Ok, so you just got a new laptop. You’ve been hearing about this whole “netbook” thing that’s all the rage these days, and you wonder: am I cool? Do I have a netbook? You launch the internet (that blue E), and you ask Google “Do I have a netbook?” soon, you’ll be swarmed by loads of terms that all seem to mean the same thing: a really small laptop. Enter The Register’s netbook flowchart.
Netbook. Small laptop. Subnotebook. Ultra-portable. Mini-notebook. Ultra-thin notebook. Cheap laptop. Handheld. I-don’t-give-a-damn-top. That’s just a selection of possible names for the machine you just bought. You thought you just bought a laptop? You simpleton, of course you didn’t. Here’s a simple and clear flow-chart (from The Register) which can help you find out what exactly you just spent money on.
So there.
Simple definition:
~~~
A netbook is dependent on the net.
It has no CD drive to install software.
~~~
It’s that simple. Not all manufacturers follow this, but for simplicity’s sake, this is how I call it.
The netbook is the millstone around the industry’s neck, dragging them toward eventual obsolescence of the CD drive. I give it three years, five if the recession continues longer than expected.
Still, I don’t think the MacBook Air is a netbook. To me, the definition is a little more complex, but covers the actual market better.
A netbook is a sub-500 USD laptop with a screen size of 7-11″, without an optical drive, but with a full QWERTY/AZERTY/etc. keyboard.
The sub-500 USD element is crucial in my book. Note that the screen size could be raised to 12″ with very thin bezels.
Edited 2009-03-13 22:07 UTC
See to me I agree with everything you say but the price if it is over $300 then you are just buying a poorly designed laptop and not a netbook. These netbooks that are over $400 don’t make any sense I can go on Ebay and buy a machine with 5x the power and a better screen for that price.
When all laptops stop having CD drives, what defines a netbook then? Purely size?
In the name of low power, long battery life, fanless and thin laptops, the CD drive will eventually be shoehorned out as the market of netbooks in use grows to the point where manufacturers can’t just ship CDs with their products and have everything covered. (Maybe SD will become the new floppy disk)
Just to be sure, maybe you should squirt a little Epoxy into those USB ports?
Edited 2009-03-13 22:17 UTC
USB drives and whatnot compliment the web, CDs don’t. They’re almost from a different era. Their clunkyness with R/W, lack of portability, lack of storage is beginning to grate in the same way that after the MP3 player took off, the discman died.
Edited 2009-03-13 22:23 UTC
Well, I’d have to agree there. When you say “portability” what do you mean? That they’re hard to carry around? I find that a CDR or CDRW written on one drive is often not readable by another. In fact, very often, it’s not readable by the same drive. Of all the devices in a PC, I find the CD drive is quickest to tank. They make floppies seem reliable, by comparison. I feel lucky if I get a year out of a drive.
Edit: I’ve always wondered if my dogs and cats, and all the hair flying around here might have anything to do with it.
Edited 2009-03-13 22:30 UTC
Ouch, my experience with CD drives has been exactly the opposite. CDR (not rw) discs have always worked across drives, and I’ve had cd drives that have lasted for over five years. Still have one that’s lasted over ten years, in fact. Maybe it is the hair, as you said. Now, RW discs are another deal entirely, and there I agree, the compatibility is horrible as is their life span.
Nevertheless, I also agree that the time of the CD, at least for software distribution, is probably going to end soon. I rather like the idea of SD/SDHC becoming the new floppy disk, actually–they’re small, portable, and hold as much as a USB flash drive in capacity, as well as being write-protectable like a floppy but, naturally, without all the inherent fragility of magnetic media. With SD readers as universal as they are becoming, this seems only a natural progression. The one advantage CDs have is a universal filesystem, either ISO9660 or UDF, both of which are understood by just about every os. We don’t have any other universal fs besides these two, unless you want to use FAt, which is probably unadviseable at this point in time given the whole Tomtom case.
That’s because they are a type of flash-drive…but not as open as USB varieties (i.e., there are licensing fees associated with them).
And, pray tell, how is the Asus eeePC, the Acer Aspire One, the Dell Mini-note, etc dependent on the net? You aren’t forced to use the Internet to access applications, you can use it without a network connection, and they make great little media players when on the go.
Netbook, the term, doesn’t do them justice. Palmtop is closer to correct (ie, a computer that fits in your hand).
Rackmount -> desktop -> laptop -> palmtop -> handheld -> smartphone -> cell phone -> gadget.
