by Iuhasz Daniel

Created on: August 07, 2010

Buying a netbook has always been a hard decision for many on the grounds that this type of device is still new on the market and has encountered lots of resistance from the skeptics’ side. It is questionable if the pros outweigh the cons in this case as to make buying a netbook a good decision but which are the things one should keep in mind when considering the acquisition of this type of device?

To begin with, the mini laptop has in target mobility. It is made to be small and versatile with components that can give one a fair enough amount of computing power while still having in mind a device that can go 5+ hours without a single charge. Thus, it is normal to score less in benchmarks than laptops but one has to understand that when turning to such a device he/she wants more battery life rather than more performance.

Furthermore, the components that are fitted inside the netbook are usually the same or vary a little depending on manufacturer for over 90% of mini notebooks have the Intel Atom CPU. This processor is clocked at around 1.60GHz, a good frequency to run every-day applications but rather slow in the case of big and demanding software. The new generation of Intel processors has gone a step up with the introduction of multi-cores but with high prices on new hardware it will be some time until many of us can touch those.

The video card is in the best case a NVIDIA ION (or ION 2) that can easily handle HD but is rather slow at intensive gaming, this not to mention the integrated video cards that tend to choke at more than solitaire. The memory is 1GB usually with the possibility of expansion to 2GB, which makes video editing or heavier software slower as it needs to grab RAM out of the HDD to cope with the extra demands.

When looking at the display size it can be easily seen that is has been optimized for low energy consumption rather than high quality graphics. It is true that many netbooks have the possibility of streaming HD quality movies but on the small 10.1’’ display it is actually pretty hard to enjoy good movie quality. This is why one has to look for that HD out the netbook has to have in order to truly fit into the movie enthusiasts’ hands which can be HDMI or DVI, depending on product.

All in all, the netbook is a good acquisition as long as the buyer knows the limitations of the device so if looking for a carry everywhere design with long battery life and medium overall performance this is the device for you. On the other hand if one is looking for a real computing workhorse then the look should be turned to its bigger brother, the laptop.

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