The Rise of the Netbooks

Back on the 16th of October, 2007, Asus released arguably the first mainstream netbook on the market, called the Eee 700. This first iteration had a 7" screen, 256 megs ram and a 2gb solid-state drive. Adding on a keyboard that was designed to be comfortable to use for a person no bigger than a 5-year-old and this netbook was more of a notbook. When we at TechWatch first heard about it, we (along with most of the computer industry) were very skeptical of it and saw no future for it. It's not often that we're wrong in our prognostications, but when we are, we freely admit it. And boy were we wrong about this one. It far exceeded everyone's expectations.

Flash forward a mere ten months (just over half of a Moore's law cycle) and the netbook market is becoming saturated with everyone jumping in on the bandwagon. Of the current batch, there are three notables to mention.

The first is the HP 2133 Mini-Note. This one is by far the best looking netbook on the market. A very solid chassis and a keyboard that is actually comfortable to use should combine to make a very good computing experience. Right? Wrong. HP in an apparent bid to save money decided to use the Via 1.2 Ghz processor, which runs as slow as molasses (treacle) in January. Couple this with trying to run Windows Vista, and you have an extremely frustratingly slow experience, making video watching reserved for only the truly masochistic. Add in a battery life of less than 2 hours with a BrightView screen that makes it all but impossible to use outdoors and you have a truly sorry excuse for a netbook. They say beauty is only skin deep, and this one proves the old addage like nothing we've seen before.

The second netbook on offer is the MSI Wind. With a 10" screen and a nearly-full-sized keyboard, this has certainly ticked some of the right boxes. While it does look nice in an Apple-gee-I'm-smug sort of way, the build quality seemed a bit subpar. It's equipped with an Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz processor, 1gb ram and an 80gb hard drive as standard. In our test machine, running Windows XP, we noticed no noticeable lag in performance, easily handling video playback like there was no tomorrow. The only thing that prevents us from whole-heartedly recommending this one is the 3-cell battery, which means there was a less-than-stellar battery life of just over two hours in our testing.

The final netbook is the Asus EEE 1000H. It has basically all the same specs as the MSI Wind. But what sets this apart from the Wind is the 6-cell battery, which meant our test machine was pushing seven hours before finally giving up the ghost. What's not to like about this machine, outside of the ugly logo on the cover? If you're wanting a netbook to buy right now, then this is the one for you.

However, if you're patient, the next few months will prove interesting as Dell releases their E (does this sound familiar) machine later this month and Lenovo releases their IdeaPad S10 in October. Both of these are blatant "me-too's" in a market segment that is full to overflowing. But what these two machines have which is missing in the current wave of netbooks (with the obvious exception of the Mini-Note) is the clout of a well-known company. And certainly the Dell E is very easy on the eyes, even if it's taken a step backwards as far as specs go in a netbook. The netbook market, while still in its infancy, is certainly growing up and the victors will be emerging shortly. Until then, it'll certainly be a fun and fascinating time to be on the sidelines.