While the first netbooks sported 7-inch screens too small for even a guinea pig to use comfortably, current models have expanded their screen dimensions. Common netbook screen sizes are a diagonal 8. At A smaller screen means a smaller, lighter netbook and less LCD real estate for the battery to power—but imagine trying to work on a complicated spreadsheet on a screen that can hide behind a piece of copier paper.
If the computer is for a child or a petite-fingered person, keyboard size may not matter as much. If you have large hands or a heavy typing workload, you may want to consider a netbook with a more normal-sized keyboard or also purchasing a folding, full-sized USB keyboard.
With their energy-minded processors, lack of disc drives, and smaller screens, netbooks generally consume less power than their larger laptop cousins. But because the computer itself is shrunken, the battery is smaller, too. A smaller battery equals a shorter time between charges. Depending on the netbook model, battery life can range from under two hours to over seven hours.
Batteries are often described by the number of cells they contain. A 3-cell battery provides around 1. And guess what? A bigger battery adds more weight to the netbook. Operating System. Most netbooks come in either Windows or Linux flavors. See the next section for the pros and cons of both. Hard drive. Regular motorized, spinning hard drive or state-of-the-art solid-state drive? Go to Choosing a Netbook Internal Drive to see which is best for you.
Although lesser-known Taiwanese companies made the first netbooks, most major manufacturers—Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo—have jumped aboard the netbook train. They may be smaller and lesser known, but they often offer friendlier price tags. Linux is a free, alternative operating system that, on the surface anyway, looks an awful lot like Windows or Mac.
You can use Linux by pointing and clicking or by typing old-school commands like a real-live programmer. Linux has been in continual development since , when a young Finnish programmer named Linus Torvalds first shared his hobby with other computer enthusiasts. Linux is also at the heart of Moblin and Android, two up-and-coming netbook operating systems.
In the summer of when Microsoft forcibly retired XP by refusing to offer it for new desktop and laptop computers, netbook manufacturers brought Windows XP back as a preinstalled option. Hardware compatibility. Peripherals like printers and external CD drives work predictably on Windows XP, thanks to years of companies designing products just for XP. Software compatibility. Need to run Microsoft Word or Picasa on your netbook? No problem for Windows XP. The programs may just run a bit slower than on a powerful desktop machine.
Human compatibility. Many folks find Windows XP easier to learn than Linux. Linux, an open-source system developed over the years by thousands of volunteers, is free.
More than a million viruses and other pieces of malicious software prowl around the Internet, waiting to infest unprotected machines. Linux excels in the very places Windows XP falters—cost, system size, and general security. Firefox is actually included with many versions of Linux.
The various flavors of Linux are called distributions in geekspeak. Ubuntu includes OpenOffice. In addition to your choice of operating system, most netbook manufacturers let you choose between different types of internal drives for storing your programs and files.
Your usual options are a regular disk-based hard drive or a solid-state drive , but a combo of the two called a hybrid drive is emerging as well. When deciding what kind of drive to get, take into account where you plan to use your netbook. For example, if you want to carry tons of files with you, go for a regular hard drive. Or are you on the go with more opportunities for the netbook to get banged around? Perhaps a durable solid-state drive would be a better choice.
Get a hybrid. Ah, the humble hard drive. Traditional hard drives have a number of advantages over their solid-state rivals:. Hard drives are cheaper. Byte for byte, you can get more storage bang for your buck with a regular hard drive because the technology has been around for a long time and manufacturers know how to make them for less money.
Hard drives copy big files faster. When it comes to copying big chunks of data on and off the netbook, the hard drive can do it quicker than most solid-state drives can due to the way hard drives write data. Hard drives hold more stuff. Solid-state drives are getting bigger, hitting 64 GB and beyond, but a GB hard drive, common in netbooks, is more economical. Netbooks, as a rule, don't yet support 3G networks, but that will surely change in the near future.
Some will have the necessary hardware built in at the factory, others will support ExpressCard modems, the rest will make do with USB connections. Then too, a cell phone can provide mobile Internet access and communicate with the Netbook using Bluetooth.
Ever-present Internet connections could make a huge difference in the popularity of Netbooks. Look what it has done for the Kindle. One of the big differences among Netbook models is the storage medium, some have spinning platter hard disks, other come with solid-state disks SSDs. Another reason has to do with the speed of SSDs--the cheap models are very slow at writing, especially at random writes. Kevin C. Tofel at jkOnTheRun did an interesting test. The machine was reasonably zippy at running Linux, but just for fun he installed Windows XP on it.
XP ran as slow as molasses. You can buy an SSD that's faster than a spinning platter disk in all respects including random reads and random writes , but you may not want to pay for it.
To me, a big feature is the screen surface. Most Netbooks seem to have glossy screens, which Alfred Poor points out are cheaper. I prefer an antiglare coating. There are far too many Netbook models for a blogger like me to keep up with.
But, I pay attention to the cheap ones and below is a sampling of current models and pricing. Cheapest isn't necessarily the best. For example, if battery life is important to you, you'll need to spend more for stronger battery. However, the Mini 9 comes with 8GB of solid-state storage. Acer is also a bargain on the Linux side. When they were first introduced, the HP Mini-Notes were seriously expensive.
The keyboard was loved by all reviewers and the screen was a higher resolution and thus offered a sharper image. Netbooks were popular between and , but as tablets rose in popularity, netbooks fell from favor. Tablets packed a powerful tech punch, and they were hard to beat in combing portability and functionality. At the same time, full-featured laptops grew smaller and more powerful. With laptops no longer the big, impractical machines they once were, price, not size, became the deciding factor when choosing between a netbook and a laptop.
When laptop prices fell, netbooks were doomed. The rise of the smartphone hurt netbooks even more. These mini-computers fit into pockets and can handle all the email and web surfing users need.
Today, most PC manufacturers no longer market lightweight, less-expensive systems as netbooks. Instead, they market netbook-style laptops simply as lower-priced, less powerful options within their current laptop product lines. Chromebooks were another threat for netbooks, offering similar capabilities at rock-bottom prices.
Netbooks were technically laptops because they had hard frames and an attached display, but were smaller and more compact than portable computers designated as laptops. Even within the netbook ecosystem, there were differences between how netbook models looked.
When something was smaller than a laptop, it got a netbook designation, whether it had a 6-inch or inch display. Internally, most netbooks used low-voltage, low-power CPUs and had a smaller-capacity hard drive and lower RAM capacity. This led to a less-than-optimal experience when doing intensive tasks such as watching movies or playing games.
Netbooks were designed to handle only basic computing tasks, such as web browsing, email, and word processing. At the same time, full-featured laptops could act as desktop replacements. Many netbooks came with the Windows operating system installed. With Windows 8, Microsoft required systems to have a resolution of at least x , leaving many netbooks with no upgrade path.
Windows 10 is compatible with ultra-small displays. And over the past few months a dozen or more new netbooks have hit the market, giving people a wider range of choices. Most netbooks sport small LCD screens, 8. Netbooks generally weigh around 2. For anyone looking to buy now, here are some tips for your first netbook, compiled after reviewing about a dozen of them.
What do you want to use this netbook for? Do you want a lightweight device for easy Internet access? Or are you really looking for a device to carry around that you can edit video on, play games, or use for other applications that test the computing limits of a netbook? To ensure longer battery life, some key components on a netbook, such as the microprocessor, are less powerful than common laptops.
I tested an Eee PC with a 7-inch screen, the Surf , and found screen too small. I was not able to view an entire Web page on the cramped display. On a screen that small, you have to scroll left and right as well as up and down to see an entire Web page.
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