While a few years back the computer market had only two important players, the classic desktop computer and the laptop, lately netbooks have become more and more important and have proven a stiff competition for the notebooks due to their portability, functionality and affordability.

In the following lines we will compare netbooks and laptops from different points of view, including their dimensions, price tags, performance levels and features, so as to find out the most important similarities and differences between the two types of computer devices. Also, we will try to give a hand to those of you who want to buy a piece of computer equipment right now, but are unsure whether to go for a netbook or a laptop, highlighting the strong and weak points of both kinds of devices.

Weight and dimensions

Probably the biggest and most important difference between a netbook and a notebook is the products’ weight and dimensions. Netbooks are consistently smaller, more compact and therefore more portable, while notebooks are often thought nowadays as desktop replacements.

Both netbooks and notebooks have their strong and weak points and both can be wise choices depending on your needs

Netbooks feature screen sizes between 7 and 12.1 inches, even though usually when talking about 12.1-inch netbooks, we rather use the term ”mini laptop”. As far as weight is concerned, they very rarely go above 3.2, 3.3 pounds and usually weigh about 2.4-2.8 pounds. Notebooks, on the other hand, feature screen sizes from 14 to 17-inch, but there are also 13.3-inch versions and 19-inch models. In terms of weight, they are heavier and bulkier than netbooks, weighing in general four-five or well over five pounds.

Display

While the difference in screen sizes is more than obvious for everyone, when it comes to the display there is another important difference that should be mentioned. Laptops come with higher resolutions than netbooks, which translates into everything being bigger, brighter and clearer on a notebook.

Most 15-inch notebooks right now come with 1366×768 pixels or higher resolutions, while the vast majority of netbooks only offer 1024×600 px screens, with some exceptions boosting a HD display.

Pricing

The third difference between a netbook and a laptop concerns the price. A netbook should in theory be consistently more affordable than a notebook, giving that its main purpose is to be easily carried around and used for simple applications and for web surfing. However, there are important exceptions from this rule on the current market, with high-end netbooks costing about as much as a medium-end laptop. There is the 11.6-inch Apple Macbook Air, for example, which starts on Amazon at a price of 874.99 dollars or the 12.1-inch Asus Lamborghini VX6, which ]goes for around 660 bucks.

In general, though, most netbooks cost between 200 and 400 dollars, while notebooks are available for prices that start at 500 or 600 dollars, but that can go up to 1000 or 1500 bucks, if we are talking about gaming laptops, for example.

Still in the last years cheaper and cheaper mainstream laptops entered the market. That’s why you can right now find 15.6 inchers for as low as 300 bucks. However, those comes with years old hardware, offer poor performances and only 1-2 hours of battery life. Yes, you have the bigger display and keyboard, but all these worth the compromise?

Performance level and features

While netbooks have the advantages of portability, as we have already seen, and battery life, as we will see a bit later, notebooks are much better when it comes to performance and features (most of them at least, as like I said, there are some laptops with netbook like or even poorer hardware inside).

Netbooks are portable and affordable, while laptops are fast and strong

The Intel Atom or AMD Fusion processors featured by netbooks nowadays can’t keep up with the Intel Core Duo dual-core chips featured by laptops in terms of gaming, watching movies or other resources hungry applications. Furthermore, laptops usually feature a larger number of ports than netbooks, as well as internal CD or DVD drives, which cannot be usually found on a netbook.

Battery life

When comparing netbooks and laptops, you shouldn’t neglect the battery life, which is one of the most important netbooks’ strong points. Therefore, while most laptops will offer an autonomy of maximum three or four hours (there are exceptions though, like the business notebooks with extended slice batteries), their smaller siblings can go well over five hours and sometimes even for eight or nine hours without being plugged in.

One of the best examples of a competitive netbook from this point of view is the Asus Eee PC 1015PX, available at Amazon for 299.99 dollars, which can reportedly run for eleven hours( sic!) on a single charge while offering a solid everyday experience.

Wrap-up

After comparing netbooks and laptops from different points of view, I think, or I at least hope, that it has become clear that both types of devices have their strong and weak points. If you are wondering if you should buy a netbook or a laptop right now, you should take into account all the things mentioned in this article, but you should also keep in mind the most important thing of them all.

