Almost overnight, we witnessed a new crop of mini-laptops on the scene. Manufacturers have always tried to figure out ways to make laptops lighter, smaller, faster and with longer battery life, but there always seemed to be a downward limit in the size of the machines. Now, it seems like just about every major manufacturer of laptops has its own sub-notebook, only now they’re referred to with the buzzwords of ultra-mobile PC or netbook.

For the longest time, the limiting factor that kept laptops from shrinking was the basic elements of the machine. System boards could only be so small. You had to include a hard drive, which was at least 2.5 inch in size. There was the seemingly mandatory and endless set of serial, parallel, USB, and other ports, which would clutter the periphery of the unit. Plus you had the PCMCIA standard, which meant that add-on cards were at least the size of a credit card. Battery technology required large, hefty batteries. And finally there was the usability factor of the laptop’s keyboard.

All these things conspired together to keep laptops from getting diminutive. Beyond that size, the units seemed to collapse into only semi-useful PDAs or devices that were limited to running an OS like Windows CE. One of the most successful sub-notebooks was the IBM ThinkPad 701c, but it didn’t survive very long in the marketplace.

What’s in a name?

I have tested and used several netbooks. The first was an Asus Eee PC. The limitations began with its version of Linux that was annoying to use with the tiny screen resolution and keyboard feel.

After that, we got a Classmate PC. It was rather limiting as well. The screen resolution was particularly odd, and I never got used to the keyboard. This was followed by a Dell Inspiron 9 and an Acer Aspire One. All the models seem to share the same limitations. Compared to standard notebooks, the screens are squashed and the keyboards are too small.

These run on the Intel Atom processors, which makes the machines not strong enough to run Vista (which is now offered as a choice), but they seem to run Linux and Windows XP tolerably well. With Intel’s new dual-core Atom processor, the performance problem may disappear. For now, however, the inability to run Vista hasn’t been a problem and seems to say more about Vista than the netbooks.

Growing trend or passing fad?

The question at hand, however, is whether these devices are the wave of the future or a passing fad? ABI Research claims that by 2013, the size of the ultra-mobile market will be the same size as the notebook market — about 200 million units per year (globally). This market will be led by the netbooks and things called Mobile Internet Devices. MIDs are devices stuck somewhere between a netbook and a mobile phone but currently make up only a very tiny part of the ultra-mobile market.

That would lead one to think that ultramobiles are indeed the wave of the future. On the flip side are those like ZDNet’s Larry Dignan who imply, or flat out state, that netbooks are little more than toys. Although some are clearly targeted at students, I’m sure that most manufacturers are aiming a little higher up the market than that.

I’m somewhere in between. So far, most of the devices I’ve seen that we have here just haven’t fully gotten it right yet. They’re getting closer, but so far don’t seem like machines that are ready to take over for a laptop yet. Right now, netbooks aren’t a viable replacement for most notebook users. They’re niche machines that are really only useful for those with specific needs and who aren’t aware or bothered by the mini-machine’s limitations. Eventually they may become ready for business use, but unless you have an executive who travels a lot or someone who always has to have the neatest new gadget, you may be better served to wait.