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A netbook is a small-sized
laptop computer A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...
; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in late 2007, as smaller-than-typical laptop computers optimized for low weight and low cost, netbooks began appearing without certain then-standard laptop features (such as an optical drive), and with less computing power than in full-sized laptops. They ranged in size from about 5" screen diagonal to 12", with a typical weight of about (), and were often significantly less expensive than other laptops. Soon after their appearance, netbooks grew in size and features, and converged with smaller laptops and
subnotebook Subnotebook, also called ultraportable, superportable, handtop, mini notebook or mini laptop, is a type of laptop computer that is smaller and lighter than a typical notebook-sized laptop. Types and sizes As typical laptop sizes have decreas ...
s until the specifications were so similar that there was little distinction between the devices. At their peak, the low cost gave them a significant portion of the laptop computer market. When
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
released, netbook manufacturers had to increase specifications in order for their devices to run it. This had the effect of pushing netbooks into a market niche where they had few distinctive advantages over traditional laptops. With these constraints and the increasing popularity of
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...
s in 2011, it led to declining sales of netbooks. By the end of 2012, few new laptops were marketed as "netbooks", and the term disappeared from common usage.


History

While Psion had an unrelated netBook line of machines, the use of the broad marketing term "netbook", began in 2007 when Asus unveiled the Asus Eee PC. Originally designed for emerging markets, the device weighed about and featured a display, a keyboard approximately 85% the size of a normal keyboard, a
solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk. SSDs rely on non- ...
and a custom version of
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
with a simplified
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
geared towards consumer use. Following the Eee PC, Everex launched its Linux-based CloudBook;
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
and
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
models were also introduced and MSI released the
Wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...
—others soon followed suit. The OLPC project followed the same market goals laid down by the eMate 300 eight years earlier. Known for its innovation in producing a durable, cost- and power-efficient netbook for
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...
, it is regarded as one of the major factors that led more top computer hardware manufacturers to begin creating low-cost netbooks for the consumer market. When the first Asus Eee PC sold over 300,000 units in four months, companies such as
Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
and Acer took note and began producing their own inexpensive netbooks. And while the OLPC XO-1 targets a different audience than do the other manufacturers' netbooks, it appears that OLPC is now facing competition. Developing countries now have a large choice of vendors, from which they can choose which low-cost netbook they prefer. By late 2008, netbooks began to take
market share Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a Market (economics), market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those ...
away from
notebooks A notebook is a small book often used for writing. Notebook or The Notebook may also refer to: Computing *Laptop, a type of personal computer **Notebook (laptop), a specific, smaller class of laptop *Google Notebook, a discontinued online appli ...
. It was more successful than earlier "mini notebooks," most likely because of lower cost and greater compatibility with mainstream laptops. Having peaked at about 20% of the portable computer market, netbooks started to slightly lose market share (within the category) in early 2010, coinciding with the appearance and success of the
iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
. Technology commentator Ross Rubin argued two and a half years later in
Engadget Engadget ( ) is a technology news, reviews and analysis website offering daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics, video games, gaming hardware, apps, social media, streaming, AI, space, robotics, electric vehicles and other potentially ...
that "Netbooks never got any respect. While Steve Jobs rebuked the netbook at the iPad's introduction, the iPad owes a bit of debt to the little laptops. The netbook demonstrated the potential of an inexpensive, portable second computing device, with a screen size of about 10 inches, intended primarily for media consumption and light productivity." Although some manufacturers directly blamed competition from the iPad, some analysts pointed out that larger, fully fledged laptops had entered the price range of netbooks at about the same time. The 11.6-inch
MacBook Air The MacBook Air is a line of Mac (computer), Mac laptop computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc., Apple since 2008. It features a thin, light structure in a machining, machined aluminum case and currently either a 13-inch or 15-inch ...
, introduced in late 2010, compared favorably to many netbooks in terms of processing power but also ergonomics, at 2.3 pounds being lighter than some 10-inch netbooks, owing in part to the integration of the flash storage chips on the main logic board. It was described as a superlative netbook (or at least as what a netbook should be) by several technology commentators, even though Apple has never referred to it as such, sometimes describing it—in the words of
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
—as "the third kind of notebook." The entry-level model had an MSRP of $999, costing as much as three or four times more than the average netbook. In 2011 tablet sales overtook netbooks for the first time, and in 2012 netbook sales fell by 25 percent, year-on-year. The sustained decline since 2010 had been most pronounced in the United States and in Western Europe, while Latin America was still showing some modest growth. In December 2011,
Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
announced that it was exiting the netbook market. In May 2012,
Toshiba is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...
announced it was doing the same, at least in the United States. An August 2012 article by John C. Dvorak in ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...
'' claimed that the term "netbook" was "nearly gone from the lexicon already", having been superseded in the market place largely by the more powerful (and MacBook Air inspired) Ultrabook—described as "a netbook on steroids"—and to a lesser extent by tablets. In September 2012 Asus, Acer and MSI announced that they will stop manufacturing 10-inch netbooks. Simultaneously Asus announced they would stop developing all Eee PC products, instead focusing on their mixed tablet-netbook
Transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...
line. With the introduction of
Chromebook Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google. Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...
s, major manufacturers produced the new laptops for the same segment of the market that netbooks serviced. Chromebooks, a variation on the
network computer In computer networking, a thin client, sometimes called slim client or lean client, is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are som ...
concept, in the form of a netbook, require internet connections for full functionality. Chromebooks became top selling laptops in 2014. The threat of Google ChromeOS based Chromebooks prompted Microsoft to revive and revamp netbooks with ''Windows 8.1 with Bing''. HP re-entered the non-Chromebook netbook market with the ''Stream 11'' in 2014..


