The History of Mini Notebooks
People love taking things on-the-go. And they love smaller versions of the real thing. One of the first real instances of this was the portable CD player. When they arrived, we no longer wanted to listen to music at home or in the car, because now we could listen to it in the grocery store. Yeah, thats right, the grocery store (Sounds strange, but I know a woman whos done that). Or how about popcorn chicken, or Pop Tarts, or iPods? All of these are examples of things we as humans have created to suffice our need to take things with us.
And introducing, the mini notebook — an even more portable version of a laptop (sometimes called a “netbook), just when you thought they couldn’t get any smaller. These new notebooks are breaking new ground in high speed technology on such low-cost/small-sized devices, and are more useful for their wireless internet sides rather than program capabilities.
The Network Computer In the 1990s, Oracle developed a desktop computer which relied solely on programming. It had no external drives or disk inputs whatsoever. They called it the Network Computer. This was the predecessor for the netbook. Unfortunately, this idea was much too ahead of its time being that Internet speeds only ran at 28.8 kb/s. Its slow speed made the Network Computer seemingly useless and therefore it was eventually scrapped.
One Laptop Per Child In 2005, the One Laptop Per Child organization was founded. Their goal was to create cheap laptops to educate children in developing countries. After a couple years, they achieved their goal, and by Christmas, 2007, the XO-1 laptop was available. It sold for 188 dollars per unit, when purchased by thousand. They were extremely durable and have a long battery life. This new laptop made great strides for the mini notebook, and many more were to follow.
Eee PC Shortly after, ASUS created the standard in mini notebooks. It was called the Eee PC. It only weighed about 2 pounds with a 10 inch screen. Shortly after, companies like Dell, MSI, and HP all created their own mini notebooks and by the end of 2008, they were becoming so popular that they took money away from normal laptop sales.
This craze is now just beginning to bloom. Who knows what the future holds for these devices? What we do know is that we are living on the cutting edge of technology, and we can count on much more to come.
February 28th, 2010 at 1:28 am
I can relate to this really easy, thank you. I have subscribed to your RSS.