What exactly do you need? If the answer is portability, affordability and the use of light applications, your number one choice should be a netbook. And if this is in fact your choice, you should check out this list of top 10 inch netbooks right now.

If on the other hand you need a strong and fast device to play video games on or watch HD movies at the best possible quality level and you don’t mind a bit of extra weight, you should definitely go for a laptop.

Related posts:

1. Best 10 inch netbooks and mini laptops right now
2. Best anti glare screen protectors for netbooks and mini laptops
3. Fastest netbooks – most powerful 10 inch laptops – best picks

Of course, there’s a reason most of these mini laptops lack HDMI, mainly because they aren’t able to run properly Full HD content, thus there’s no point in adding this post that allow you to output High definition video onto a bigger display. There are exceptions though.

In the following post we will discuss the importance and the role of HDMI and we will try to find the very few 10-inch netbooks that feature it.

What is HDMI and what does it do?

When you are in market for a notebook and especially for a netbook, the things you look at are probably the processor, the graphics card, the storage unit and the display. Very few of you look at the number of ports and probably only a couple of you check if the netbook features HDMI. Why? Because few people know exactly what this does.

The Asus 1015B is one of the few 10-inch netbooks that feature HDMI

HDMI is short for High-Definition Multimedia Interface and connects digital audio and video sources, such as DVD players, HD DVD players, Blu-Ray Disc players or PCs to compatible digital audio devices, computer monitors, tablet computers and digital televisions. If we are talking about HDMI output on netbooks, this allows you to connect your device to an HD TV in order to play HD content on the respective device.

Best netbooks with HDMI

While netbooks are great devices if you look for extra portability on a cheap gadget, when it comes to HD playback these have great problems. There are very few 10-inch netbooks right now that allow HD playback and there are even less netbooks that are capable of playing Full HD content flawlessly  in terms of both image and sound.

If you can find the Acer AO 522 10-inch netbook, this could also satisfy you in terms of HD playback

One of the best netbooks with an HDMI port on the market right now is the Asus Eee PC 1015B. This is a 10.1-inch mini laptop is powered by a dual core 1.0 GHz C50 AMD Fusion processor and  comes with integrated HD graphics. The netbook from Asus is one of the best 10-inch netbooks that allows HD playback, including 1080P streamed content from Youtube of self-stored video files.

Another 10-inch netbook that features an HDMI port is Acer’s Aspire One D522, which is powered by a similar 1 GHz AMD C-50 processor and comes with ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics. This is however currently unavailable at Amazon, being previously sold for about 330 bucks. When compared to the 1015B, it has one big plus: it comes with a 1280 x 720 px display, which is better suited for viewing HD content that the standard 10124 x 600 px screen we find on laptops is.

The Toshiba NB550D is the third 10-inch netbook on the market right now that features HDMI, being yet again powered by the 1 GHz AMD Fusion C-50 processor. This is however not very competitive in terms of price, being available for about 415 dollars at Megabuy.com. Still,it features some amazing speakers and a Full-size keyboard

As you can see, all the 10 inchers listed above come with AMD’s C50 hardware platform, as this is right now the only one able to play 1080p content on a 10 inch netbook. In comparison, netbooks built on an Intel Atom platform (even those on Atom N550 and N570 CPUs, the most powerful processors to be found in 10 inchers right now), can only play 720p content and only some types of files. That’s why you only get one Atom powered netbook with HDMI, and that’s the Dell Mini 1010, which is in fact and older model that has now been discontinued (the later Dell Minis lack this port, and for a good reason).

The Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook is powered by an Intel Atom processor and features an HDMI port

And this pretty much concludes our list. As a wrap-up, right now you only get HDMI on ADM C50 powered 10 inch laptops and they can deal flawlesly with 720p files and most 1080p files as well (including MKVs and Streamed content from Youtube). Atom powered laptops can onyl deal with 720p content in most cases. However, with Intel’s new line of Atom ready to hit the market by Fall, you will get Full HD playing on Atom netbooks as well, so expect all the new linew to feature a HDMI port (like the Asus EEE PC 1025CE/C line showcased at Computex).

