Mazyiar Saleem | mazyiar@gmail.com
the ridge wired
A NUSSU Publication
A netbook is a small laptop that runs a full Linux or Windows operating system. With their low price and ultra portability, this newest generation of laptop has become extremely popular. Added to that, the fact that they are also quite capable as PCs makes them much more than the secondary devices they were once thought to be.
Photo: www.trustedreviews.com/
Netbooks generally have 8-to-10-inch widescreens, but no built-in optical drives. Not a single one has a full-size keyboard, so you can expect a more cramped typing experience than with a regular laptop. Despite that, the keyboards can still be surprisingly comfortable once you’re used to them, but be sure to try out the keyboard before you buy, as not all of them will have the same layout or size, and you might not like the way some of the keys are arranged on certain keyboards. Almost all netbooks nowadays will come with a webcam, a few USB ports, built in Wi-Fi, and a few extras like card-readers.
Weight is an important consideration for a netbook. Make sure you find out not only about the weight of the laptop itself, but also how much it weighs with everything (charger cables, bag) included – as you will probably be carrying the whole bundle around a lot of the time.
Netbooks nowadays offer both Linux and Windows operating systems. Although Linux is cheap and very user-friendly, the average user tends to be more familiar and comfortable with Windows. Windows XP is the usual offering, with some Vista-capable models also available. Vista is quite a resource hog though, and is thus not a very good choice of operating system for a netbook (or a regular laptop for that matter).
Netbooks offer buyers the option of getting a Solid State Drive (SSD) or a regular spinning hard drive. While SSDs have faster transfer speeds, are durable, and have longer life spans, storage capacity currently maxes out at 16GB in a netbook. Most netbooks are available with spinning hard drives that can store up to 160GB worth of data, but I do believe that anything less than 60GB is just too little.
Almost all netbooks these days come with an Intel Atom processor. The Atom processor is the fastest and most energy-efficient netbook processor you can get. You can find Intel Celeron M or VIA processors in first-generation models like the ASUS EeePC 4G and the HP 2133 Mini-Note, but you’re much better off not buying those. All the new netbooks almost exclusively use the Atom, and many of them will run fine with 1GB of memory.
Speaking of memory, it is important that you check whether the netbook you are getting gives you the option to expand memory. At least 1 GB is a must, in my opinion, and most can be upgraded to 2GB – but you will have to check. The same goes for hard drives also. Some vendors are using 1.8-inch hard drives instead of 2.5-inch ones, meaning you can’t swap it out with a bigger hard drive that you buy later.
Standard netbook batteries are typically three-cell (less than 30-Wh) units, which means that they will not really get you more than 3 hours of battery life on a single charge. If you’re not planning on carrying your charger around most of the time (which makes things significantly lighter) look for netbooks with higher capacity (6-cell) batteries.
If you are considering buying a netbook, hopefully this guide will help you in your search for that perfect (if not, close to perfect) netbook. Happy shopping!
Hot Talk!