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What is a Netbook Notebook - Is it Right For You? |
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With
sales rising sharply and millions of units shipping each quarter,
the netbook notebooks phenomenon is rapidly gaining momentum. They were
originally launched in reponse to the One Laptop Per Child
program (OLPC) aiming to offer a low cost minimum spec machine
with a introduction price in the region of just a couple hundred
dollars. |
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The
orginal machine to set this netbook trend was the Asus Eee PC 700
launched in 2007 - it featured a 7" screen, a meagre 800x480
resolution, no hard disk using flash memory instead, and the GNU
Linux operating system to further cut costs. Since then the specs have gradually increased including processing power, the option of Windows XP due to demand, screen size which has risen from 7" to 9" and now to 11" in size, and a respectable hard disk (160gb) or innovative flash drive the norm. As the specs have increased so has the basic price, reaching around £350 (~500USD) for a typical offering at present. At the same time the sub-notebooks (laptops with 11" or less screen, no optical drive but otherwise a high spec machine) - have dropped significantly in price. There is no longer a clear distinction between sub-notebook and netbook notebooks and this is likely to blur further as many future models are geared towards business people. These portable pals are useful for cloud computing, email, internet browsing, social networking and lightweight tasks such as word processing, skype etc. They are not really suitable as serious gaming machines, or as CAD workhorses, however newer models such as Acer's Aspire 1410 and HP's Mini 311 are improving immensely on this front. Most netbooks sport a built in webcam so they are great for social networking (Web 2.0...YouTube, JustinTV, Flickr,etc...) - the webcam is normally located centrally above the screen. Also note that netbooks usually do not come with an optical drive such as CD or DVD, so if you have lots of media on disc a netbook may not be the best choice. You could connect an external CD/DVD drive, or even read the discs over a network connection from a desktop PC, but the perfomance may be sluggish and it may slow your (wireless) LAN up if there are other users on it. If you're interested in a more detailed look at these machines, read our handy Netbook Buyer's Guide By Cheaperlaptop.com Friday, March 06, 2009 - Site map - Privacy policy |