Alternatives

While 10-inch netbooks feature extra portability, hence to their compact bodies and lightwieght, if you want a device with HDMI output that can handle Full HD content with ease, you should probably check out the 11.6 or 12-inch mini laptops available on the market right now.

After all, these kinds of devices are not very much heavier than the 10-inch netbooks and not considerably more expensive either. And you do get some extra benefits aside from the faster hardware, like an increased screen resolution and a bigger keyboard.

The Asus 1215b will provide you with one of the best supports for HD playback right now

And if you ask yourself what 11.6 or 12-inch notebook to choose for the best HD playback, the answer is pretty simple. Almost any one of the top options will do. The Asus 1215B, for example, is available for about 430 dollars right now, while the 11.6 inch HP DM1 can be yours for only $426.99, with the Lenovo X120E or the Sony Vaio YB also standing out from the crowd as excellent picks.

As you can see, the 11.6-12 inchers are not significantly pricier than 10 inchers, their not significantly heavier or bulkier, they come with overall good battery life as well and when it comes to performances, they clearly outperform netbooks in every task.

Conclusion

If you are looking for HDMI output on netbooks right now, you have to think hard about what you want and what you need. If you are willing to sacrifice a bit in terms of performances, we have offered you some examples of 10-inch netbooks that include a HDMI port and should satisfy you.

On the other hand, if you want flawless HD video playing  and some extre punch, you have two option right now . Either you go for a 11.6 or 12-inch mini laptops, either you give it more time and you wait for other computer producers to get their hands on the new Intel Atom processors that seem to do a better job when it comes to high-definition video and audio.

Related posts:

1. Best netbooks with HD displays- quick guide and examples
2. Best mini laptops for children- how to buy a netbook for kids
3. Best netbook cases and bags for 10 to 12 inch mini laptops

However, if you are very keen in using this kind of data storage device on your mini laptop, there are ways that can make your device everything you would like it to be. We are talking about upgrading your netbook from a classic HDD to an SSD, a process that might look difficult, but that is pretty easy in most cases.

We will talk in the following post about SSD, the advantages and disadvantages from a regular HDD, as well as the reasons why you would want such a device on your netbook. Also, we will try to give you a hand in upgrading your netbook and give you some tips about how to make your mini laptop a state of the art computer equipment.

What is an SSD?

An SSD( or solid-state drive) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block or hard disk drive. SSDs use microchips which retain data in non-volatile memory chips and contain no moving parts.

This gizmo can make your life a whole lot easier when it comes to data storage and safety

We lost you, right? I know, I too get confused whenever I try to get a grasp on these kinds of sophisticated definitions. So, let’s try to make it a little simpler. SSDs are alternatives to regular HDDs, but, unlike those, are more solid and more reliable when it comes to storing data. Now you get it, don’t you?

Advantages and disadvantages

As we already mentioned above, SSDs are much better than HDDs when it comes to storing data. Actually, not when it comes to storing data, but to keeping data. What do I mean? Well, one of the biggest netbooks and notebooks problems has always been their predisposition of being dropped, bumped or jolted. That is an elegant way of saying that some of you tend to be extremely clumsy when handling a netbook and end up dropping it or hitting it very often.

You have to be very careful when upgrading your netbook to not lose your warranty

And when such a thing happens, HDDs, which contain spinning disks and movable read/write heads, are very prone to catastrophic data losses. With SSDs, on the other hand, you will not have to worry very much about such accidents, because, containing no moving parts, they are almost data-loss-proof.

Aside from this, SSDs also offer fabulous reading performance and, most of the times, good writing performance as well.

Last, but not least, SSDs are consistently more silent than HDDs.

Regarding the disadvantages of SSDs, you almost can’t find one linked to performance or quality. However, SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs and therefore prove to be a wise choice either for those of you who don’t have a limited budget to invest in your netbook, either for those of you who don’t need very much storage space. For example, a 120 GB SSD from Intel goes for about 275 dollars on Amazon right now, while a 256 GB Solid State Drive from Samsung is available for around 400 bucks.