Educational use

In Australia, the
New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
Department of Education and Training, in partnership with
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...
, provided Year 9 (high school) students in government high schools with Lenovo S10e netbooks in 2009, Lenovo Mini 10 netbooks in 2010, Lenovo Edge 11 netbooks in 2011 and a modified Lenovo X130e netbook in 2012, each preloaded with software including
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at CO ...
and
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...
' Creative Suite 4. These were provided under Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and June to September 2013. He held office as the Leaders of the Australian Labo ...
's Digital Education Revolution, or DER. The netbooks ran Windows 7 Enterprise. These netbooks were secured with Computrace Lojack for laptops that the police can use to track the device if it is lost or stolen. The NSW DET retains ownership of these netbooks until the student graduates from Year 12, when the student can keep it. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago—Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bisseser—is also providing HP laptops to form 1 Students (11-year-olds) with the same police trackable software as above.
Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
provided all 13-year-old students (middle school, or '' gymnasium'', freshmen) and their teachers with netbooks in 2009 through the "Digital Classroom Initiative". Students were given one unique coupon each, with which they redeemed the netbook of their choice, up to a €450 price ceiling, in participating shops throughout the country. These netbooks came bundled with localized versions of either
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
(or higher) or
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
(e.g.
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
) operating systems, wired and wireless networking functionality, antivirus protection, preactivated parental controls, and an educational software package.


Hardware

Netbooks typically have less powerful hardware than larger laptop computers and do not include an
optical disc drive In computing, an optical disc drive (ODD) is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can on ...
that contemporaneous laptop computers often had. Netbooks were some of the first machines to substitute solid-state storage devices, instead of the traditional
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...
commonly found on laptop and desktop computers at the time. This was due to solid-state drives being smaller, more power efficient, and more shock resistant. Unlike modern solid-state drives, these early models often did ''not'' offer better performance. Almost all netbooks supported
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...
and some supported
Mobile broadband Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile network, mobile (cell) networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartp ...
. Some also include
Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
and/or modems. Most netbooks used low-end, x86 processors focused on low power consumption. The majority of early netbooks typically used processors from the
Intel Atom Intel Atom is a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Core series. Atom is m ...
line, but some used competing processors from
AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...
, including netbook APUs, or VIA Technologies, including the C7 and Nano. Some very low-cost netbooks use a
system-on-a-chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with memory, input/output, and dat ...
Vortex86 processor designed for
embedded system An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is e ...
s. A few netbooks used non-x86 processors based on ARM or MIPS architectures.


Operating systems


Windows

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
announced on April 8, 2008, that, despite the impending end of retail availability for the operating system that June, it would continue to license low-cost copies of
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
Home Edition to OEMs through October 2010 (one year after the release of
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
) for what it defined as "ultra low-cost personal computers"—a definition carrying restrictions on screen size and processing power. The move served primarily to counter the use of low-cost Linux distributions on netbooks and create a new market segment for Windows devices, whilst ensuring that the devices did not cannibalize the sales of higher-end PCs running
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
. In 2009, over 90% (96% claimed by Microsoft as of February 2009) of netbooks in the United States were estimated to ship with Windows XP. For
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
, Microsoft introduced a new stripped-down edition intended for netbooks known as "Starter", exclusively for OEMs. In comparison to Home Premium, Starter has reduced multimedia functionality, does not allow users to change their desktop wallpaper or theme, disables the " Aero Glass" theme, and does not have support for multiple monitors. For
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...
, in a ploy to counter
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...
-based netbooks and low-end Android tablets, Microsoft began to offer no-cost Windows licenses to OEMs for devices with screens smaller than 9 inches in size. Additionally, Microsoft began to offer low-cost licenses for a variant of the operating system set up to use Microsoft's
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...
by default.
Windows CE Windows CE, later known as Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact, is a discontinued operating system developed by Microsoft for mobile and embedded devices. It was part of the Windows Embedded family and served as the software foun ...
has also been used in netbooks, due to its reduced feature set.


