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Netbooks

Technology product manufactures love to come up with new and funky terminology to completely confuse, and make us in the industry look intelligent to those non-techie types.

Recently they have created a new product called a netbook that is designed to suit the needs of someone who is looking for functionality between a laptop (also referred to as notebook) and a mobile PDA phone.

So what is a netbook?
A netbook is a small, slim-line laptop computer designed to provide the most basic computer functions such as checking e-mails, surfing the net, chatting or using Skype, or listening to the odd song.

Most now come with 7-10 inch LED backlit screen, USB ports, webcam, integrated speakers, Wi-Fi, and bluetooth.

The smaller size of these notebooks is largely due to advances in hard drive technology, and smaller LCD screens. The new technology is called SSD or Solid State Drives. A solid state drive is like a 'flash' memory stick, where the data is stored on a solid memory chip. Older drives use 'hard disk' technology, which resembles an LP record, spinning a disk to store data.

Asus started producing the new style netbooks just over a year ago.  However, most of the major manufactures (HP, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Samsung) have a model on the market today.

The netbooks look very trendy and are very practical for lugging around but remember they won't give you the functionality of a full blown laptop.  So what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Netbook advantages
•    The most attractive option to most people is the cost compared to a laptop.  The range from around $700 - $1500 depending on the model
•    They are small, thin and lightweight to carry.  They come with a carry bag sleeve and the best thing is you don't have to take you charger with you as the batteries tend to last longer.
•    Since they have been developed to be ultra efficient, they use less power. With a 3 cell battery the battery life is 3-4 hours and with a 6 cell battery is will last as long as 6-10 hours.
Netbook disadvantages
•    The lower netbook specs will result in lower functionality.  There is less storage drive space on a netbook so you can't store many large files such as music or videos.  Most netbooks have smaller CPU's than conventional notebooks, which can also hamper you from using resource hungry software like Adobe Photoshop and running large videos.
•    The smaller screens lessen the user's experience and those with poor eyesight will struggle.  You also have less 'vertical area' to view, so when you look at a website page you have to scroll down a lot as the screen can't fit a lot on it.
•    The keyboard is basically 80% of a regular size.  So it will be frustrating for those touch typists. For '2 fingered tappers' - including me - this is not an issue.
•    They don't come with a DVD player, or usually any kind of CD/DVD drive.

As web based software like Xero accounting software (www.xero.com) and Wi-Fi wireless internet (hot spots) become more common, the netbook will become more widely used by those people who like to work anywhere, anytime.