Have Netbooks Lost Their Novelty?

When the Asus EeePC 701 first came out in the Philippines, I snapped up my own unit. Never mind that it was a PhP 18,000 impulse decision (I guess I had a lot of spare cash lying around at that time), but in hindsight it was well worth it. The EeePC 701 had a tiny seven-inch screen, a very limited storage of 4 GB. But it was very portable — something a road warrior like myself (or so I think) would definitely find useful.

Since then I’ve had two other netbooks. One was an EeePC 900, the “upgrade” of the 701. And the other was an HP Mini note 2133. Both the 701 and the Mini note have since been sold, with only the EeePC 900 left with me. I actually sold the Mini note to finance my planned purchase of the newer HP Mini 1000 (only a couple thousand pesos to add to the price I sold the Mini note for). But after much thought, I decided to postpone the purchase. For some reason, netbooks have lost their novelty, at least to my eye.

While I still carry the EeePC in a small neoprene tote bag, I rarely bring it along when I step out of the car, unless I expect to be doing some heavy typing while on the run. I do have other, smaller, gadgets with me I can use to email when the need arises, including my Nokie E series phone and the Xperia that was generously given to me by SonyEricsson. But at my home and home office, I’ve found it more comfortable to work on my relatively bigger laptop, which is actually still small by today’s laptop standards, at 12 inches.

I’m not discouraging anyone from buying and using netbooks. They’re great pieces of work. Five years ago, a ten-inch notebook computer would cost an arm and a leg. These days, these ultraportables are getting cheaper and cheaper (unless you count the Sony Vaio P). They’re making portable computing more accessible to the masses. And they’re saving the backs of folks like me who like to bring around the Internet wherever we go.

But for really really serious stuff, I don’t think I can rely on a netbook 100%, particularly during those times when I’m not very mobile anyway. Sure, portability is great, but when you’re just working at your desk, you’d rather have a more comfortable keyboard so your fingers would work at a more natural position. You’d rather have a bigger screen, so you don’t have to squint just to see things clearly.

Yes, netbooks are still great. But in a way, the novelty of cheap, ultraportable computing is beginning to wear off.

Or perhaps that’s only the case until my next netbook purchase!