Number 315 - August 2009

Are You Considering A Netbook?
by Vinny La Bash, Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
For several decades the computer community has been obsessed with larger hard drives, bigger displays, more memory and faster CPUs. Netbooks offer none of these, yet they are immensely popular. You can't do anything resembling serious video editing or run most of the high end 3D games, so why are they selling so well? Perhaps manufacturers have discovered that most people don't want or need high end devices. Manufacturers who are offering reliable machines performing basic services at a reasonable price are doing very well.    What are these basic services that are causing manufacturers' financial statements to shine so brightly? Sending and receiving email, creating and editing uncomplicated office documents along with some straightforward, unsophisticated spreadsheet functions. Customers are saying "Give us the simple life, and we will reward you for it". (I can't say if Paris Hilton is one of those customers, but you never know).    Why pay for advanced features that are neither wanted nor needed? Simply plug into the "cloud", do what you came to do, and leave. Why complicate things? Netbooks started out from efforts to provide children in developing countries with simple devices that were easy to use. Saving energy was an important part of that development, and low power devices emerged. This became important because most netbooks are used away from home and office.    Netbook screens are usually either 9 or 10 inches. The CPU weighs in at a light 1.66 GHz, and disk drive size can seem shockingly small in some models. If you're in the market for one of these devices what should you look for?    Let's start with the keyboard because that's where you spend most of your time. Netbook keyboards are small, and that means manufacturers are going to make compromises, not always good ones. Does the arrangement of keys make it likely that you will hit the Enter key by mistake? Will you be able to make the transition from netbook keyboard to normal keyboard easily? This could be a serious issue if you are a decent typist. Samsung does an excellent job in this department. Their keyboard is the best designed netbook keyboard on the market.    Screen size is underwhelming. Netbooks are designed to be small, and it's not possible to stuff a seventeen inch screen into a ten inch footprint. Ten inches is the largest you can reasonably expect, and resolution does not come close to what a bigger screen can display. Examine some different models and choose the screen you can live with.    With prices sometimes under $400 for a complete system, don't expect a high end version of Vista as part of the deal. Expect a version of Linux or XP. Obviously this is a cost cutting measure. Everybody wants a piece of the netbook action, and the competition among device	makers, chip manufacturers, and software vendors is fierce. What you need to know is how different the netbook operating system is from the one on your desktop. Will you be able to send email and create documents similar to what you are already doing or will you have to relearn how to use a computer?    How much disk drive space do you really need? How much music is enough? Even if you could download 250,000 tunes it would take more than 34 years of non-stop listening to hear each of them just once assuming an average length of three minutes each. Examine your real needs carefully and you may find that a 160 gigabyte drive isn't really all that small. If you are looking at a Linux system, a 16 gigabyte SSD hard drive may be reasonable.    When you read the specifications for the CPU you may think you are back in the stone age of computing. Netbooks are designed for basic functions. You don't need a quad-core CPU to send email. A less powerful device will do the job quite nicely without draining your battery prematurely. You may be surprised to know that the Hubble Telescope runs on a 386 CPU. The Hubble is not a primitive device; it simply doesn't need any more CPU horsepower to do its job.    The theme for netbooks is small and light, and this means small batteries. Whatever the claims in the literature, battery life is going to range between 2.5 and 5 hours. Stop complaining and find an electrical outlet. It's not going to change until a new battery technology arrives.    Continuing with the small, light and portable theme, is it surprising to find no CD-ROM or DVD drive in the unit? You can easily substitute a high end flash memory drive for the missing optical drive. If that's not enough get a standalone USB optical drive. If you really can't do without an optical drive rethink your need for a netbook.    What are your wireless connectivity needs? Connecting to the "cloud" is straightforward. All netbooks have this capability. Shop more carefully if your portable needs require Bluetooth or cellular functions.    Shopping sometimes requires careful comparison, whether it's for a netbook or an automobile. Calculate your needs, separate them from your desires, and keep your hand firmly on your wallet before committing yourself to any carefully orchestrated sales pitch.    Copyright 2009. This article is from the July 2009 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication.
Number 315 - August 2009