Android

Google's Android software platform, designed for mobile telephone handsets, has been demonstrated on an ASUS Eee PC and its version of the Linux operating system contains policies for mobile internet devices including the original Asus Eee PC 701. ASUS has allocated engineers to develop an Android-based netbook. In May 2009 a contractor of Dell announced it is porting Adobe Flash Lite to Android for Dell netbooks. Acer announced Android netbooks to be available in Q3/2009. In July 2009, a new project, Android-x86, was created to provide an open source solution for Android on the x86 platform, especially for netbooks.


ChromeOS

In 2011,
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
introduced
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...
, a Linux-based operating system designed particularly for netbook-like devices marketed as "
Chromebook Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google. Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...
s". The platform is designed to leverage online services,
cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
, and its namesake Chrome
web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
as its
shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...
—so much so that the operating system initially used a full screen web browser window as its interface, and contained limited offline functionality. Later versions of ChromeOS introduced a traditional
desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...
interface and a platform allowing "native" packaged software written in
HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
,
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
, and CSS to be developed for the platform.


Other

Netbooks have sparked the development of several Linux variants or completely new distributions, which are optimized for small screen use and the limited processing power of the Atom or ARM processors which typically power netbooks. Examples include Ubuntu Netbook Edition, EasyPeasy, Joli OS and MeeGo. Both Joli OS and MeeGo purport to be "social oriented" or social networking operating systems rather than traditional "office work production" operating systems. Netbook users can also install other UNIX-based operating systems such as
FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...
,
NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...
,
OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...
, and Darwin. Since 2010, major netbook manufacturers no longer install or support Linux in the United States. The reason for this change of stance is unclear, although it coincides with the availability of a 'netbook' version of Windows XP, and a later Windows 7 Starter and a strong marketing push for the adoption of this OS in the netbook market. However, companies targeting niche markets, such as System76 and ZaReason, continue to pre-install Linux on the devices they sell. The
Cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
operating system attempted to capitalize on the minimalist aspect of netbooks. The user interface was limited to a browser application only.
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
has been demonstrated running on various netbooks as a result of the OSx86 project, although this is in violation of the operating system's
end-user license agreement An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user. The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has ...
. Apple has complained to sites hosting information on how to install OS X onto non-Apple hardware (including ''
Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...
'' and
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
) who have reacted and removed content in response. One article nicknamed a netbook running OS X a " Hackintosh."


Use

A June 2009 NPD study found that 60% of netbook buyers never take their netbooks out of the house. Special "children's" editions of netbooks have been released under Disney branding; their low cost (less at risk), lack of DVD player (less to break) and smaller keyboards (closer to children's hand sizes) are viewed as significant advantages for that target market. The principal objection to netbooks in this context is the lack of good video performance for streaming online video in current netbooks and a lack of speed with even simple games. Adults browsing for text content are less dependent on video content than small children who cannot read. Netbooks offer several distinct advantages in educational settings. First, their compact size and weight make for an easy fit in student work areas. Similarly, their small size makes netbooks easier to transport than heavier, larger sized traditional laptops. In addition, prices ranging from $200–$600 mean the affordability of netbooks can be a relief to school budget makers. Despite the small size and price, netbooks are fully capable of accomplishing most school-related tasks, including word processing, presentations, access to the Internet, multimedia playback, and photo management.


Trademarks and Psion lawsuit

In 1996 Psion started applying for trademarks for a line of ''netBook'' products that was later released in 1999. International trademarks were issued (including an
EUTM 000428250
but the models failed to gain popularity and were discontinued by the time modern netbooks came about (except for providing accessories, maintenance and support to existing users). Similar marks were recently rejected by the
USPTO The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Ale ...
citing a "likelihood of confusion" under section 2(d). Despite expert analysis that the mark is "probably generic", Psion Teklogix issued cease and desist letters on December 23, 2008. This was heavily criticized, prompting the formation of the "Save the Netbooks"
grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from volunteers at the local level to imp ...
campaign which worked to reverse the Google AdWords ban, cancel the trademark and encourage continued generic use of the term. While preparing a "Petition for Cancellation" of they revealed that
Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
had submitted one day before on the basis of abandonment, genericness and fraud. They later revealed Psion's counter-suit against
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
, filed on February 27, 2009. It was also revealed around the same time that Intel had also sued Psion Teklogix (US & Canada) and Psion (UK) in the Federal Court on similar grounds. In addition to seeking cancellation of the trademark, Intel sought an order enjoining Psion from asserting any trademark rights in the term "netbook", a declarative judgment regarding their use of the term, attorneys' fees, costs and disbursements and "such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper". On June 2, 2009, Psion announced that the suit had been settled out of court. Psion's statement said that the company was withdrawing all of its trademark registrations for the term "Netbook" and that Psion agreed to "waive all its rights against third parties in respect of past, current or future use" of the term.


See also


References


External links


"The rise of the Netbook"
article at CNET
"The State of the Netbook"
article at
Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

"The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time"
article at
Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

"Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry"
article at ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' {{Authority control Appropriate technology Cloud clients Information appliances Japanese inventions Laptops 2007 neologisms