, easier to use - and powerful enough for what people need to do. Desktops, laptops and yes even netbooks overshoot mainstream needs.

FWIW I'm currently using an eee PC 701 (i.e. the original netbook), and it's only the iPhone 5 that finally caught up with it. But that didn't stop earlier iPhones and androids from meeting most people's need better than it.

PS: as for intel, I believe Atoms far too slow in themselves, quite apart from "PCI Express and digital video outputs" http://www.itexaminer.com/intels-atom-is-a-gem.aspx so I don't was Intel that killed them.

captainmuon
"Tablets killed netbooks" is a meme that gets often repeated, but is really misleading.

You're definitely right that vendors have moved on from netbooks and are putting their energy now into tablets. But that doesn't mean tablets have replaced netbooks. Netbooks have a bunch of use cases that don't apply to tablets and vice versa.

I bought my good old eeePC netbook mainly for:

- Typing on the go. It's much lighter than a regular laptop (was back then), and the model I have has a very good, almost-full-size keyboard.

- Its unprecedented battery life (again, back then). I could even forget the cable at home, and it would last the whole day.

- Meetings. For some reason, we have lots of meetings in my field, and almost everybody brings their laptop (to make notes, follow the slides, etc.). I found the eeePC ideal because it needs no cable (no crawling on the floor) and is small and unconspicuous. If I'm using my notebook in a meeting, at least I don't want to hide behind it.

Compare with a tablet: I can hardly type anything else than text messages on touchscreens. And while laptops are for some reason socially accepted in meetings, I couldn't show up with a tablet. Everybody would think I was just playing. (That's changing slowly, however).

Finally, the biggest difference is that a netbook is a general purpose PC. I can run all programs I need for work on it. That doesn't work on locked-down tablets.

When Windows 8 came out, I was really hoping for cheap 10-inch Atom or ARM tablets with the nice keyboard covers (and an unlocked OS so I could actually do work on them). Such a tablet would really be a worthy netbook replacement.

happycube
To me Windows 8 is a nice OS that was ruined by Marketing - rip metro/modern ui out and everyone would have loved it as Windows 7.1, and a $299 Samsung ARM Netbook with it would probably have sold quite well ;)
captainmuon
Yeah, Windows 8 is this decade's Vista.

The most rediculous thing about Metro/Modern UI and Netbooks is that doesn't run on low resolutions, although it would work perfectly since it's mostly text, and completely scalable. It does work on my 24" desktop, where its a complete waste of screen space.

awda
Yep, my girlfriend's mother still has one. It's... slower than you'd want, unless you're used to a pentium 4.
SamReidHughes
Instead of worrying about how power hungry the CPU is, worry about the actual battery life numbers. The 1015E gets more battery life than some other netbooks, and maybe less than others.
area51org
iPad with a keyboard-case?
lucb1e
The iPad is a consumption device, not good for work. Even with a keyboard, most available applications are geared towards touchscreen and consumption. I much prefer laptops for this reason: they run a desktop OS.
scholia
It's worth considering but it depends what you want to do. An iPad can't easily do a lot of the things a netbook can do (or can't do them at all), and vice versa, of course.

Also, for the same screen size, it's more than twice the price. #generalization

thu
I am pretty sure I have seen a 10-inch netbook recently (less than one/two months ago), maybe on Engadget.

Otherwise there is still the tablet/keyboard combo.

I liked the netbook form factor; I am still using my Samsung n220 everyday.

happycube
Don't write the Celeron 847 off - it is actually quite efficient! Sandy Bridge has quite good (not Haswell good) idle power consumption, and it's performance is much better than Atom.

