Several years ago, my great-uncle showed me what he called a “small laptop” which he had picked up on one of his trips abroad. As someone who travelled extensively on business, he found it to be much easier to carry (especially at his age) and balance on his knee than a laptop, and it served his primary purpose of checking email (although he had to use our old dial up modem for that). In case you were wondering, this was before the time of smartphones, although its early ancestor the Nokia Communicator had made a brief appearance.
What he showed me wasn’t a netbook as we know it today, but it was certainly a closely related ancestor. Interestingly, he traded in the device soon after for a regular laptop, because he found it hard to read from the screen and type on the small keyboard for long periods of time. So the point is, while small computers certainly have their advantages, not everyone would want the same things from their device. Today, the market has opened up to offer laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and even all in one desktops to serve whatever computing needs you may have. That means, buyers are still unsure of what they need and tend to buy based on brands, looks and what their peers are using. If you are facing this problem, let me throw you a lifeline. Please note that I am considering typical examples of both, and am not accommodating any exceptions. This will make the comparison as simple as possible.
Netbooks are significantly smaller than notebooks, and as a result, quite lighter as well. This means they are easier to carry around. However, this also means that the screen of a netbook is smaller than a notebook. This can be bothersome for some people, especially if your eyes aren’t tuned to reading small fonts and looking at small icons. It isn’t the same as getting used to mobile phones with small screens - trust me when I say the two are quite different. The difference is that mobile phones are used frequently for short intervals, while notebooks and netbooks are meant for longer periods of use, which may not be as frequent.
The difference might not be obvious while you are in a store shopping for the device, but it can be quite a problem in the long run, especially for graphic designers and even gamers who prefer large screens. Also, if the settings aren’t just right, you may end up scrolling up and down more often on a netbook than on a notebook, which is quite tiresome.
Speaking of gamers and graphic designers, it is worth noting that the processing power of a typical netbook is less than that of notebooks. That means, before buying a netbook, you need to make sure it has enough RAM and a powerful enough processor to suit your needs. I am not saying no games will work on your netbook, but there are some that may not work the same. Heavy graphic/multimedia suites and even huge PowerPoint presentations are other examples of programs demanding significant RAM and processing power.
Since the processing power is lower, netbooks usually have a better battery life (because they spend less power) than a notebook, although there are exceptions. Netbooks can typically last three hours or more, while many common laptops hardly manage one or two hours on a single charge. Like I said, there are exceptions, and it is based on usage.
Netbooks don’t have CD/DVD drives! That is likely to be a deciding factor for many unsure buyers, considering you will not be able to play music CDs or watch movies on DVD using a netbook. You can of course, connect external drives, or you’ll have to depend on USB thumb drives. By the way, did I mention that a netbook usually has less USB ports than a notebook? That is fairly logical, considering the difference in size.
Finally, if it boils down to price, the netbook is much easier on your budget than a notebook. There are netbooks available for as low as Rs 12,000 although I don’t necessarily recommend them. If you are looking for a portable device in addition to a reasonably powerful home computer, then the netbook might be what you need. However, if you are looking to buy something for use as a primary computer, then the notebook might be a better choice, since you never know what you may need to use your computer for. Netbooks are more about convenience, while the notebook tries to provide some common ground between a powerful computer and a convenient device. If you know what you value more, the decision is not difficult to make!
For those readers who are confused about what happened to laptops, here is a short clarification: Laptops were the earliest portable computers, which got the name from the fact that they could literally be placed on your lap and used.
The earliest laptops were not in the open-close (clamshell) shape we see today, but rather bulkier. Notebooks were once smaller versions of laptops, but then they became the new definition for laptops. Netbooks are still smaller variants of the notebook. Nowadays, a ‘laptop’ can mean either, but usually refers to a notebook.
aravind.r@newindianexpress.com