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Hm.. $50 netbook (per slashdot via "justdeals" on ebay)

I guess all storage is using a USB flashdisk (not included)?

For less then $50 I can pick up a nice old full notebook.
 
Unknown_K said:
I guess all storage is using a USB flashdisk (not included)?

For less then $50 I can pick up a nice old full notebook.
Click to expand...

Indeed, for that price you can probably pick up a laptop that actually works.

But not a red one. That's really nice:

sylvania_cvs_box.jpg
 
Netbooks are like the old stand alone portable DVD players. Those devices were cool when most laptops could not play DVD's, but once every laptop could play DVDs you didnt need a stand alone player. Netbooks will die off when phones get larger screens (already happening) and we get much better ultra portable laptops (happening as well).
 
Quite true. Probably the wrong crowd here lol, most of us have spare laptops of similar power laying around. To me it would just be a dos system or emulator, etc or what I was originally thinking was parts inside for other vintage gear. However at that price it isn't as intriguing. This was from a /. article referring to the lack of the cheap PCs that get promised although I think an ebay auction isn't a valid reflection of a product price. If it was $45 on the manufacturer website, then sure I'd be happy and supportive. Regardless thought it was an interesting price and perhaps worth it for those who would normally have shipping kill and tax kill the value. If anything it can be your portable C64 or AmigaOS system.
 
This Sylvania Laptop is a Complete SCAM, with 128mb you won't be able to do anything,if you play youtube videos lags is only good for Browsing internet ,My choice is to buy one from Craigslist P4 for $70 and it runs 10 Times Faster or if you or if you like Touchscreen try the new EPAD Tablet for China 1ghz ,512mb you can stream Youtube videos fast and Search online at reliable speed for less than $100
 
bolly92 said:
This Sylvania Laptop is a Complete SCAM, with 128mb you won't be able to do anything,if you play youtube videos lags is only good for Browsing internet ,My choice is to buy one from Craigslist P4 for $70 and it runs 10 Times Faster or if you or if you like Touchscreen try the new EPAD Tablet for China 1ghz ,512mb you can stream Youtube videos fast and Search online at reliable speed for less than $100
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You're right about the old P4 being the best buy in a usable computer. The Chinese EPAD also sounds like a decent buy in a small form factor.

I get what barythrin was on about though. I'm just thinking about resurrecting a 486 laptop (possibly a PI) so I can use it around the house for notes and stuff. I'm quite happy with lynx, telnet, and ftp for practical purposes. A little red box like the above would be nice running DOS or FreeBSD without a GUI.
 
Unknown_K said:
Netbooks are like the old stand alone portable DVD players. Those devices were cool when most laptops could not play DVD's, but once every laptop could play DVDs you didnt need a stand alone player. Netbooks will die off when phones get larger screens (already happening) and we get much better ultra portable laptops (happening as well).
Click to expand...
Tablets are what is shutting down the netbook market, not so much phones. Ultra books are way too expensive, not the same market.

That Sylvania device is not really a netbook, is really a PDA running WindowsCE.
 
Compgeke said:
I find it funny, I think of Sylvania and light bulbs, not electronics.
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Same with Polaroid, we all remember them for photography equipment. And now cheap TVs and other electronics have their name on it. Anything to try to make some money. The original Westinghouse is wayyyyy long gone from this practice.
 
That thing doesn't really count as a netbook, it's powered by an ARM processor. I think to most people, "netbook" implies one of the cheap ~$200 ones that have an x86 chip (usually the Intel Atom)... I don't see x86 netbooks going anywhere for a while, they are very handy machines that are very affordable. I have an Asus EeePC 1005PEG running Windows 7 and Debian, and I take it to college with me to do work and research on. It's extremely lightweight, and I get 7 hours out of a full battery charge as long as I keep the screen brightness around 50%. That could be extended quite a bit by replacing the hard drive with a SSD.

It's got a built-in 3G broadband modem, which I have an AT&T 1 GB plan for. Anywhere I take it I have very fast cellular internet access as long is there is a signal in the area. Most of the time I pull 5 mbit downstream. It's got plenty of power for most tasks. Best $215 I've ever spent. Even some semi-recent 3D games run okay on it. Sometimes I play Need for Speed Most Wanted on it.

