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

netbooks such as acer: "aspire one" OS is running Win XP home edition and Lnux that's means can only browse website can't join domain.
Also, most of netbooks have not CD or DVD rom.
So, netbook is tiny size and easy carry on travel.

The difference between Netbooks and Notebooks is more than just in the name. Netbooks are really only good for surfing the internet, hence their name. As much money as these things cost, I recommend getting a full featured laptop instead. Even Notebooks are not as fully featured as a good laptop. Sure Netbooks and Notebooks are smaller and lighter, but consider this. That reduction in weight and size comes at a price.

Laptops have larger screens, built in DVD and in some cases, still have 3.5" floppy drives. They also have better speakers, more slots for inserting PCI cards and in some cases, better video cards for displaying graphics. Laptops also stay cooler during long computing sessions.

So, unless you plan to only use your portable computer for surfing the web, I would not get a Netbook nor a Notebook.

Some minutes ago, I received an e-mail from Sony Vaio, announcing the new:

Sony Vaio Serie TT190F

Screen LCD 11.1" WXGA (XBRITE-DuraView),

3 GB DDR3-SDRAM (PC3-6400, 2GB+1GB)

Drive DVDR Double Layer/DVDRW

Microsoft Windows Vista Business de 32-bit or Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium de 32-bit con Service Pack 1

There are more characteristics, but I refered most important.

Ohhh!!!

The Price!!!

Well, with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium:
Mex $29,699.00 more or less US $ 2,376.00

With Microsoft Windows Vista Business:
Mex $30,299.00 more or less US $ 2,424.00

But with these prices, one Sony Vaio TT190F values the same that 6 (six) Acer Aspire One!!!!!!!!

Hmm... Then why is it that my Acer Aspire ONE "Netbook" came with a 120GB HDD (now offering 160GB), 1GB memory and Windows XP Home? Don't discount netbooks as they are not all made the same. It's amazing the amount of misinformation which appears in this thread.

Working with computers for 30 years should make me credible here. If a laptop has a screen 10 inches or smaller, call it netbook. Some laptops have almost nothing built in (certain Macbooks) and need external hardware but they are still called notebooks. Some netbooks have all the bells and whistles but may cost. Set down what you want in a computer and then how much money you want to spend. If weight is a factor then a netbook might be the answer. However, the screens are small and you better have good eyes to read the smaller screen. I use a laptop with a 17 inch screen. Weight here is more but not that much more. My screen is big and can be clearly seen. There are also 5 plug in ports (USB). A smaller computer may only have 2 ports. Netbooks look cute but may not have the features you want.

John Cip

A notebook is really a small laptop. It is usually less powerful than a desktop. A lot of netbooks are usining Intel's Atom processor which is fine for surfing the web and doing some word processing. Netbooks don't have a great deal of storage. Notebooks will have anything from 80GB to 320GB hard drives and will deal with some image editing and will play some games. If you want to surf on the go, a Netbook is fine, if you want to do a lot more and have a lot of storage, a notebook is your best bet. Hope this helps,

Curlykale

I do a lot of genealogy, and therefore I use genealogical programs. I know I can use a Notebook, laptop for genealogy and I also know I can use a PDA. The PDA has it problems, size for example, and also it is becoming more difficult to purchase a PDA without a lot of other items, i.e. GPS, Cell Phone, MP player, and I don't know what else. My real question is how much difference exists between the low end Netbooks, and a good PDA? I know size is one thing. Maybe I am introducing another question, but I may be interested in using netbook instead of PDA. Often I use the PDA as a way to have maximum data with me and not having problems with security at airports, some libraries, and also easy to have information with me in the stacks.

Netbooks are small laptops intended for portability and low cost. The main factor determining a netbook is the processor: a low-cost/low-power and eventually a little low performance processor such as the Intel Atom or Via C7.

