The sales numbers for these devices were very good for at least a couple of years. They ran the current Windows (Vista) at the time very badly, partly due to the CPU but mainly due to not having much RAM, so MS extended the life of XP for them as it was scared Linux would win more mindshare otherwise. Linux and OpenOffice (IIRC this was before the OpenOffice/LibreOffice thing) perfectly well. Web browsing was OK too as long as you didn't overdo the number of tabs open (things were mostly not as bloated as they are today in that area, by quite a margin), and of course tasks like email were fine.
My little netbook running Debian was a bargain and did sterling work for a while, and I know others that found that form factor and other properties to be rather convenient.
Sales numbers did fall off precipitously eventually, partly due to new models being hobbled by restrictions from MS (they wouldn't sell them XP for higher spec models IIRC, so no models got much of a RAM upgrade, and as that became an issue market share was lost to tablets (and to a small extent smarter phones) and higher spec laptops).
>The sales numbers for these devices were very good for at least a couple of years
Sales number were good at first because all consumers were drawn to the massively small price tags of these machines along with the small form factor/increased portability. They were like 50% cheaper than a regular laptop and could fit in your purse/cargo pants. Who wouldn't want that?! Especially in developing countries like Eastern Europe where a regular laptop would cost several months(plural!) wages.
> Sales numbers did fall off precipitously eventually
Yes, because after purchasing them, consumers wised up and realized the low price tags came with some huge compromises the Average Joe did not expect (Atom CPU was too slow for Windows which let's face it was by far the most used OS back then, low-res display, minuscule eMMC storage that filled up far too quickly, the Linux ones didn't ship with a sane mainstream distro like Ubuntu or Mint but with some weird bare-bones custom one that had no mainstream apps available, playing PC games was an absolute no-go, etc.) so the Netbook market crashed, as unless you absolutely needed the small form factor and willing to put up with these compromises, you were much better off buying a second hand used regular laptop at the price of a new Netbook.
In a way, these slow, small-storage, weird-Linux, Atom Netbooks kinda poisoned the well for the rest of the market segment, even for the "good Netbooks" whcih were more capable, until Apple came with the Air and the PC market brought the Ultrabooks.
The only place I saw Netbooks flourish was, no joke, the taxi drivers in my Eastern European country, which, due to their diminutive size, would attach them to the central console of their ancient cars as some DIY infotainment system, and use them to watch movies and play games while waiting for customers (not gonna lie, a 2010 Netbook with keyboard bolted to the central console is still a better infotainment system than the touchscreen ones shipping in most modern cars today). I even saw one taxi driver playing DOTA on a Netbook in his car (not while driving, although for Eastern Europe that wouldn't be
out of the picture).
My little netbook running Debian was a bargain and did sterling work for a while, and I know others that found that form factor and other properties to be rather convenient.
Sales numbers did fall off precipitously eventually, partly due to new models being hobbled by restrictions from MS (they wouldn't sell them XP for higher spec models IIRC, so no models got much of a RAM upgrade, and as that became an issue market share was lost to tablets (and to a small extent smarter phones) and higher spec laptops).