Anyway, yeah those Sylvania machines are utterly worthless. You can spend $20 at somebody's garage sale for an old Pentium III laptop, and it would be infinitely more capable than that Sylvania junk.
 
I also agree I wouldn't call that a netbook. It's more of a toy computer really.

I also have a Atom based netbook, good for email, not good for Photoshop and Illustrator (which I forced it through lol).
 
I had heard some pretty scary reviews on several "netbooks" running Atom proc that vendors were using as well. Several reviews on some of those sub-$200 systems were that it lagged on flash videos. I was just curious so here are the rants and feedback too from the slashdot community. Not too forgiving either.
 
We tried a Chinese Epad about a year ago. Bought it on Ebay for the wife. It lasted about 4 days, just long enough to leave positive feedback, then the touch screen stopped taking input. Even with a US seller it took about 3 months to get a refund.
 
I'm surprised these things are still around! Here is the detailed video review I did of the Sylvania 7" Windows CE netbook back in the Fall of 2010, and back then I already thought it was on its last closeout sale:

 
The newer models marketed as "Smartbooks" have 512MB of RAM and better CPUs but only cost $5.00 more than the 128MB model. Still not exactly useful but much nicer.

So many of these were/are made that I wonder if there was a Census Bureau order that started manufacture to replace the failed Harris handhelds. 500,000 units that are paid for but not needed by the government would result in the seemingly endless proliferation of low margin tiny netbooks that just circulate around the bottom of the retail market.
 
krebizfan said:
The newer models marketed as "Smartbooks" have 512MB of RAM and better CPUs but only cost $5.00 more than the 128MB model. Still not exactly useful but much nicer.
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Well that ought to browse with Epiphany. I'd buy it for $20 (even $30 if it was red) but it appears that they are asking $99. What were they thinking?

Seriously, they may still be making money on these despite nobody liking them. Only a certain proportion of people bring stuff back, and the factory probably won't RMA. So, there's a viable business model for a failed product. lol
 
strollin said:
Tablets are what is shutting down the netbook market, not so much phones. Ultra books are way too expensive, not the same market.
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I think I agree with the above. I have a netbook (an 11.6" Samsung, quite lightweight). But I also have an Asus Transformer Prime Android tablet, of the type which can be used with just the tablet part, or attached to a proper keyboard (not the rubber-thingy that I see my sister use with her iPad). With a keyboard this thing looks like a netbook, it folds together the same way, but it's much more lightweight. Keyboard has all keys you would expect, including arrow keys, and a touchpad. I have one of those Scottevests with a pocket made for an iPad, the Prime fits nicely into there. So does the Samsung netbook, but it's heavier. And the Prime tablet does everything I need really. It's insanely useful. In practice I only ever bring my netbook along as a kind of travelling disk.. it's got several hundred gigs of space where I can dump my camera pictures while travelling (RAW takes a lot of space), while the Prime only has 32GB internal flash. Mind, that's fine for dumping just JPEG pictures. (I could actually bring my 1TB USB disk instead of the notebook though.. the Prime can use it just fine.)

So, with that vest I don't notice much that I carry that Prime around all the time, except when biking.. then suddenly the pocket with the tablet feels awkward.

Give my next Prime an HDMI output and I can't think of anything missing. Netbook doesn't get used much. I only use it as a USB disk.. but a real USB disk is cheaper.

So, what would it take for the netbook to outcompete the tablet? Well, increase battery capacity to 18 hours.. reduce weight to 600-800 grams.. get a touch screen and let the applications use it transparently.. make it split into two (with a battery in both, where one can charge the other).. use non-volatile mass storage (so that you can move it around _and_ use it at the same time) and so on and so forth. In other words, make it into an Asus Transformer Prime tablet! ;)

(Edit: Maybe it's more correct to say that a tablet that can do what a netbook can do (i.e. have a real keyboard), when you want to, is the ultimate Netbook killer.)

-Tor
 
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