The netbook is dead, we’ve moved on, the great hope for the computer manufacturers are no more. The netbook is an ex-netbook (Charles Arthur, The Guardian, and others). But hold on a minute, just because the exact models from Acer and Asus are no longer being manufactured does not mean that the netbook concept is dead.

The form function of the little laptops with screens between nine and eleven inches is still a wonderful one for the traveller. When you’re looking for something to throw into carry on, to let you pick up email, do some writing, and some light web browsing the netbook was one of the answers for the last few years.

Arguably that function has been picked up now by the smartphones with screens in the five inch mark, and the addition of a bluetooth keyboard completes the look of a netbook. And if you want proof that the form factor was the right one, the proliferation of iPad cases with built in physical keyboards should answer that question.

Netbooks missed the boat in performance, The idea that lower specification devices would be attractive made some sense, but in reality people were always looking to do more with their netbooks, and as the opinion formers in ‘Web 2.0 realised the limitations of the platform, they moved on to the 600 phones instead of 175 laptops.

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