Can Crowdfunding Bring Back The Netbook? (salon.com)

"The mini-laptop's market niche got swamped by the iPad and the phablet," writes Salon, since the stripped-down hardware of tablets made them cheaper to produce. But now netbooks could be making a grassroots-fueled comeback, "thanks to the lower costs in electronics manufacturing and the fact that individual investors can come together to crowdfund projects." An anonymous reader quotes Salon: Michael Mrozek, the Germany-based creator of creator of the DragonBox Pyra, says "I never understood why they were gone in the first place. I have no idea why you would use a tablet. I tried one, and it's awkward to use it for anything else than browsing the Web"... He has already managed to raise several hundred thousand dollars through a private pre-order system set up on his geek's paradise online store. Once those initial orders have been filled, Mrozek said he will probably start up a mainstream crowdfunding campaign for his Linux handheld... "The niche was always there, but thanks to the Internet and crowdfunding, it's easy to reach everyone who's interested in such a device so even a niche product still gets you enough users to sell it. That wasn't possible 10 years ago."
Meanwhile, in just under two weeks Planet Computer raised $446,000 on Indiegogo, more than double the original $200,000 goal for their netbook-like Gemini computer (with a keyboard designed by the creator of the original Psion netbook). Planet's CEO Janko Mrsic-Flogel says "It's a bit like Volkswagen bringing back the Beetle," and predicts that the worldwide demand for netbooks could reach 10 million a year.

Comments

piece of shit machines

[Kkloe]

small? yes, keyboard comfy enough? some, specs?, piece of shit machines that were locked to having max 2 gb ram, who the fuck thought that was ever a good idea

Re:piece of shit machines

[admin7087]

I still miss my first generation EEE PC which was stolen two years ago. It had a special battery that lasted forever and was perfect for writing novels outside. Now I'm using an Asus Transformer, I had to put special anti-reflective plastic over the display to be able to read anything, it still sucks in the sun and it runs Windows 8. :(

Anyway, the reply to your post: Netbooks are awesome, perfect for writing books outside, for example.

A better question

[kuzb]

Do we really want (or need) the Netbook back? As I recall, they were a product that did little more than make people wish they had saved the money to buy something that was actually capable of meeting their basic needs. These days everyone has a cellphone which is already infinitely better than the netbook of yesterday.

Re:A better question

[PhrostyMcByte]

Cheap laptops (barely more than the price of netbooks, and eventually cheaper and better spec'ed than netbooks) killed it.

Both you and TFA are wrong. Manufacturers killed the netbook because once enough of them joined the fray and started competing, they eroded their margins so much that they forced the market into "chromebooks" or otherwise gimped netbooks that were cheaper to license.

Re:A better question

[HornWumpus]

Fair enough. Browsing the web, angry birds and candy crush.

A second life?

[markdavis]

I would like to see netbooks come back. The original concept was a smash hit- small size, excellent battery life, SSD, and running Linux, all at a small price. Lots of reasons led to their demise- Microsoft hostility, powerful phones, tablets, and client-side browser load increase were probably the three biggest.

I think there might still be a market for something small, inexpensive, and different. Maybe not a big market, but something with unlocked dual-boot Android and Linux with physical keyboard, larger than the largest phones but smaller than the smallest laptops (notebooks). Where having a keyboard and good, SWAPPABLE battery trumps being stupidly thin.

Oh, the Gemini PDA isn't it... too expensive, too small. Cool, no doubt, but it is more of a phone factor.

Re:Netbooks are gone?

[chipschap]

The problem is that a tablet/phablet is not a decent productivity tool. It's great for media consumption and maybe social media, but lousy for real work. The tools aren't right, the multitasking really isn't right, and most of the bluetooth keyboards are pretty inadequate.

I have an old Acer netbook, circa 2009, that still works well and I'm much more productive on that than I am on my much more expensive tablet.

I hope so

[aglider]

I am fed up with the design of mobile devices (less than 1 Kg) useful only for social-bullsh!t.
I need a way to connect to my servers and network equipment by CLI on a reasonable screen.
Touch keyboard eat 50% of a landscape screen.
Bluetooth keyboard are nice, but need an extra charger.
Netbooks are great tools, but you need to find one: it's an endangered species.