I borrowed a friend's Acer Aspire for quite a while when I was unemployed during the Great Recession. My 1st gen MacBook Air had a bad battery, but the Aspire was a lifesaver and not a bad little machine at all.
Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
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Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#12I have one. Best kitchen computer ever. About 8 yrs worth of use for 99 bux. Battery is bad now but it's too expensive to replace. It might be time to replace.
Couch computer for me.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#13The eeePC 901 was what got me into Linux, and by extension basically my whole career in IT. Fabulous little device which changed my perception of computers from "gaming plus garbage MS Office software" to a truly general purpose, infinitely customizable tool.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#14I'm glad my asuss eee is gone now, but in 2011 it was a fabulous travel aid for exploring italy - keeping us out of icky internet cafes and keeping us entertained on the long slow (railpass compliant) rail journeys.
Netbooks became of course the small and underpowered laptop that many rely upon today. They also perhaps provided some of the foundation for iPad's success - giving Apple a clear starting point from which to market a much nicer portable internet device.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#15The Eee PC 701 was amazing. It was really good for students who needed something small and light that they could take to the library, etc. The alternative back then was a heavy power-hungry full-size laptop. This is before all the stuff we take for granted today like tablets, etc.
The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 was the next really good netbook.
After those, Apple introduced the Macbook Air which came in a 11.6" size. Even Linus Torvalds owned one.
Chromebooks have now taken over the small and light segment replacing tablets as well, but they're locked down and all-in on Google compared to the old netbooks which let you run anything, so they're not an ideal replacement.
I don't think netbooks will be back. When you look at something like the Raspberry Pi 4, it's way more powerful than the old Eee 701 was and the Pi is a very small form factor. If a manufacturer thinks there is a market for it, they could encapsulate something like that in a keyboard and screen and give it Linux as an open OS. So why won't this happen you ask? It's a tough call because the competition for netbooks is actually smartphones. A student writing a paper, all they need is just a bluetooth keyboard and something to lean their 6.7" phone or tablet against.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#16For a while I did web backend development on my Eee PC, I used it as a hackintosh and modded a minipci 3g module on it. I actually got used to it for a while until I used o normal laptop again and noticed just how incredibly slow those Atom CPUs were.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#17I still have my EEE Pc 701 from 2007. Still works well with 2GB of RAM, Void Linux+DWM and an extended filesystem in the SD Card. Good for experimenting and for note taking with Emacs+org roam or Zim. Still good for reading wikipedia or stack overflow articles with netsurf or seamonkey(sites with JavaScript). Remember searching open or crackable wifi networks with the little fellow in the palm of my hand. I have anot…
In some ways that era of netbooks felt like the glory days of creative computing devices and OSes. Intel created this really lovely UI on top of Linux called Moblin. My mom ran Jolicloud, which was built around webapps. A bunch of netbooks were coming out with their own Linux flavors to the mass market and webOS was right around the corner. I'm going to say this with a straight face: if only more people would have ha…
I think the most accessible small form factor Linux box right now is the Steam Deck. You're paying a bit more for game controller hardware if you just want to use it as a workstation, but it is just Linux under the hood and looks to be a pretty neat cyberdeck-like device.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#18I just want a really small laptop like those Vaios from back in the day.
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#19"The OLPC project was the subject of much discussion. It was praised for pioneering low-cost, low-power laptops and inspiring later variants such as Eee PCs and Chromebooks"
Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)
#20I remember really wanting one of these back in 2007 or 2008.