Many people began their computing and interneting experience at home on a netbook; a small, lightweight and generally cheaper version of a laptop; you might have fond memories of using such devices.

They gained "popularity" through the Windows XP and Vista era, with the latter's Basic offering seemingly being ideal, along with Windows 7 Basic after that.

This wasn't my early experience of them though. As a computer technician I would often get called upon to "speed up" such devices, only to have to (often) explain to the owner that "sorry, but your device only has 1GB of RAM, this isn't enough, and it can't be upgraded." With no upgrade path and lacking sufficient RAM from new, I considered these devices to be a con, mis-sold to an unwitting public.

Fast forward to 2023 and I now have three of these devices which I found individually on ebay at cheap prices due to them having various issues:

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 10 - Originally with Windows 8 but now with Windows 10  - 4GB RAM (max.)  - Hard drive replaced with an SSD  - No ethernet socket  - Great battery, nice touch screen, but not the easiest to work on; It came to me with a broken power socket which was difficult to repair being fixed to the mainboard (it's still fragile) and the USB sockets are also problematic. The plastic casing is cracking in various places. I like the ability to fold the screen back as per the picture above (it doesn't fold all the way back though) and I often use it like this. This netbook can just about cope with playing Youtube videos, but the audio isn't great. The system has no fan so while it is nice and quiet, it does get warm with the likes of Youtube. The right mouse button is faulty on mine making some tasks awkward.

Advent 4211-B - Windows XP  - Only an Intel Atom CPU  - I use mine to host the Webcam. The screen has damaged patches around some of the edges so I've had to reposition the taskbar to the top of the screen where it is legible. The battery holds no charge in mine. I think I had to replace the keyboard... It's also missing a plastic hinge cover.

HP Pavilion Touchsmart 10-E - I have replaced the original hard drive with an SSD and installed Zorin OS Lite on it due to this netbook having a fixed 2GB of RAM. It was sold to me with Windows 10 on it and I was lead to believe the previous owner had simply forgotten their password to log in. However, upon receiving it I realised the keyboard was non-UK and also faulty (leading to the password being mistyped). I tried repairing it with the view of putting some stickers on the keys, but I was unsuccessful and had to source a replacement top panel. Sadly the battery also holds no charge although replacements are available. Like the Lenovo, it has no cooling fan.

Ultimately, I like them for being low powered (~45W) and in the case of the Lenovo and HP, they are fanless and thus silent.

The small screen size, however, make these less than ideal for full-time use in my experience, although I have tried - I am convinced that they can help curb distractions due to the small screen and low power restricting the ability/tendency to "multi-task".