Techies and regular consumers alike share the love for getting more bang for your buck. As an aspiring computer professional, and definitely a techie at heart, it is difficult to exclude myself from the divulgement of all these head-turning gadgets. Therefore, I would like to allude to the most current portable electronic battle that lies between notebooks and netbooks.
Upon daily observation, many college students have recently opted for netbooks. These portable, and dare I say ‘cute’, little things can be carried around in your book bag without the added brick-like weight. You can take notes with it, watch YouTube videos here and there, and check your emails or check how your team is doing on fantasy football; whatever floats your boat. Unfortunately, the portability of netbooks does not come packed with the power that many notebooks can offer. Netbooks these days come with slower processors which are comparable with the lower end notebook models. Netbooks are usually equipped with a Linux or Windows XP operating system, but very rarely could one handle Windows Vista. Battery life is also a concern being that the battery itself is smaller, hence, a shorter battery life. In addition, netbooks unfortunately don’t always have optical drives (CD or DVD drive).
Nowadays, notebooks are comparable to desktops. They are equipped with upgradable processors, some of which are as fast as those in desktop computers. They may not be as small or as portable as netbooks, but they are equipped with more power. They are built with a bigger, higher resolution display with a VGA (video graphics array) and graphics card perfect for gamers, graphic designers, programmers and other computer or software developers.
On the flipside, notebooks are much bigger. They are twice the size of netbooks, making it a task to tote one around when commuting or just traveling in general, with the probable exception of the MacBook Air which is built to weigh approximately 3 pounds but with a screen size still double that of netbooks. Since the advent of netbooks, many have opted for them because of their lower and more affordable prices. For example, a Dell Mini 9 Netbook equipped with a 1.6 GHz single Intel Atom processor, 512mb of memory, 8GB of a Solid State Drive, with Bluetooth capability and Windows XP, costs about $399. On the other hand, a Dell Inspiron 1525 Notebook is priced at $599 with a 15.4″ Wide-Screen, Optional Hi-Resoulution, 1.86 GHz Intel Duo processor (with an optional upgrade), 3GB of memory (equal to 3000mb), 250GB mechanical disk, with Bluetooth capability and Windows Vista. With this direct comparison, it is very obvious that the notebook packs more power than the netbook.
Purpose is what will draw the definite line between notebooks and netbooks. If you are just looking for something portable, just to do some notes, browse the internet, check emails, listen to music or whatever your heart desires – so long as it is very basic – then netbooks are the way to go. No reason to pay an additional $200 or $300 to do the basic of the basics. Just remember that anything over basic, such as video editing or doing any gaming, will not be able to be handled by the netbooks because they are not built with such capacity.
However, if you are an avid gamer, a programmer, a computer or software developer or just an aspiring computer professional, more often than not, you will need something with more power, more memory, more hard drive space and just overall something with a greater capacity.
So, it’s a matter of choosing between portability without greater power or performance, and something with a slightly varied portability but with equipped power and therefore better performance.