Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Buying a Netbook

It seems like all the rage in personal computing lately is the mini laptops or netbook. These netbooks are tiny when compared to many current laptops. The trend for a whole of years was to increase screen size and performance, with laptops ballooning out to as large as 22 inch screens and 9 to 10 pounds total weight. This trend has reversed and now small and light are catching consumer's eyes.

Netbooks are small; most have screen sizes in the middle of 6 and 10 inches. Rarely does a netbook weigh more than 2 and a half pounds - they're practically the size of a paperback book. This makes netbooks far excellent in portability. As a writer, I found that the dissimilarity in the middle of carrying a 10 pound laptop versus my 2.2 pound netbook saved me about a week - on back massages! The size and portability of netbooks are definitely the biggest plus.

Optical Mouse

Several developments were needed to occur before netbooks could capture so much of the market share from laptops. First, netbooks do without optic disk drives, i.e. Cd-Rom. In order to backup files or include new software, Usb 2.0 ports are incredibly beneficial with a minimal whole of space devoted to them.

Buying a Netbook

The emergence of reliable onboard wireless internet cards over the same span of time meant that the portability of the netbooks wouldn't be jeopardized by the cumbersome ethernet cords. This coincides with the evolution of net-based applications and software - meaning that netbooks don't miss much when it comes to functionality.

A netbook also tends to be much more affordable than all but the cheapest laptops. Many clubs offer their netbooks for as low as 0. Collate that to the most prudent laptop which commonly prices nearby 0. Additionally, Hp and Sony have begun branding upscale netbooks in the 800-900 dollar range - these netbooks pack a slight more punch - and a slightly larger screen. But whatever your price range, you can positively find a netbook for you.

Finally, netbooks also hire solid-state drives instead of hard drives. To a layman, this naturally means that the same storehouse capabilities are ready with less space and power needed. Of course, it's foremost to remember that netbooks aren't excellent or problem-free. Many citizen find that the keyboards are too small. It used to be that these netbooks had tiny or incomplete keyboards. In fact, many netbooks offer full-sized keyboards, though some still come in at 85% of general size. Personally, I have giant hands and have never had a qoute on mine.

Another downside in usage is that the "mouse pad" is practically half the size of a quarterly laptop and takes some getting used to. Finally, processor speed is greatly improved, but the netbook is not a powerhouse by any means. Forget intensive graphics - I've had problem with streaming video. However, for me the trade-off (processing power for portability) was a definite one. At that's what it comes down to with netbooks, like any other computer: you need to consider your wants and needs in order to make the right buy for you.

Buying a Netbook