How to upgrade your netbook

After talking about the strong points and the weak point( !) of SSDs, I think it is obvious why would you want a netbook with SSD. However, due to their very high price, it is almost impossible right now to find decent netbooks with SSD on the market. What can you do, though, to take advantage of this kind of data storage device? You can upgrade your netbook with an SSD.

Based upon three comprehensive articles on this subject, one from laptopmag.com, one from pcworld.com and one from gizmodo.com, we are not going to explain the upgrading process step by step, but rather we will underline some of the most important things you need to know before trying to do this.

Don't try to upgrade your netbook if you are not sure of how to do it!

First of all, you have to make sure that you own a netbook that allows an easy access to the HDD. This is very important, because in some cases you will have to remove your netbook’s keyboard and therefore you will lose your warranty. However, since 99% of netbooks will not offer direct access to your storage drive, just settle with the though that you’ll void warranty. Unless you ask someone at the shop to install the SSD for you.

Secondly, you have to ensure your netbook is suited for a solid-state drive. In order to be able to install an SSD on a netbook, this will have to run Windows Vista or 7, it will have to allow physical upgrades and its BIOS will have to support SSDs. Plus, with most netbooks featuring standard 2.5″ storage drives, you’ll need a similar 2.5″ SSD to replace them.

Last, but not least, make sure you back up your data and most importantly make sure you know everything there is to know about the SSD installing process. In order to do that, read very carefully the three articles recommended above, as well as other posts you might find on the internet on this subject.

Also, you will need to reinstall the OS and in most cases you’ll need a bootable OS drive or an external optical unit for that.

Conclusion

While it would be really nice to be able to buy a fast, reliable and ultraportable netbook with SSD at an affordable price tag, this is impossible right now and will probably remain like this for some time.

On the other hand, the benefits of SSDs can’t be denied and, if you are really keen on taking advantage of these, there are ways you can install them on your netbook. And if you don’t have the patience of reading the recommended posts, you can check out these videos and see how the upgrade process is done.

Related posts:

1. How to install Windows 7 on Netbooks
2. Asus 1025CE and 1025C EEE PC – new generation Asus netbooks
3. Best Chrome netbooks – what is a ChromeBook and top picks on such devices

In the following article we will try to define the meaning of the word ‘’netbook’’, as well as find out the basic specs and properties a device should feature in order to be called a netbook computer. Furthermore, we will try to find the most important differences between netbooks and laptops and towards the end of the post we will recommend some of the best devices of this kind you can get on the market right now.

We have to state from the beginning that we have no intention of offering some sort of scientific definition or analysis of netbooks, but rather give you a kind of useful guide for finding out what exactly is a netbook and why you should or should not buy a device of this kind.

What are netbooks?

According to the Wikipedia definition of the word, ‘’netbooks are a category of small, lightweight, legacy-free, and inexpensive laptop computers’’. According to the online Urban Dictionary, a netbook is ‘’ an extremely small, highly portable laptop used primarily for surfing the Internet’’ or ‘’ a small notebook computer designed to be ultra-portable, extremely lightweight, power friendly, and also very affordable’’.

A netbook is smaller, lighter and more portable than a notebook

Starting from these definitions, we could say that a netbook should be at the same time:

• small
• lightweight
• portable
• cheap
• power-friendly
• easy to use for Internet purposes

If we are to go a little bit deeper though and talk about the exact characteristics of a netbook, we should state the following:

• In theory, at least, a netbook should have a screen size of no more than 12 inches and should weigh a maximum of three pounds. Ideally, a netbook weighs about two and a half pounds nowadays or even below that, if we look at 10-inch or 9-inch models, but there are also models that weigh 3.3 or even 3.4 pounds.
• In terms of hardware, most netbooks feature Intel Atom or AMD Fusion processors and 1 or 2 GB of RAM. The internal storage space differs, but in most cases is of 160 or 250 GB.
• The battery life is very important on a netbook and most devices of this kind right now offer an autonomy of at least five hours with the Wi-Fi turned on.
• You can run most of the basic applications of a notebook or personal computer on a netbook, but when it comes to movies or video clips, for example, the quality is not the greatest.
• A netbook has no internal disc drive in most cases, but usually features USB slots, LAN Ethernet slots, card readers, VGA ports and webcams.
• As far as pricing is concerned, the most competitive netbooks on the market right now will cost you something in the range of 300-400 dollars. However, there are models more affordable, as well as more expensive netbooks.

