They were unbearably slow even back then. I returned my 1000H with its Atom N270 after a day and saved a little more money until I was able to afford a 2008 MacBook. Never regretted it. On the contrary, this marked my complete move to MacOS which saved me from continuing to use Windows.
You returned a $200 netbook and only needed a little more money to get an $1100 MacBook?
I paid 430€ for the Eee and I paid 1100€ for the MacBook. Sure that‘s not just a little more money.
However, the way I calculate such purchases is: price divided by years of usage. I used the MacBook as a main computer for four years until I could afford a more powerful Mac mini as my desktop computer. I continued to use my MacBook intensively for university and for mobile photo editing for another five years. This means a total lifespan of nine years or 122€ per year.
If I had stalled my decision not to send back the Eee and try working with it ignoring the shortcomings, I maybe would have used it for a year or a couple of months longer. The netbook trend, according to my recollection was quite short so I guess I couldn‘t have sold it for a good price then.
So what I actually wanted to say is that the MacBook, despite it costing more than double, was by far the better deal for me.
For a hot minute, I had a 9-inch screen Dell laptop that could barely run Windows 7.
These small form factor PCs were pretty cool at the time, I remember loving the little thing.
A good stepping stone product, but netbooks weren’t destined to last long. Beyond the rosie tint of nostalgia, it was a pretty impractical device. Good enough display for DVD video, but no dvd drive or enough onboard storage to handle a selection of movies (at an acceptable encoding for the time, at least). Big enough to require a flat surface or a lap to type on but not powerful enough to justify it, and a very cramped typing surface at that.
Eventually they got replaced by tablets/convertibles, large phones, and ultrabooks. And all much better platforms in all ways, IMO.
At the time there was no other way to get on the internet on the move than this except laptops which were really expensive then. This thing with a USB UMTS modem was just the coolest shit.
My 701 with 2gb ram and extended battery still works. I used to go wardriving with that thing!
I still have one of those in the basement. No idea if it works, though. It was really awesome in its day.
