With all the talk lately about netbooks, and more importantly with everyone in the industry saying that Apple needs to sell a netbook, people often forget that before the category even existed, way back in 1997 Apple had a product that was remarkably similar to what people think of as a netbook today. That product was of course the eMate 300. Originally built as a small and light laptop for education, this was in the market years before anyone else thought of doing this kind of product. Of course at the time the e-mate wasn’t cheap retailing for $799, but it was still selling at a lower cost than other laptops of the time. While it doesn’t have wifi or a 3g modem (neither of which existed at the time) it does have internet access with a modem card, it runs a cut down OS (The Newton) compared to the full Mac Os of its day, and it was small and very rugged.
It is interesting too is that the E-Mate ran the Newton OS. It was essentially a newton turned on its side with a keyboard. You can’t help but appreciate the synergy, given that the persistent rumor about a modern netbook from Apple involve it running a version of the iPhone OS, which some people consider to have at least some Newton heritage.
The eMate was a thing of beauty too, even by today’s standards. It was one of the early high profile designs by Jonathan Ive for Apple, and the translucency in the design led to the original iMac. But its gorgeous lines and subtle translucent plastic don’t look out of date or aged, even today, at least in my opinion. So the next time you see people ranting about an Apple netbook, remember that Apple had something similar long before anyone even uttered the phrase “netbook”
Original Product Sheet for eMate (Apple)
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And, does that say 20 to 30 hours of use?!?! Where is that today!
I know !!! I have a Newton 2000 and its great for battery life. It just keeps going and going. and that runs on double A’s too And when it dies too, it doesn’t loose any information. I’ve powered mine back up after months and everything is still there!
Apple also had 7 models of the PowerBook Duos’
Dimensions: 1.4″ H x 10.9″ W x 8.5″ D
Apple… always way ahead of the curve…
“And, does that say 20 to 30 hours of use?!?! Where is that today!”
@Cash
It’s gone to the same graveyard where all the other monochrome displays have gone. The majority of the market prefers color over battery life.
S
I don’t think the battery life was just because of the screen. Sure thats a significant factor – but think of it this way too – it was using a low power Arm processor, similar to what’s in the iPhone today, but the battery was the size of mars bar – so when you think about it – you’d probably get maybe 10 hours or so out of a 7″ colour screen with todays technology and a low power processor like that with that kind of battery. With oled anyway.
Then again, I’m not an engineer so I may be wrong.
Yeah. I had an evaluation eMate for about a semester back in College. That thing had AMAZING battery life. Plus, because of the curves I could type comfortably in bed without danger of over heating.
I had an eMate for a while, too. It was great- instant-on, great battery life, interesting interface. I got rid of mine after I inadvertently deleted a large file I was working on. Kinda annoyed me.
If I may I’d like to point out that Ive didn’t design the eMate 300: Thomas Meyerhoffer (http://www.meyerhoffer.com/) did.
nda
i really dont see what the relevenace of the emate 300 is to apple of today and netbooks yes it was a small machine but that was 12 years ago the newton and emate are dead and buried
you might as wel argue that the ibook preempted the netbooks by 5 years since its a full featured sub notebook
20 – 30 hours of battery life! Compared to today netbooks is great.
I would like to have a 5-7″ pocketable netbook with that battery life.
Whether the design credit on the eMate goes to Ive or Meyerhoffer, one thing that made it notable was how attractive the device was. Apple was in its downward-spiral days back then and their industrial design was notable for its timidity. The eMate came as a wonderful surprise. It was illustrative of something Jobs said some time later, along the lines of “NOT to be bold was the biggest risk.” I never owned one – I couldn’t afford it. But I remember taking one look at it and thinking that was EXACTLY the kind of design panache Apple needed.