The question on many people’s minds is, are we now in the age of netbooks? With the rapid growth of the netbook in the PC market during the past few years with hardware specs rivaling those of traditional laptops while being at much more affordable price, it is no wonder that netbooks are now being seriously considered as substitutes to the bigger, heavier, and more expensive laptops.
Even with all the hype, there is still confusion as to what exactly a netbook is and how it compares to a laptop in general, and the pro’s and con’s of picking one over the other. In response to these questions, we have created a list that we think might be helpful to you in deciding whether to buy a netbook or a laptop.
Size is always going to be the main selling point in whether choosing a netbook over a traditional laptop. Most netbook screens range from 7 to 10 inches while for traditional laptops they usually start at 14 inches and increase in size depending on the model. Netbooks are so much smaller and lighter compared to traditional laptop, which makes them the perfect choice when travelling as they can easily fit into a purse or backpack without weighing down on you.
The problem with netbooks when they first came out was the low screen resolution’s which made surfing web pages tedious as users would have to scroll from side to side just to read one sentence. But now with the newer netbooks that provide users with a 1024×600 screen resolution, surfing the web has never been easier on a netbook.
Another thing to take note is because of its small size, notebooks were built to be more energy efficient than traditional laptops. You’re probably thinking to yourself how does this affect me directly? Well for starters the implications of a more energy efficient notbook is that the netbook’s battery can give you about 5 to 6 hours of battery life, so when doing work or surfing the net you won’t always be bothered to have to charge the laptop every so often. So a smaller lightweight size and a long lasting battery life makes netbooks a long distance traveller’s best friend.
The trend of technology has always been that smaller usually means better, but in the case of keyboards the same can’t usually be said. One of the major complaints about netbooks is of their small keyboards. If you are a person with big fingers you’ll probably have a hard time typing as you’ll always be hitting the wrong keys and spend just as much time correcting typing errors as typing itself. A typical Netbook keyboards is small and compact with tiny keys clumped together which will make for a very uncomfortable typing experience, if you have big hands that is.
Hardware Specifications
Of course size is not the only difference between a netbook and a traditional laptop, but also the low hardware specifications of a netbook as compared to specifications of traditional laptops. With the small size of netbooks there is only so much hardware that you can put into it, small hard drives, slow processor speeds and low graphical memory are just some of the things you can expect form a netbook. Netbooks were designed mostly for computing tasks such as typing or web surfing. But if you were to do things such as image or video editing a netbook would not be the best choice because of its low hardware specifications. Even just playing a couple of YouTube videos at the same time can significantly slow down your netbook.
Optical Drives and Connectivity
Generally netbooks do not have any optical drives installed on them, which means no CD or DVD’s. However, one of the best things about netbooks is their connectivity. All netbooks come with Wi-Fi installed for surfing the web wirelessly, and a growing number of netbooks are now coming out with Bluetooth connectivity also meaning they can connect wirelessly to a 3G mobile phone for internet access in remote places that have no Wi-Fi or while on the go.
Price
The last point to be made is one of the biggest factors that sway most shoppers one way or the other, and that is of price. Depending on what brand and specifications you are looking for, most netbook prices range between $200 and $500, which is a big difference compared to the price range of traditional laptops. Probably the cheapest laptop out in the market that you can find would most likely cost around $400 more or less.
All in all if you really just need something to do your school work or to do some tying, a low end netbook might not be such a bad idea. You can surf the web almost anywhere, type and edit documents, and maybe even play some low specification games on the side. While with high end notebook models, with the better hardware specifications, you can practically do next to everything a traditional laptop can do.
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