I like your classification.
um. you do realize there have been small laptops without optical drives for quite some time? I’ve used one for years thats barely larger than current “netbooks”. The “netbook” category exists only in the mind of OEMs. Pretty much whatever they decide needs the label.
The flow chart is flawed.
If the test subject has a screen exactly 13 inches, and it’s worth more than $500, you get asked the optical drive question twice.
It also classified my Macbook as an “ultraportable”.
EDIT:
Never mind, the screen is 13.3″ not 13″, so it is a plain old laptop.
Edited 2009-03-14 00:44 UTC
Therefore it is a netbook.
It’s a full computer without keyboard.
wrong… it runs a specialized OS. Even if you argue that it’s a stripped down version of OSX – it is specialized for the device.
Linux “netbooks” run a specialized version of *linux on them. That invalidates your argument a little. ;P
Ah, but they can also run full-fledged Linux distros, just like laptops and desktops can. My Asus eeePC 701 runs normal Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.2.1.
Some of them have a specialised version of Linux installed, however many of them come with a full unmodified version of Linux – unmodified except for installing the necessary drivers and doing the necessary configuration to get them work.
Let me know when you can reformat and reinstall your iphone with a different OS, and we’ll talk about “invalidation”
touch~A(c)
Not really; you can’t call something a “netbook” when it cannot be opened up like a book.
You can buy machines from rackmounts all the way down to cell phones, at the end of the day a computer is a computer, and any labels and classifications we give them are fairly arbitrary. Laptop has been a bad name for mobile pcs for a very long time, since it covers such a broad spectrum. Netbook however is not the answer, just because the name tends to make people go all philosophical.
I call them cheap ultraportables, and will continue to do so until someone comes up with a term that makes more sense.
It’s interetsting though that a term that was coined by the community and that has stuck, has now also stuck with the manufacturers, and especially the retailers! Every shop selling them calls them “Netbooks”, they use the term in their documentation, brochures and displays.
Certainly whilst the term is irrelevant to the classification of machine, it has really struck a chord with a full range of people.
It is because it is both catchy and compelling. The compelling bit is sort of misleading though, since there are plenty of great uses for it that do not involve networks.
Personally, I like desktop replacement laptops, but I am in the vast minority. Most people like their laptops very small and very light. I also tend to only buy good machines, but again, I am in the minority, as most people only spend 5-600$ on their computers and never upgrade them. I dont think it is particularily surprising they are doing so well, what I find surprising is how long it has taken for people to come up with the idea.
Vast minority? Is that a minority that is quite large, e.g 49% vs 51%?
I think we should refer to them as laptots.
hey thom, “determine” is in fact an excellent choice of words, but it’s very academic in my opinion. just out of curiousity, what word were you thinking of in dutch, if you were thinking in dutch?
EDIT: p.m. me or email me or whatever if you don’t want to pollute the forum.
Edited 2009-03-14 01:53 UTC
Determine in Dutch is “determineren”, which is the word we use in for instance biology when you try to classify an animal (like vertebrate – mammal – etc, I’m no biologist).
I figured it was pretty fitting.
yeah, usually the causality is the other way around, with a logical rule forcing something to come into existence. “determining” it. i’ve really only ever seen “determination” as a synonym for “classification” in academic literature. just an interesting quip.
according to this flow chart my 15″ 5lb laptop is an ultra portable because it sold for less then 500…
I hate the term “netbook” for many reason, for starters the screens on most of them are so small that most web pages can be painful to read, taking the net out of netbook. Secondly, there is already a classification for small laptops –sub-notebook and/or ultra-portable.
The fact that tech has become cheep enough to make and sell them for less then 300 shouldn’t change the name at all. The entire “netbook” thing is just a marketing attempt to keep people buying sony viao’s and macbook airs and the like (ohh those cheep laptops over there with the same screen and specs for 1/4 the price? you don’t want those those are “netbooks” what you want is an ultra-portable)
We don’t call desktops “nettops” just because you can buy them for less then 200 now, why should we do the same for laptops
Actually, some manufacturers have started to do just that with their MiniITX, Atom-based, small footprint desktops. I saw a few MSI machines of this sort labeled as “nettops” while I was browsing for parts today.
I used to hate small screens myself, but in reality, netbooks are meant to be used for basically doing one thing at a time and being ultra-portable. Turn it on, select text editing, web browsing, etc, and the program is launched to take up as much of the screen as possible. Sound familiar? A lot of people did this in the earlier low-resolution days of Windows by maximizing their windows to fill the screen. And a lot of people probably still use their computers that way. Those people with Windows XP-based netbooks probably make sure almost every window is maximized.