And if you're running Linux, you need to avoid the Atom N2xxx at all costs, the graphics are useless. The C847 graphics are good for desktop use (but not for anything more than light gaming)

If you're worried about battery life and heat, trade out the HD for an SSD right away. I did that with an Acer Chromebook and it's quite nice - and the trade will probably make up for any increased CPU power draw at idle.

froseph
I think most new "netbooks" have been converted into 11.6 form factor to include a proper full sized keyboard. The only real reason netbooks had 10" displays was because intel required it when purchasing an atom (along with their 2gb memory limit). Atoms haven't gotten any real architectural (IPC) changes since their release and Intel has been repositioning the brand/hardware towards tablet/phone devices. Since manufacturers have been freed from the 10" constraint, such most manufacturers have been building larger screened low end laptops which is really what the market wants. As such you might want to reconsider your options. Depending on the architecture of the Celeron, it may actually be faster and more battery efficient than an Atom. The options seem to be:

1/ Deal with an extra inch of real estate

2/ Buy a 7/10" tablet & add a keyboard. Some like the Asus transformer pad includes a keyboard dock. You can also try rooting/chrooting a linux distro onto the tablet all the bells and whistles.

3/ Buy used from e-bay

captainmuon
An extra inch of screen diagonal is great, of course. But it usually means an extra inch of notebook. They should just take the old netbook form factor and build in a screen that goes to the edge (keeping the bezel very thin).

Also, I think vendors used the switch from 10" netbooks to what we have now to raise the price tag unproportionally.

They could probably build something with a touch screen, detachable keyboard, HD video playback, all day battery life, that could run circles around every netbook, and sell it at around $350 (or even cheaper without touchscreen, and with a fixed keyboard). Instead, they slap in a i7 and 8 Gigs of RAM, that most people won't use anyway, and sell it for twice as an "ulrabook", because there's more money in "premium"...

PaulHoule
I have an HP Mini that I absolutely adore. I've upgraded it to Windows 8 (thus losing the limitations of the Starter Edition 7). I also upgraded the ram to 2 GB which was cheap.

I started using it to do wearable computing experiments and found that the self-protection system of the hard drive would go into action whenever I went faster than a slow walk, so I replaced the HDD with a SSD.

The new Windows 8 store and all of those apps don't work on it because the screen size is too small, but the desktop is fine for web browsing, Cygwin, etc.

If I fold the machine up and use it to play music, do GPS navigation and some other data collection in the car, it runs 6-7 hours. I get 4-5 hours of tablet-like service if I use it to watch video. Even though the screen is not HD resolution it plays HD files just fine.

scholia
It depends where you live. There are certainly new netbooks available in the UK from, for example, Amazon.co.uk. Asus and perhaps others still supply them in markets where there is demand, but I guess those are mostly poor countries.

Asus Eee PC X101CH 10.1-inch Netbook (Purple) - (Intel Atom N2600 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 320GB HDD, LAN, WLAN, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 7 Starter) First available 30 Oct 2012 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-X101CH-10-1-inch-Netbook-Purple...

However, the netbook specification is very limited (by Intel and Microsoft), and you get better screen resolution and more memory by buying a very slow laptop. This very slow laptop may even be called a "netbook". However, if it uses an AMD chip (ie not an Atom), then it is not bound by Intel's netbook specification.

This is basically a netbook with an Atom-speed AMD CPU:

Acer Aspire V5-121 11.6-inch Laptop (Blue) - (AMD C70 1GHz Processor, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, LAN, WLAN, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8) First available 17 April 2013 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-V5-121-11-6-inch-Laptop/...

The price difference is £13 ($21) which gets you Windows 8 instead of Windows 7 Starter, and 2GB instead of 1GB of memory. Weight is the same (998g vs 1kg).

Microsoft basically killed the netbook market when it stopped selling Windows XP Ultra Low Cost PC edition for peanuts ($15 or less). Windows 7 Starter was offered very grudgingly at much higher cost, and I suspect most netbook buyers would prefer XP.

