Cheap portables: should you buy a notebook or a netbook?

When the first info about the Eee PC series from Asus appeared no one expected the cheap notebooks (of a small size and weight) to have the success they ended up having. After Asus’s success a lot of other different producers became interested in entering this niche market.  This is why today we can buy netbooks from producers such as Toshiba, Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and, of course, Asus. All this competition made innovations and high performances possible. Netbook performances have been constantly growing ending up to be quite similar to the performances of classical notebooks. This is how a question arises: Should you go for a netbook or a notebook?

Netbook

Before starting there is an aspect we have to make clear. Both types of products (notebooks and netbooks) have a series of advantages and disadvantages. This is why I will try to present you things exactly as they are so that you can make the correct decision.

Asus EEE Netbook with Atom CPU

Ever since 2007 netbooks have supported a series of changes that I consider to be positive. At first netbook hardware only permitted the use of the Windows XP operating system (in the happiest of cases). Now most netbooks run on a preinstalled version of Windows 7 starter. You can also find netbooks that run on Ubuntu for Linux fans, or Android 2.1.

The main advantages of a netbook are the following: reduced size, small weight, and battery autonomy which is usually above average (5 to 7 hours depending on the type of battery).

There are a few disadvantages as well. I find the most important to be the fact that the display is small (10”) and so is the resolution (1024 x 600 pixels), processing power is reduced (Intel Atom M450 – 1.66 GHz), the lack of an optical unit and a numerical keyboard. If you can overlook all this disadvantages it probably means you plan on using your netbook just to surf the internet, chat with your friends, edit office documents and listen to music. Netbooks can be found starting from 300 dollars to more than 600.

HP Mini Netbook with 10.1" LED screen

Cheap notebook

The second solution for those looking for a cheap portable is to go for a classical notebook at an accessible price. A few years ago prices of notebooks started from 600 dollars. Today the price has become much lower and you can find the cheapest netbooks at around 400 dollars. Unfortunately the low price means that you do not get an operating system with a license preinstalled in most cases. Accessible notebooks usually come with a Free DOS or Linus free operating system. If you want to get a Windows 7 Home license the initial price will rise with about 150 to 200 dollars. Added to this disadvantages comes the fact that they have reduced autonomy (2-3 hours) and weigh over 2 kilos. It is obvious the ladies will prefer a netbook!

Dell Inspiron Notebook with AMD CPU running @2.3GHz

Even so, going for a notebook has its advantages compared to choosing the smaller brother: you get a larger screen 15 inch (with 1366 x 768 pixels resolution), a better processing power, an optical unit (DVD writer) and a numerical keyboard. Added to this is the fact that notebook possessors can use their device for surfing the internet, messenger, music, movies, editing documents, editing photos and playing games that do not have high system requirements.

Conclusions

As we have said in the beginning of the article netbooks and cheap notebooks each have advantages and disadvantages. For a simple and efficient choice we advise you to first thing about what expectations you have from your future IT product. Even though they have similar prices, the purpose of netbooks and cheap notebooks is completely different.

Lenovo Notebook with 15.6" diagonal screen