by Philo Farnsworth

Created on: May 12, 2009

In the past couple of years there has been an explosion of new computers on the market known collectively as netbooks. As the name implies, netbooks are notebook style computers designed to access the Internet. Netbooks feature a small form factor with an average screen size from seven to ten inches. You can think of a netbook as a small, basic laptop computer.

The popularity of netbooks is twofold. Firstly, many consumers are attracted to netbooks due to their relatively low price. Netbooks are available for about half of the cost of a basic notebook computer. Not only are netbooks inexpensive, but their small size makes them highly portable and exceeding cool. Much can be said about the coolness factor, but it is impossible to quantify.

Netbooks are designed as companion machines, meaning that they are not intended to function as primary computers. Although netbooks generally have USB ports, video ports, audio ports, built-in wireless and ethernet adapters, their small form factors do have limitations. Netbooks have no optical (CD/DVD) drive, limited on-board memory storage, a modified qwerty keyboard and a basic processor. The most common processor found in netbooks is the Intel Atom processor. It is a particularly efficient processor, specifically designed to be energy efficient. It's a near perfect balance of performance and long battery life. Although well designed for Internet use, hardware limitations make netbooks unsuitable for intensive computing of any kind.

Because of the basic nature of netbook hardware, they are particularly suited to Linux. Linux is a free open source operating system that has very modest resource requirements. Dell, Acer and Asus are among the major manufactures that offer various flavors of Linux installed at the factory. For those that prefer the familiarity and compatibility of Microsoft products, Windows XP is the most popular choice. (Windows Vista is not a viable operating system for netbooks, as it requires too many resources.) Currently, Apples fans are out of luck, there are no netbooks that operate on the Apple Macintosh platform.

Regardless of the operating system, when used as intended, netbooks perform admirably. In addition to web surfing, email, instant messaging and YouTube, netbooks can perform basic computing tasks with ease. Word processing, music management, and basic games are well within the capabilities of most netbooks.

In short, netbooks are not for hardcore gamers, video editing or other processor intensive tasks. However, netbooks are perfect for anyone seeking a highly portable and inexpensive Internet capable computer.

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