Small laptop computers are ergonomically useful to children who literally have a smaller body frame. I don't think there were many of those around prior to OLPC and/or netbooks, beyond specialty products like the Toshiba Libretto and perhaps the original Psion Netbook. Nowadays we still have low-end smaller ultrabooks that are effectively quite comparable to the former netbooks.

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ghaff a day ago | parent | next [-]

And I don't think there's much available today. I used to have a small Asus for travel (and a small windows Fujitsu before that). But there are very few <13" laptops/Chromebooks available these days.

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fy20 a day ago | parent [-]

I had a couple of netbooks, and they weren't very useful other than as basic devices to check email or SSH. The screen was too small, the aspect ratio and resolution was weird, they keyboard was too small, they were severely under powered - in that they would struggle to play a YouTube video.

I had a couple in the late 00s to avoid having to lug around my 15" MacBook Pro when on-call. For that they worked great, but other than that I avoided it.

Later I got the 11" MacBook Air, and that had many of the same issues (especially weird screen size). It also wasn't that small, by today's standards, as it had a massive bezzle.

Nowadays I have to check if my 13" MacBook Pro is in my bag, as it's small and light enough not to notice. However I'd love a MacBook Air that is same aspect ratio as the 13" just smaller width and depth (No Apple, it doesn't need to be thinner), maybe with a 60% keyboard so typing isn't weird.

	▲	ghaff 20 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yeah. I have Pro MacBook models but even with better magnetic keyboards for iPads, I think MacBook Airs are pretty competitive for travel. I used to try to use downsized travel laptops when I was traveling a lot but I'm not sure it makes sense any longer even if there were good options available--which there mostly aren't.
	▲	zozbot234 a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The screen and keyboard of your average netbook were too small for fully grown adults, but that exact same diminutive size was and is perfect for kids.

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underlipton a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I believe there were many in Japan - including products like small laptop-shaped electronic dictionaries - but that's Japan. Their homegrown cell phones have recently picked up the moniker "Galapagos phones" because they tended to develop country-specific features and rarely leave to other markets. The same can be said for their micro/portable laptops of the early 2000s.

One could argue that OLPC made people outside of Japan aware that the form factor was possible and even optimal for some users.