Due to this factor, most tasks are limited to basic internet surfing, basic multimedia, e-mail and other basic applications. (still quite useful)

Optical drives are mostly omitted and screen sizes vary from 7" to 10" (10" being the trend with 12"s appearing)

Some are equipped with small capacity SSDs instead of a standard hard drives, especially more when equipped with Linux.

Most XP netbooks are equipped with a standard laptop HDD.

Pros compared to a regular laptop:
- Excellent portability due to small size and light weight
- Good enough for basic computer tasks
- Relatively low cost

Cons compared to a regular laptop:
- Small screen/lower resolution, small keyboard due to small size
- Limited processing power
- Hardware upgrades can be more challenging
- Due to lower processing capabilities, size and cost, advanced features are less adopted (FireWire, HDMI, etc..)

Netbooks are best used as a 2nd laptop when portability is needed (excellent for travel or leisure purposes). If you plan to do serious work with your computer, I recommend getting a standard laptop... but eventually a netbook will come in handy in many cases.

For comparison with other laptop categories, try my article:
http://www.choosenotebook.com/NotebookCategories.php

I dont know which is the knowledge base who other people has their opinions, but since mi first comments, Id say that I get three PCs:

1.- One Desktop,
2.- One Laptop, and
3.- One Netbook (Aspire One)

Also, I said that Im using my Netbook ONLY FOR TRAVELING.

Well, you may see that I get enought experience in order to my words be more credibles.

Yes, Im a criminal Sawyer who needs write very many texts, and if there is a fact that most of my work is made at my office, and sincerely, I have to say that was usin my Notebook in my travels, but Notebook was replaced by my Netbook Aspire One, and the replacement is most satisfactory., and Im user from PCs for MS Office job, not for fun like to see videos or play games.

I cant understand those people who saids that a Netbook can not serve, just because since my previous comment, I explained thoose things, but to finish my intervention in this forum, Ill repeat that was said until be tirad of non senses:

To the guys who scorn the Netbook because have not DVD Drive, must to remember that a Desktop have a full speed DVD Burner (22x speed), BUT a Laptop only have a limitated speed DVD Burner (8x speed).

One Laptop NEVER REPLACES TOTALLY to a Desktop.

One Netbook NEVER REPLACES TOTALLY to a Laptop.

And that the source of my comments is the fact that Im owner and user of the three classes of PCs before listed.


Lic. Alejandro Gonzlez Flandes.

I have two laptops (HP zd8200 & Dell Inspiron 1720). I also have an Asus eeePC netbook (I assume this qualifies). Traveling with either of the larger laptops is a hassle and useless. I found that I never used the features such as the full dvd burner and great computing power I thought I would always want on the road. I only use them at home now as they equal/surpass the power of my older laptops. The Asus is by far my favorite on the road. It does what I really need to do, which is the usual check email and visit known and often used websites. Plus it never has issues with things like the angle it's at or movement while on. It has pleanty of power in the MS Works word and spreadsheets while on the road for the business I encounter. It translates well to the home laptops and is as quick as my HP. I have it running a 2g ram and the 12g hd with the 8g mmc card is plenty for storage. Plus the TSA seems to really be easier on it than the larger ones. If I want to take more than I use my portable usb 200g hd, but that has been rare. It has definitely changed my thinking about what I really need in travel computing. Your number one consideration in choosing these is your wireless connectability. For most everyone but the geek to have it all for no reason these really are the way to go.

In reading all of the posts here, pretty well everyone has spelled out the differences between the various portable computer configurations. One thing that was not really mentioned through is that the whole notion of Netbooks is that manufacturers see what the next growth market will be: namely the explosion of people that are using more and more Internet-based applications.

Combine all of the Web 2.0 uses (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Skype, blogging, Wikis, etc.) with the growing web-based productivity tools (GoogleDocs, FotoFlexer, etc.), and you'll start to see the trend that more and more everyday people will start to use these types of tools over the typical software traditionally installed in laptops and desktops. I think that's why even Microsoft is moving towards building an online version of Office. Also, just do a search on "virtual desktops" to see how businesses can now place people's work desktop on their computers at home.

