When the One Laptop Per Child project produced the XO-1, and Asus followed with the EEE PC, they probably thought they were inventing a whole new type of device – a laptop, certainly, but of a different sort than the kind business types lugged around. But as the netbook emerged, the new-look interfaces slowly gave way to Windows XP. Ultimately, the netbook pretty quickly became just the smallest and cheapest style of laptop, rather than something new.
This is about to change non-trivially. When Google finally gets its Chrome OS on netbooks and into production, the result will be something that is less than a notebook – essentially a large-screen portable web terminal. Meanwhile, the Kindle has exploded as a whole other type of portable device – and one with an underappreciated permanent wireless connection, at that. And then there’s that gadget of Apple’s…
We have computers, desktop and laptop, and we have phones. This third device is meant to combine the relative portability of a phone with some of the enhanced power and larger display of a computer. There are necessary tradeoffs for size and power, and they have been met with various techniques (e-ink display by the Kindle, a phone OS by Apple, custom Linux OS and interface by many netbook manufacturers, etc). We’ve been comparing these things to computers, but it might be more reasonable to compare them the other way…to phones.
Set against this, the netbook becomes the flip phone. It relies on a hinge to give you two equal-sized spaces for input and display, and as a result tends to be a bit on the thick side. The Kindle and its peers are the bar phones: one piece, light and thinner, but compromised in terms of display and input by the limitations of space. And the iPad is, of course, the iPhone: one big display, virtual keyboard, trusting that its input model will minimize the compromises posed by a software keyboard.
I bring this up because I’m still struggling with the netbook. 1024×600 is a bit of a show to squint at, especially with all the other UI bits and bobs that go along with Firefox – because the web browser is pretty much the sole app in use. Sure, I have Skype and something to stream Absolute Radio and a Twitter notifier, but 96% of what happens on that netbook happens in a browser window. And its performance in full-screen streaming video, compared to the iPad, is abysmal.
(It doesn’t help that I’m doing less text entry than I’d anticipated. I should be, but I’m not; this is being pounded out on the same MacBook Pro as ever. Maybe once I get Drivel reinstalled things will be different; I just can’t handle blogging from a web interface.)
This is not to say that I will be putting my netbook on the market in any hurry. There will be no major shakeups in the home electronics situation before September, in all likelihood, owing to the necessary wait for the new iPhone and the debate on whether to let work start picking up the check for good rather than just reimbursing my personal phone. And the temptation to lay out for a Nexus One and use T-Mobile’s monthly no-contract scheme for a while is very strong.