All the OEMs knew this was coming. Microsoft said the ULCPC offering would be "available until the later of June 30, 2010, or one year after general availability of the next version of Windows." (ie Windows 7) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2008/apr08/04-0...

nkorth
Silly computer manufacturers still haven't figured out that they can preload Ubuntu for $0 per device... :P
scholia
Acer, Asus and MSI all tried pre-loading Linux on netbooks. It caused them no end of pain and cost them loads of cash, so they mostly stopped.

I did actually suggest to all three that they should combine and pre-load a common version of Ubuntu but they weren't interested. In 2008, in Taiwan, Asus's netbook boss Johnny Chen told me that part of the appeal of Linux was that they could control their own OS.

However, at the time, they didn't know how much pain there was in getting Linux drivers for, for example, a couple of dozen USB modems to work with dozens of ISPs in 32 languages across 50 countries, or whatever. (I'm quoting from memory.)

They also didn't know how much money they would lose trying to support Linux for non-technical buyers. Netbook prices included so little profit that every support incident put you deeper and deeper into the red.

It was actually much cheaper and more profitable for them to install XP ULCPC than to install Linux. With XP they got marketing support (money!) from Intel and Microsoft plus cash-in-hand for installing crapware.

They also knew just about every new peripheral in the universe would work out of the box, and that if it didn't, most buyers would get support from friends, the people next door, the IT guy at work etc.

So maybe they're not actually as silly as you imagine ;-)

sheng
Silly customers won't buy them, unfortunately. It has to be Windows7 or OSX, everything else seems to be a deal breaker.

No offence here, i'm a linux user myself. Everywhere i go and look all i can see are macbook{air,pro} and i can't really understand why anyone would go with such a cage.

jodrellblank
How is it a cage? What can't you run if you owning a Macbook {air,pro}? (Especially with VirtualBox + Linux on it(!)).
samspenc
Software makers pay PC manufacturers top dollar to install bloatware on PCs, which pretty much negates the Windows cost and allows them to price Windows PCs lower than any Ubuntu alternative.
nkorth
I actually just recently looked in to the 1015E, and I almost bought one but then decided to get a Samsung Chromebook. My top requirements were battery life, portability, and at least a 1366x768 screen (so that ruled out most 10" systems). The Chromebook is working out really well; its 7-hour battery life is awesome. The 1015E probably would have been OK too, but its battery life wouldn't have been as great. Kudos to Asus at least for loading Ubuntu on the 1015E-DS02.
gregjor
Plenty of netbooks for sale in Asia.
mikecane
Somewhere in Redmond, someone is gnashing their teeth, muttering, "Why isn't anyone mentioning Surface?" [typo edit]
captainmuon
Because the Surface RT 474 € with a keyboard cover+, and it only runs silly Metro apps, making it useless for many people.

(+ Quick check on Amazon Germany (where I live), probably cheaper in the US but still around $450.)

6ren
Maybe android tablet + ubuntu + keyboard?
D9u
I'm still using my 5 year old Acer Aspire One, and I've seen them for sale in a few of the big box stores. I paid $99 for mine. (Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM, 160GB hdd, built-in 3G modem, WiFi)

I've been really happy with this netbook, and the price was unbeatable.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Acer+Aspire+One+for+sale

eksith
The tablet has pretty much taken over the netbook niche, it seems, so your options are fairly limited.

I have a Sony Vaio E series 11.6" that I take around, but it's not a great option. For what I do on the road (email, some VS work and Photoshop), it's OK. Unfortunately, it too seems to be going out.

You can still get a fairly decent Acer :

http://www.amazon.com/B007582KGM

  Acer AOD270-1375 10.1" Netbook (Intel Atom Processor N2600, 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, 320GB hard drive
Or Asus (still with Celeron): http://www.amazon.com/B00COQK8QY

  Intel Celeron 847 1.1 GHz 2 GB DDR3 10.1-Inch Screen and Ubuntu
devb0x
Get an hp mini. I have a 210 and i love it. Running ubuntu in case you want to know.

I'm writing this comment on my mini.