Laptop buying advice : What's the difference between Netbooks and notebooks?

Smaller, weaker laptops

In reply to: What's the difference between Netbooks and notebooks? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

Netbooks are designed for people that just want a portable machine for browsing the internet, or maybe listening to some mp3's.

If this is all you are looking for then a netbook could be just right for you. However, it is good to try something out on your PC first.

The asus EEE netbook for instance has a 800x480 screen resolution. (The newer ones are slightly higher resolution). This to me is the main reason I would never own one. You can test out if this would be something you can deal with by changing your desktop to this resolution on your own computer and try surfing the web with it. I find it hard to deal with anything under 1280x1024 resolution myself. You may not have this difficulty however.

They do have a niche though and their small size, no moving parts design and decent power efficiency make them attractive for mobile users. If size is that important though, you could even look at the smartphones, the itouch from apple or the new g1 from google. This will give you an even smaller size, and doubles as a cell phone.

(NT) what is tha advatages netbook and notebook?

DO NOT BUY A NETBOOK!!!

In reply to: What's the difference between Netbooks and notebooks? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

hi, netbooks are the tiny and cheap way of a computer. They lack performance and come with small hard drives and rarely have windows xp or vista as an OS choice. if you do buy a netbook you are going to be 100% dissatisfied in about a day after you bought it!!

Nothing WRONG with the Netbooks...so why do not buy?

After reading the Netbook answers, all of which have the pros and cons of owning a Netbook, only one needed to be corrected! Yes the Netbooks are "tiny and cheap" or better yet, small and inexpensive and have a limited usage. But thats just what they were designed for.
If one knows this before buying a Netbook, their hopes will not be dashed.
My personal experience with a Netbook is...
Frist the HP 1123 Mini Note, top of the line model, 8.9 screen (vista os) and has its pros and cons but works great, and with 0% dissatisfaction.

Second is the MSI Wind U-100, 10.0 screen, (XP os) and it too has its pros and cons, but works great, and with 0% dissatisfaction.

It seems that my Sony TX-650 would have been a good contender in the Netbook craze, although it came along 3 years to early, it fits the bill for a Netbook, even has the CD/DVD drive, but not the cost...$1600.00??? This fact alone would have kicked it out of the Netbook race.

Anyone remember the H/PC days?
HP Jornada 720 and 728? Or the NEC 900 and 900C?
Had Microsoft taken these to the next 3 or 4 levels, this would have been a OUTSTANDING size, weight, and portability compaired to the Netbooks we have now. But their cost then $700-$900 would need to come way down. My Jornada 720 and NEC 900C sure seem better built than the Netbooks.

With some education first, one can decide if the Netbook is for them?

They almost always have XP

I know lots of people that love their netbook but I think they all have a desktop or more powerful laptop at home as their main hardware.

Don't listen to people that say netbooks rarely come with XP.

Gaming and databases?

I must object to the comment of "If you do spreadsheets, gaming or databases you need a full notebook".

Spreadsheets can be done perfectly well on netbooks. If people could do spreadsheets on an Apple 2, I'm sure they can do them on a netbook.

If you want to do gaming, then a "full notebook" is not appropriate either. You need a desktop to properly play games, because no notebook is really powerful enough.

If you're using small databases for whatever trivial reason, then netbooks also work fine. If you're working with enterprise-level databases, then a "full notebook" will not float your boat either.

I'd also take exception to "A true netbook will come with Windows XP installed". To my mind, putting Windows XP on these machines is an attempt at coercing them towards doing things that they are not really designed for, and encouraging users to treat them as a fully-fledged notebook. A good Linux distribution for netbooks will have a customised interface for the small screen that makes it quick to get at the tasks you want to accomplish, be optimised for the processor and chipset, and provide a bit of flexibility for application installing.

Linux is the true operating system for the netbook, because it's been tweaked for netbook use. Windows XP is an ancient desktop operating system that's been shoehorned onto netbooks because its replacement will not run well. For example, ever wondered why Windows-based netbooks have hard disks rather than SSDs? It's because XP doesn't properly support SSDs, and they would start breaking down very quickly with the way XP treats them. You get poor write performance too. XP has an obsolete and ineffective security system that forces you to waste precious processing power on anti-virus software - processing power that is at a premium on a netbook.

No, Linux is an appropriate operating system for netbooks. Windows XP is not, unless your "netbook" is four or five years old.