Differences between a netbook and a notebook

Having determined what is a netbook computer, the next purpose of our article is to quickly understand what is the difference between a netbook and a laptop. We will not insist on this, however, giving that you can extract the differences from the things mentioned above, but also giving the fact that we have a dedicated article on the matter in store for you in the near future.

Therefore, we could very quickly state that netbooks are smaller, lighter, more portable and more compact than notebooks, offer a higher battery life, as well as a more affordable price. In terms of features and technical specifications, there are also differences, from the absence of CD or DVD drives in netbooks to the more powerful processors featured by larger notebooks.

Netbooks should feature most of the things featured on a notebook, with a few exception

What is the best netbook to buy?

We have covered the definition of a netbook, we have talked about the differences between a netbook and a laptop and we have quickly looked at what can a netbook do. Now we are going to try to find the best netbooks on the market, in terms of performance, but also in terms of pricing.

The Samsung NF310 is a very popular choice right now, coming with a very beautiful design and pretty nice technical specs and selling for 362.54 dollars at Amazon. The Asus 1015PN is another great 10-inch netbook, offering a great quality-price ratio.

You can also go for the Toshiba NB305, whic sells for 329.88 dollars and is probably the nicest looking, comfortable and reliable netbook right now.

If you want to find out more about these three top netbooks, but also if you want to check out other highly competitive netbooks on the market right now, you can take a look at this list of best 10 inch netbooks or at this article, which presents some of the best 12-inch netbooks on the market right now.

Conclusion

While we could talk for hours about netbooks, the differences between them and notebooks, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of buying such a device, it’s time to wrap up. To conclude, netbooks are, or at least should be, portable, light, cheap computer devices capable enough of running basic applications.

They provide most of the features you will find on a PC or a notebook while being more of a secondary computer, good for traveling.

Related posts:

1. Best netbook tablet PCs – top picks on convertible netbooks
2. Best 12 inch mini laptops – top picks of the moment
3. Best cheap netbooks under $300 – your top picks right now

Also available are the Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate Editions for $299.99 and $319.99 respectively. The Starter Edition is not on the list, sorry.

Windows 7 offers many improvements such as:

• Faster Performance
• Desktop Enhancements
• H0me Media Streaming
• Windows Search and
• Better Device Management

Microsoft understands the lack of Optical Disc Drive on Netbooks so they provided an option to download the ISO copy of the purchased version, and create a bootable USB flash drive. Tools to achieve this, which is the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool {WUDT}, is also available for download. So basically, all you need to have to be able to install Windows 7 on your netbook is a copy of Windows 7, and the tool.

How to install Windows 7 on netbooks:

1. Purchase and download a copy of Windows 7, version of your choosing
2. Download the WUDT
3. Install the tool on your netbook
4. Click the Windows Start button, and click Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool in the All Programs list to open the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool.
5. In the Source File box, type the name and path of your Windows 7 ISO file, or click Browse and select the file in the Open dialog box.
6. Select USB to create a copy on a USB flash drive or DVD to create a copy on a DVD disk, then click Next.
7. If you are copying the file to a USB flash drive, select your USB device in the dropdown list and click Begin copying. If you are copying the file up to a DVD, click Begin burning.
   {Microsoft}

System Requirements

• Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
• 50MB of free space on your hard drive
• DVD-R drive or 4GB removable USB flash drive

Related posts:

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2. EeePCLinuxOS: How to install
3. HowTo install Expressgate on USB

It supports two-finger scrolling, two-finger zoom in/out and two-finger rotating among others. When I got my 1000HE two months ago, I immediately noticed two problems with its ‘very sensitive’ touchpad. I didn’t mind the problem since to me, it’s not a big deal. I use a separate mouse most of the times.

But when I started to frequently use my netbook anywhere, I also refrained from using a separate mouse.

