Q: Are the new Netbooks a good investment?
There are three words that beautifully describe the new netbooks: Small, sleek and functional
The new netbook does more than put a new look on the old laptop, it breaks barriers in usability both in it's incredibly small size and low weight, and in the potential for serious battery run times. Here's the good, the bad, and the ugly you can expect from the new batch of netbooks:
The Good
- Price: Shockingly these new marvels come in at *less* than the laptops that they potentially will replace or compete with.
- Portability: Truly it can be said that netbooks are portable. A modest purse or tiny briefcase can handle any of these, and while laptops do amazing things to get the most life out of a lightweight battery the netbook reduces power consumption to a minimum. Models with solid state drives are able to achieve practical run times of six hours or more.
- Full functionality: Netbooks are not a stripped down organizer that fits in your pocket. They are a full fledged PC. You can install all of the software and hardware that runs on a regular desktop or laptop.
- OS diversity: Netbooks ship with a wide variety of operating systems. So whether you're a linux guru, or trying to avoid being the beta tester (still) for Windows Vista and prefer Windows XP you'll find options.
The Bad
- Horsepower: Under the hood you'll find the netbook suffers from the same challenges as early laptops. CPU processing power is a notable step down. If you're going for a game machine, want to run only the latest (ie slowest and most demanding) software or are looking for a pocket database server then look elsewhere.
- Theft: Coolness and portability has its downside. Netbooks scream to thieves who look for an easy to grab, but valuable commodity
- Software installation: Like lightweight laptops, Netbooks do not have an internal cd-rom drive. This complicates installation, requiring an external cd-rom for most installs.
The Ugly
- Keyboard: Surprisingly the keyboard keys are large enough for a touch typist to use without trouble, but two features will drive the purist into a psychotic rage before finishing their first paragraph. First the shift key is positioned off to the side to make room for the up arrow, resulting in dangerous typos. Second, as is common with laptops there is no number pad, though there are function keys to simulate the keypad, albeit poorly.
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