Now that I think of it, my entire Firefox window is only 988×775 pixels on my 20″ 1680×1050 screen. It has been around that size for years now, and could likely be shrunk even more (especially the horizontal size). I could save space reorganizing the toolbars, or even hitting F11 for fullscreen mode. NoScript + Adblock guarantees there’s no ads wasting screen space. Text too small? Just hit Ctrl++, and Firefox even remembers your text size per site. Other browsers have similar features.
I don’t yet have a netbook, but I imagine it being great for the things I would use it for:
-Run Stellarium and go outside to look at the sky, possibly with a telescope (need to get a new one, though
).
-Run a text editor and manage certain lists I have. I have beer lists I frequently go over before deciding which beer to buy, and often maintain a list of games I’m interested in. No need to print, and just edit the file if I see a new beer to try.
-Run a Web browser and do a quick lookup (ie. look at the score and read the review of a game before buying it at the store).
-Compare prices at Amazon and other stores so I don’t get screwed buying an overpriced HDTV or something.
On the other hand, anything much smaller than a 20″ screen for a full-fledged desktop system intended to do multitasking would be a *very* bad idea.
In a perverse sort of way I actually like the small screens because hopefully it will force vendors to realise that it is the users screen space and not a place where they can either plaster advertisements on it (I’m looking at you Microsoft Live Messenger, which is impossible to use on a Acer Aspire One with Windows XP) or worse, focusing on making it big and bulky for the sake of branding and differentiation when all one is concerned about is getting some damn work done.
Case in point, Firefox and other browsers; how many people actually use the bookmark bar? really? come on, I’ve never ever used it once in the 12-13 years I’ve been on the internet. That is how useful the screen hogging thing actually is – it is of no use what so ever. That is the first thing I disable when I load up Firefox. The ribbon; lovely idea, too bad its designed for screens that are 20inchs in size and not 8.9inches (which funny enough OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 runs pretty damn good on ArchLinux on my Acer Aspire One).
So I am hoping that with the rise of constrained environments like the Netbook that it will force vendors to focus on the content of their products rather than making bloatware – either in the form of large unjustified memory and hard disk space usage or just simply a bloated GUI because the marketing department thinks that big bulky borders, mega sized icons and skinning are ‘cool’.
Edited 2009-03-15 04:10 UTC
I don’t hate small screens in general. The problem I have with calling these things netbooks is it gives the impression that they are suited better for using the web then a normal sized desktop/laptop.
As in A choice between a sub-notebook with a 9″ screen for 300, or a full sized 14+” laptop for 350* what would be better for someone who just wants to browse the web.
The 14″ laptop would give a much more enjoyable web experience. Sure the sub-notebook is great for taking it around with you and being able to check something on line real quick but you really do sacrifice a lot of ergonomics for such a small price difference particularly sense most people do web browsing at home or work and the advantages of the smaller laptops go out the window. Small screens are just poorly suited for web browsing in the majority of situations
*on a side note- prior to the sub-portable craze full sized laptops were dropping below 300 (my laptop with a dual core 15″ screen and dvd burner went for 400). now they are back up to 500+ with the only things cheaper listed under netbooks outside of the occasional sale
guess the price difference is a bit larger now
“I-don’t-give-a-damn-top”
That’s just the perfect name for all of them…
Why do people care so much about how to call the damn thing.
Buy what fits your needs, don’t buy something for it’s name.
…in the mostly serious comments in this thread giving thoughtful analysis on a flowchart that has two elements labeled “Im” and “Stuck” in an infinite loop?
That’s bit represents Apple straight-facedly claiming that the iPhone is a netbook as they feverishly work to develop their first netbook.
Edited 2009-03-14 21:17 UTC
And scores two birds with one stone because it also covers the thought processes of those supporting the iPhone-is-a-netbook claim.
I’d define a netbook as small, cheap and wifi/wireless connectivity.
There are plenty off small notebooks but they tend to be expensive, there are cheap laptops that are built like a tank, and wireless/wifi devices but are too big and bulky for something that is a very light work load.
For me, the notebook was a laptop replacement given that all my heavy work is on my iMac and my laptop is used basically to surf the net, write small documents, send emails and chat to friends.
The question is whether these 10inch models will start cannibalising mainstream notebooks as the processor speed increase, prices drop and specifications improve. I know if I had my time again I would have bought a 10inch netbook instead of a MacBook.
looks like i have an ultra-portable and a wallet.
I tried to show the flowchart but it called me an ass.
It should be pretty simple ..
Desktop > Destop Replacement > Laptop > Laptop Replacement > Palm Device