Netbooks: A terminal by any other name

Little computers been around for longer than the Asus Eee PC, and they still have a way to go

I'll admit it -- I'm a big fan of tiny computers. Everything from my stalwart MacBook Air to the Toshiba Libretto and Dell Mini 9 sitting in the lab are testaments to that. But to look around the market today and to read the blog posts and articles written about the netbook phenomenon, you'd think that Asus invented the concept of the tiny portable with the Eee. The company did make it cheap, but it's certainly nowhere near the first to try the tiny form-factor.

In my garage, running Fedora Core 4, is a Sony Vaio SR-7K. It boasts 512MB of RAM, a P-III 600MHz CPU, and a 10.4-inch screen. No Wi-Fi, no built-in Ethernet, no Bluetooth, no optical drive, but it's an incredibly tiny 9-year-old system that still works fine. I use it for reference in the garage when I'm working on my cars. Is it a netbook? Well, no, not strictly speaking because there are no network interfaces native to the unit, but its diminutive size and suggested uses bear more of a resemblance to the MacBook Air's features than anything else, even if there's a Wi-Fi PC Card sticking out the side.

[ The InfoWorld Test Center rates netbooks for business. See which came out on top. | InfoWorld editor in chief Eric Knorr offers notes from the netbook revolution. ]

One thing that the Vaio had, though, was a completely usable keyboard. The current crop of netbooks seem to have some significant problems in that regard. Perhaps the most usable keyboard I've seen on a recent netbook was the 10-inch Eee. While I think coding on that unit would drive me nuts, it's quite usable for most other tasks. With the Dell Mini 9, coding isn't even an option, really. With the {}, [], ~, and | keys accessible only via Fn-key, it's really a nonstarter. In fact, the ridiculous placement of the single- and double-quote key to the right of the spacebar makes just typing contractions a pain. Fortunately you can remap a few keys to make it slightly easier to use. Or you could drop $20 and get the US-INTL keyboard that shrinks the letter keys by 2mm in width, but provides many more regularly accessible punctuation keys. It's still a tiny keyboard no matter how you slice it.