Can Netbooks Be Cool Again?

I had an Acer netbook several years ago. It worked well for email and the occasional photoshop edit, but outside of that, it wasn't a replacement by any means. Now a days, there are so many choices ranging from 11" laptops (like the MacBook Air or similar Dell, that can be specced out to specs like 512GB SSD, a modern i5, and 8GB RAM, which is plenty for most people), all the way to slim as fuck 13" laptops (or say, the 12" MacBook). There are just too many good choices to bring back shitty ass netbooks. Idk, I suppose I'm biased a bit, due to being on here (or maybe just because I put in the due diligence when researching my next laptop).

krotch said:

I couldn't justify getting a Gsync monitor at all, since I never see screen tearing. That or I've simply never noticed it. I tend to set my games to always get well above 60 fps, cause I know there will come times when it'll dip below and I don't want it to get anywhere near 30 fps.

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Truth, I never really notice it, and the very rare times I catch a glimpse, it doesn't bother me at all. I'm content using a 4K 60Hz 40" as a monitor. Will last a long time I hope.

Cost would be the only reason to bring netbooks back. It's definitely not size, as you mentioned. There's all kinds of 12" or smaller laptops/tablets on the market. It's just they'll easily be double, triple, quadruple the price. I'd go for one, cause I'd rather have a cheap machine. I'd only be using it in the garage to look up info on the net, hold car maintenance manuals, or play music/videos while working on the car. That or pull up trouble codes off the car. I got a Surface 3 to do that. It's got grease all over that stupid fabricy keyboard and because it's like a fabric, you can't just wipe it clean. I would have preferred it at a lower price point, as it doesn't get massive use, but oh well.

Netbooks were an attempt to get where laptops try to go now by sacrificing performance for form factor. Laptops try to hold onto performance, but the array of $1500+ laptops with 13" inch screens tells me there's some compromise. Something tells me if you took the largest netbook screens which were 11.6:" and pushed the screen out to the edge of the bezel. It wouldn't be too far from what is called 13". So I don't think the idea really disappeared, just accomplished a more expensive way. So it's not a 'bug' or failing but a feature like 'low profile'.

I don't get why people are dismissing Chromebooks as uncool. What do I not understand?

bman212121 said:

Chromebooks are netbook replacements though, and those are not cool at all.

A "netbook" will likely never be cool, because it's meant to be cheap. You're not buying a cheap pile of junk because you want to, it's because it's within your budget. All of the "cool" toys are well over $1,000, because they actually have decent hardware in them.

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Have you looked at the high-end Chromebooks from Dell and HP, etc?

I picked up an Acer Aspire One back in college (2009) for note taking in class. Was the 2GB RAM/8GB SSD/Atom model. I got rid of the crappy Linux it came with and used Kuki Linux. Was part of that community and even hosted a mirror for them. As fun as contributing to that community was, the Atom processor sucked and we had to create a very stripped down version of Linux to run on the AAO.

the_servicer said:

I don't get why people are dismissing Chromebooks as uncool. What do I not understand?

Have you looked at the high-end Chromebooks from Dell and HP, etc?

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Considering you bump 2 week old threads, you might not understand what "cool" is! /s (Just kidding)

Seriously though yes I've seen they exist, and have no desire to pursue one. I'm not sure what part of the spec sheet tickles your fancy, but:

HP 13.3" 32GB Chromebook 13 G1
1.2 GHz Intel Core m7-6Y75 Dual-Core

• 16GB of 1866 MHz LPDDR3 RAM

• 13.3" UWVA eDP BrightView Display

• QHD+ 3200 x 1800 Screen Resolution

• Integrated Intel HD Graphics 515

• 32GB of eMMC Storage

• microSD/SDHC/SDXC Card Reader

• 802.11ac Wi-Fi & Bluetooth 4.2

• 2 x USB 3.0 Type-C & 1 x USB 3.0 Type-A

• Chrome OS (64-bit)

32GB of storage? 1.2ghz processor? And still costs $1,000+
But there's a high resolution screen! Can I calibrate it with a professional calibration tool? Nope.

I can get one of these:

Asus 303UB

Screen Size 13.3 inches
Screen Resolution 3200 x 1200
Max Screen Resolution 3200*1800 pixels
Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
RAM 12 GB DDR3
Memory Speed 1600 MHz
Hard Drive 512 GB SSD
Graphics Coprocessor Nvidia GT940M 2GB
Chipset Brand nvidia
Card Description dedicated
Wireless Type 802.11 A/C
Number of USB 3.0 Ports 3

For a couple dollars more. ($1,199 as of now) It runs a full blown OS that can do anything, has 16 times the storage, discrete graphics and an i7 processor!

I like to be able to actually use my system for a myriad of tasks, and chromebooks simply don't work for that. If the only thing you're using it for is light web browsing, google docs, and probably some video playback you could get away with a chromebook. But why limit yourself? This is [H], and I don't think I could even begin to describe all of the ways that a normal laptop can function that a chromebook cannot. I DO use it for rdp / ssh / vpn, photo / video editing tasks, gaming, alternate OS booting via a thumb drive, VMs, Internet sharing, etc etc. I can plug in a vast array of peripherals that will work out of the box. I know that anything I can come up with, I can likely get to work under Windows (or Linux booted of a thumb drive). Going the other way will be severely limited on what you can do, which is what makes even the "high end" chromebooks uncool. Cool for [H] users is when you can tether your phone to your laptop, then use a crossover cable to attach a usb to Ethernet adapter between your computer and some old Windows XP pc that your relatives have which is still on dialup so you can download software updates without tearing your hair out. It would be cool if I could put my server VMs onto my laptop so that at the next lanparty, I have everything that I need to run the dedicated servers on a separate computer without having to lug another full system along. With a full blown OS, that is certainly possible.

You should look at Dell's "high end" Chromebook. What a piece of junk for $389. That's with their instant savings. They list it as $555.71.

It's a Celeron C3855 processor, 4 GB memory, and 16 GB SSD. You can buy a normal i3 laptop for $389 or less.

If that's the price of an HP Chromebook, I'd just get an i5 Surface Pro 4 for hundreds less.