Using a Netbook in 2024 - Is it any Good?

Netbooks! The teeny tiny little computers that could..... kinda. An underpowered solution for porable computing in the late 2000s that is obsolete today. But how usable are these things in 2024?

[Social Media]

[PO Box]
Daniel D
Parcel Locker 10217 40583
Shop 62 303 Grange Rd Findon SA 5023

0:00 - Intro
8:48 - Netbook #1
34:20 - Netbook #2
56:54 - Netbook #3
1:11:02 - Outro

[Ptero]

The lack of the Win7 boot screen isn't because it's starter, it's because the fancy Win7 boot animation requires a screen resolution of 1024x768 or higher and that netbook have a screen that have the 1024x600 resolution that is so typical of netbooks.

[Skyline-gkgc]

as a chinese myself, when the first laptop booted up i just felt a surge of nostalgia. that's just one reflection of most typical home laptop or pcs back in 2010s, and it surely was my memory

[ArielSings]

The popup at 11:10 is from a well-known, but kind of infamous Chinese software called 360 Safeguard. The first popup said that your computer boots in 1 minute and 2 seconds, beating 23% of all computers, and suggesting that you should do 6 optimizations. The second popup and the ball at 11:37 came from its system monitoring software, saying that your computer had used 25% of memory and suggested you close some programs (even though the computer is totally fine).
That software is supposed to work like an antivirus and PC optimization software. However, it could take up so many resources and so difficult to uninstall, such that it behaves more like malware. Nevertheless, it is commonly found in computers owned by the Chinese elderly.

[AzureDrawings]

7:01 that, my friend, is a 1malaysia netbook, they were given out free by the Malaysian government. It was just a generic chinese netbook with eyesore of a 1malaysia sticker placed on top of the lid, the hard drives in those netbooks were notorious for failing constantly. As far as I'm aware they replaced these with much better (but still bad) Acer Aspire Ones

[doveofdestiny]

This guy must be Dankpod's long lost brother.

[eduardosantabaya]

netbooks still can run on Linux Mint, I've repaired the Eee700 (7"), 900 (9") and 1000/1005/1010 (10"), the Atom D255 (in German, I live in Argentina, I speak Spanish), the Toshiba NB100/105, and lots of HP Minis, the worst limitation was the ram. We have lots of netbooks as our country gave lots of them to pupils in schools (MIT's OLPC initiative), after 2015 processors were upgraded to Celerons and ram increased to 4 gigs. Those netbooks were crucial in 2020 during the pandemic to keep educational services alive. I sold a month ago a HP Mini-210 with w10 Mini OS (a modified w10). They still have life remaining, not that much, but they're still useful.

[japareaggae]

49:52 - In the late 00's/early 10's, it was pretty common practice by PC repair corner shops (at least in Brazil) to make 2 partitions on an HD when installing Windows on someone's computer, and the technician would tell the user to save all their data in the second partition. That way, when the computer inevitably needed to be wiped again, the technician would just wipe the Windows partition and keep the second partition intact. Of course, the user would almost never use that partition because they would keep saving their stuff in the default folders, which are in the Windows partition. Good times!

[OlegDorbitt]

That Eee PC keyboard layout is not that bad. The one on Russian Eee's is miserable, though: firstly 2 or 3 keys on the right of each letter row are even smaller (to fit in rarely used letters), and secondly, some genius decided to move the tilde key into the function row, left of Esc. Yes, that means the function keys are shifted one position to the right! Got muscle memory? Throw it in the traaaash.

[luki]

I have an EEE 1001PX with 2GB ram, Atom N450 and a 250SSD still in everyday use with Q4OS 64bit :D I bought it for school, than I used it as a toolbox to repair other PCs (storing ISOs and installers and to create bootdrives), now it's a "mancave pc" hooked up to a 4:3 monitor and external m+k and speakers. Mainly it's a jukebox/netradio, a little "focus typewriter" so I can write without distractions. Also it's a little beast with dosbox to play old games, really a nice project PC. It also had a 32 bit W7 setup for some old games. Great little pc serving me 15+ years now for almost every single day. Of course not my main PC but i would really miss it if it dies someday and probably get a similar for the same purpose :D

[Omegapork]

I find Netbooks really endearing! They try so hard :)

[precisionxt]

One thing I’ve found Netbooks useful for is a diagnostic PC for automotive purposes (think OBDII). Not as cumbersome as a regular notebook and it doesn’t require much processing power. Adding an SSD always helps too.

[vespertinnee]

13:20 dang my guy flat out ignored firefox and green chinese inet explorer, that's harsh

[jessragan]

Bill Gates killed the netbook. He wouldn't let the product line evolve, demanding that the machines use extremely low hardware specs and punishing anyone who went over those specs with high Windows licensing fees. Chromebooks don't have that problem because, of course, they're not using Windows.

[ristopoho]

That eee PC being covered in motor oil tells that it was used just as intended. As a small crap for a workshop that you can google parts numbers or whatever on. Much better for that purpose than for any office work at all.

[RedVRCC]

old netbooks in this video being used in 2024: "oh hi thanks for checking in I'm _🎵still a piece of garbage🎵"_

[EgoChip]

I used to have an MSI netbook as a daily driver about 7-8 years ago. It was a dual core Celeron and was actually quite good for what it was, especially with SSD and RAM upgrade. It worked up until last year when the on-board RAM failed, so now it's pretty much dead.

[aserta]

36:58 welp, that's nice. Removing ram without removing the battery. That never went wrong in the history of computing. 💡

[lzfilmsproductions]

You may not know this, but in Latin America, in countries like Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile or Brazil, the government allocated money to distribute the famous netbooks to the educational community. The first models left a lot to be desired, but the latest models already had better features. Today, at least in my country Argentina, they still give out modern netbooks, with Windows 11 and 8 GB of RAM, and some models come with Intel I5.

[joshwa]

Specifications for each laptop:

8:48 - Netbook #1: Asus Aspire ONE D255 Specifications:
RAM: 1GB
HDD: 160GB HDD
SCREEN: 10.1inch
Windows XP

34:20 - Netbook #2: PC100 / CloudNet Go Specifications:
RAM: 1GB DDR2
HDD: 160GB HDD (Fujitsu)
SCREEN: 10.6inch (1024x600)
Windows 7

56:54 - Netbook #3: Toshiba NB520 Specifications:
RAM: 2GB
HDD: 320GB?
SCREEN: 10.1inch
Windows 7

[BeginningTry]

The color of the Toshiba Netbook is Gimblit - BCA476 with an RGB of 188, 164, 118.