My current setting for the Elantech Touchpad

One problem is the ‘very sensitive’ rotating and zooming feature of the Elantech touchpad. I noticed that whenever I scroll pages, one tiny movement of the fingers turns the page to zoom in or out instead of move it up or down. It happens mostly when using Firefox and other internet browsers.

Another problem is the very sensitive tapping feature. It happens most of the times that whenever I am typing, the cursor just suddenly moves from place to place. This is because the palm of my hand sometimes slightly touches a little portion of the corner of the touchpad. It messes up my work. This can happen even when I am using an external mouse unless I disable the touchpad.

I thought it’s only me having the problem but I learned that there’s a lot of people complaining about the same problem. And it even seems like I’m actually the least affected.

So while waiting for the update for the driver from Elantech, if there will be, I played with the touchpad settings and came to a simple workaround.

First, since I do not basically need zooming in or out or rotating objects on the netbook, I decided to disable that control. Immediately, my first problem was resolved. I don’t know if it the sensitivity or it just conflicts with the 2-finger scrolling. Anyway, I’m good with the settings. Disabled Zooming and Rotating.

Second, I went to Tapping settings and set the delay to 2 seconds. So whenever I type, the touchpad will be inactive and so far my second problem has not happened again. I am not very sure if this is the best setting because I have not tried other settings yet. But as long as it works for me, I’m good. You may try the same and let me know how it goes.

Related posts:

1. Fn F2 not working on Easy Peasy 1.1 [Solved with EEE Control]

I initially installed the Intel Graphics Driver that comes along with the Asus Eee PC restore CD, but it only supports up to 800×600 resolution with no scaling. So the whole Desktop doesn’t fit very well on the small monitor, thus, scrolling is required to go end-to-end on the screen. FN+F5 works prefectly during with this driver. Then I updated the driver with Intel Embedded Graphics Driver that supports scaling and the problem occurred.

Problem:

igfxext.exe not running. FN+F5 will be disabled.

It took me a while before I finally figured out a technique and I hope this might help you too in case you run the same problem.

1. Install the original driver back. The FN+F5 will work again, but the resolution is quite big for the screen (not scaled).
2. Run the “Setup.exe” of the IEGD driver but select Uninstall Driver instead of directly overwriting the existing one.
3. Restart Windows XP
4. When XP boots up again, it will prompt you for Graphics Driver. This time, follow the installation wizard but point the driver to use the IEGD.
5. Graphics driver will be successfully installed with scaled resolution, and the FN+F5 still works.

Another problem that might happen to you but so unlikely is that the Eee PC Tray Utility won’t allow you to select a different resolution. Just make sure that your monitor uses the Plug n Play driver and not the ones with specific resolution. e.g Dafault(800×480).

Related posts:

1. Asus Eee PC X101 – Meego running ultra-portable (video)
2. How to install Windows XP on Eee PC and netbooks, made easy
3. Asus Eee PC X101H – new Windows 7 netbook with PineTrail

I messed up with my default Xandros and since I don’t have an external CD-ROM, I was forced to install eeeXubuntu. Step by step, I managed to install it.

The steps were easy to understand and it’s “Basic” if I am to rate it.

How to install eeeXubuntu.

1. Mess up with your default Xandros (totally optional). Mine is by accident.
2. Download the eeeXubuntu Live CD / USB image.
3. Prepare the Live USB installer.
4. Boot from USB and hit the Install shortcut on the desktop.
5. Follow the instructions and you’ll end up successfully.

Software that comes with default eeeXubuntu install.

• Abiword
• Orage Calendar
• Gnumeric Spreadsheet
• Firefox
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Pidgin (Internet Messenger)
• Brasero Disc Burning Application
• Movie Player
• GIMP Image Editor
• GQview
• Lots of non-sense games (I’m going to uninstall what I don’t like)
• Mousepad (Text Editor)
• Terminal (console)
• Thunar File Manager ( I like Xandros File Manager a lot than this )

eeeXubuntu walkthrough is in the process…

Related posts:

1. EeePCLinuxOS: How to install
2. Best netbook with HDMI – quick guide and examples of such mini laptops
3. Best netbooks with HD displays- quick guide and examples