about a year after 'netbook's came out, the iPad was in the wild and it destroyed any chance of these ever catching on.. sure, they were cheaper, but the user experience on a tablet was just so much better. (and tablets got cheaper fast)
I basically only see them referenced mockingly these days but man I loved the netbook era. A 200 dollar computer dual booting Ubuntu and Windows XP (just to play Counter Strike 1.6 and Age of Expires) was a dream come true for high school me.
I got the original iPad as a graduation present and as futuristic as it was ended quickly lost its lustre for me thanks to Apple's walled garden.
Took a few more years until I was rocking Debian via Crostini on the first Samsung ARM Chromebook to scratch that low cost Linux ultraportable itch again (with about triple the battery life and a third as thick as a bonus).
