feels like a generation ago that the Asus Eee PC 701 revolutionized typewriter calculation. In fact, Asus revealed its 7in-screen Linux laptop in June 2007, building the netbook two years more youthful than the still fresh-feeling PlayStation 3.

Netbooks raced directly from concept to world supremacy -- the Eee PC alone traded more than 300,000 units in four months, Windows XP was reprieved for netbook duty, and gross sales of Atom chips saw Intel's grocery store share grow in every quarter of 2008.

But the netbook's reliance on lightweight operating systems established its undoing. Microsoft allowed producers to use XP, but only done gritted teeth. In circumstance the rules to do so it locked down the specification. As a effect, even when using Windows 7 the netbook remains in stasis: Intel Atom chip, 1GB RAM, 10in screen. drilling.