The netbook boom was nipped in the bud by Microsoft licensing. They gave away a free version of windows on it with heavy restrictions. Consequently hardware manufacturers brought out new models but stopped improving them (they topped out at a measly 1GB of RAM, upgradeable to 2).
They quickly died out because of course they did. That's a ridiculous restriction.
After my old one died I scoured for ages trying to find one that didn't adhere to those ridiculous restrictions to no avail. There were ~35 models available with a 2GB RAM restriction and zero without. The next year there were none.
I'd argue that the netbook boom was nipped in the bud by the introduction of the tablet. Netbooks, tablets, low-end laptops, and phablets that are too big to fit in a pocket are all the same market. They serve a person who wants to browse the web, check e-mail, instant-message, take notes, and do other information consumption tasks with a device that is small enough to carry around in a handbag or backpack but too large to fit in a pocket.
I suspect that the decline in tablet sales comes from category confusion at the edges of this market. At the low end, people are buying phablets to stick in a handbag instead of 7" tablets. At the high end, some people have gone back to lightweight laptops like the Macbook Air, Microsoft Surface, or equivalents. The "market" - defined as the group of people with similar needs - continues to grow, but a growing percentage of people are picking products from a different category to satisfy it, as more such products become available.
And now Chromebooks are eating some of the tablet market, and are absolutely replacements for the original netbooks, and are the most popular form factor of new notebook sales now.
> They gave away a free version of windows on it...
Not true. It was a low cost version of XP, for which OEMs paid $11 to $15.
> ... with heavy restrictions.
That's certainly true (as defined by Microsoft and Intel). However, it was arguably better for users to have machines with 2GB or 4GB of RAM and without letterbox screens, and there was no restriction on making those.
Today there are dozens of "netbooks" with 10in screens that outperform the old netbooks, run full Windows 10, have touch screens, and cost a lot less than the old netbooks.
> "it was arguably better for users to have machines with 2GB or 4GB of RAM"
Microsoft intentionally restricted the RAM in netbooks during the main growth period for netbooks. This article shows that RAM was limited to 1GB for Windows 7, I'm pretty sure the same restrictions applied to Windows XP:
Yes, as I've already said, that was part of the deal. OEMs could choose to design whatever they liked, or choose to exploit a netbook/nettop design package that provided some discounts on Microsoft/Intel technologies.
Chromebooks are netbooks and they seem to be doing just fine. To me they're a bastardization of what the concept what's supposed to be but that's beside the point.
I thought they had a shitty hd? The netbook was awesome because it was a full-stack dev station that was wicked portable. It wasn't the best dev environment, but I could do whatever I needed- from mysql script updates to javascript to whatever else.
No, they didn't. In fact, under OEM pressure, Microsoft foolishly prolonged their life by providing support for a next generation of netbooks with Windows 7 Starter.
Fact is that that you could get a proper laptop for the same money as a netbook, and this was much better for users.
Note that the original netbook (from Asus) had a 7in screen, and this was a substantial part of the cost saving. However, market forces drove bigger screens into the netbook market: 10in became the standard, and some had even larger screens. Prices went up to match.
The netbook actually died because OEMs reduced laptop screen sizes from 13.3in (which used to be very popular) while retaining the extra RAM (2GB or 4GB) and the extra screen resolution (1366 x 768).
At this point, many real laptops with 11.6in and 10.1in screens were cheaper than netbooks, so you had to be an idiot to buy a netbook. Or to manufacture one, which is why they disappeared from the market.
This had nothing to do with Ultrabooks.
Note that Ultrabook is an Intel trademark and Ultrabooks were also required to follow Intel's specification, which made them premium products.
But every OEM was and is able to make whatever thin-and-light laptops they like, regardless of the Ultrabook spec.
Thing is that to get XP, and later 7 Starter, OEMs have to follow strict specs defined by MS. This then choked off any potential differences the OEMs could experiment with.
Yes, that was part of the deal. OEMs could choose to design whatever they liked, or choose to exploit a netbook/nettop design package that provided some discounts on Microsoft/Intel technologies.
OEMs were not obliged to market netbooks. They did it because they thought they could make money that way.
I loved my eeePC back in college - either a 700 or 701 running, I think, Xunbuntu. Perfect for taking notes in class, which a tablet, or even the Surface RT I have now, would be garbage for. Not bad for light hacking either.
I still have two of the original eeePC machines, which I use to run antique Teletype machines. The Linux version is crappy. The WiFi connection system gets hung up if anything at all goes wrong, and the "union" file system leaks inodes, which have to be cleaned up with a script every few weeks of use.
You can get a tablet for $39, which is useful for little dedicated applications.
Still, I could buy 3-4 of my old eeePCs for the price of a Mac Air, and neither is really in the same form-factor. When you're working an $8/hour work-study job for your discretionary income, that price differential matters. The eee was also great for fitting on those comically tiny lecture hall chair-desk surfaces that a 10-13 inch laptop would swallow up, with room to spare for a honking big container of bad, strong coffee.
They would also fit on an economy-seat airline seat, and I didn't have to worry about the douche (no offense) in front of me breaking it by slamming his seat into recline mode. Was awesome.
To make matters even worse, the ones that did have adequate RAM suffered from those terrible 8/16GB SSD drives. Heck, I bet even my 32GB SDHC card is faster than those drives were.
They quickly died out because of course they did. That's a ridiculous restriction.
After my old one died I scoured for ages trying to find one that didn't adhere to those ridiculous restrictions to no avail. There were ~35 models available with a 2GB RAM restriction and zero without. The next year there were none.