Netbooks – the beginning of the story

Just a couple of years ago started the crusade of creating laptops available for every user around the planet. That meant cheap laptops. A couple of pioneers tested the waters, with the OLPC project being the most notable. But the real success story started once Asus developed their first EEE PC back in 2007. Marketed as the 300$ laptop, the EEE PC meant the start of a mini laptop-war. A war were big names like Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Dell, Intel, Toshiba fought and still fight for supremacy.

But let’s talk a little bit more about the beginning. Like I said, Asus launched the first ultra cheap laptop. It had a Celeron M processor, 7″ screen, speakers, keyboard, wireless and LAN connectivity, etc. And it cost just $300. So, the EEE PC was a smaller, lighter version of a notebook, one that could be easily carried around an used when travelling. And since this new kind of portable device needed a name, it was commonly called “netbook” (a name previously registered by Psion).

Netbook = small + cheap + laptop

Other big laptop producers saw an opportunity in this newly created segment of mini laptops and joined the dance: MSI and ACER were among the firsts, and Dell, Toshiba, Compaq, HP, etc followed after a short time.

But, no matter how light and portable were the new netbooks, they lacked the necessary power needed for everyday usage. That changed when Intel announced their Atom CPU series, specially made for such kind of gadgets, a line of processors that was meant to combine decent performance with ultra low power consumption. So, once the Celerons were replaced by the Atom CPUs, everything changed. Newer screens came along, with better resolutions, bigger hard drives, better materials, etc.

Douzens of netbooks available on the market nowadays (source)

Netbooks evolved in just 2 years and now there are dozens of them available on the market. Some remained faithful to new main idea of “cheap mini-laptop”, while others are “high performance mini laptops” or “stylish-fashionable mini notebooks”.

Last year, netbooks accounted for 30% of consumer laptop sales in Europe. And this number alone speaks of the success of netbooks.

As for what’s going to happen next in this niche, nobody knows for sure. You’ll just have to stay tuned here, as we’ll keep you updated with the latest news about the netbook’s world.

Tags: Asus netbooks, EEE PC, Intel Atom, OLPC