So, will the sale of Netbooks grow? Definitely. Will we still be buying notebooks? Also definitely. Will we need both? I'd say perhaps for now. For sure there's still a need for more powerful and capable computers do handle heavy duty tasks, but as we all know, technology is changing so fast that I wouldn't be too surprised that the power you see in current laptops start to show up in Netbooks. Even the dual-core Atom is already on it's way soon.

If I can gaze into a crystal ball and look way down the road, I see Netbook-like devices being used everyday. They would have all the capabilities of the best laptops out there now and then some. They would have wireless connectivity to things like external keyboards, mice, and monitors for home/office use. DVDs and CDs would not be needed as everything would be accessible online.

Definitely exciting times ahead!

Something to add - many of these netbooks we are talking about atre coming down in price to make way for the upgraded models on the nearby horizon.
Asus is already shown its touch screen version (Available in Japan only; I believe for now) and all the others have stated plans for the same. Larger Solid State Drives are being made and the choice of which drive format has been realized. My opinion has changed to these SSD because they seem more reliable while on the move. As long as you aren't toting around alot of extrenuous media files these 40g SSD seem to be enough for any except the CAD people.
But you can easily get caught up in the waiting for features game and then the price break and so on.
Back to the most basic of all computer questions,
What is it needed for and how long can you use it before embarking upon the new 'greatest' thing?

I love netbooks, (actually have two); the small hard drive is no problem, as there's plenty of places on the net to store whatever you want (free), ("in the cloud"), and web-based email (yahoo, hotmail, gmail) doesn't need hard drive space.
Watch out for the problem with Linux machines - all I've seen come with a recovery disc which you will eventually need, but you'll have to use an external optical (CD/DVD) drive, and I don't know of any that will work with Linux without tricky programming. The answer is to get into an intricate maneuver on a windows machine of transferring the recovery disc to a USB stick, then plug the stick into the netbook, which, hopefully will allow booting from USB.

The netbook's small size makes it the ideal format for taking notes in a classroom, university or otherwise. Add a USB drive and notes are easily transferred to a desktop later.

I already posted but I wanted to add one more bit of information on netbooks particularly the reasoning behind the lack of optical drives.

A little while ago MicroSoft announced that they were going to stop supporting their XP operating system. Of course the reason was that the public wasnt very excited about Vista and many people were refusing to upgrade. MS hoped that when they stopped supporting XP people would be forced to go to Vista. Yeah, it was kind of a sh*tty move on their part, but they are in business to make a profit after all.

Anyway, then Asus came out it the netbook that started this whole netbook craze. Since the original Asus netbook was way underpowered and had only a 2G hard drive they chose to put a Linux OS on the laptop. Surprisingly the public didnt seem to mind. Linux was fast and easy to understand - and Asus was thrilled because Linux is free! Others started producing netbooks and also chose to use a Linux OS for the same reasons.

Suddenly MicroSoft started seeing a new unintended trend people were beginning to like Linux and they feared that rather than moving to Vista people just might move to Linux! This was particularly scary since they were already seeing droves of customers leaving for Apple products.

To save their customer base MicroSoft suddenly did a 180 degree turn and announced that they would continue supporting XP and allowing them to be preinstalled on netbooks.
There were some conditions on the netbooks configuration:
1) The processor couldnt be faster than 1.6Ghz.
2) It couldnt come preinstalled with more than 1GB of ram.
3) It couldnt have more than an 80GB hard drive though some have chosen to ignore this rule.
4) Finally, the netbooks couldnt house an optical drive.

Why all these conditions? Well, MS doesnt want the netbook to become a laptop replacement. They want people to continue using their products but they also want them to buy into their next OS upgrade. Right now they are pushing through Windows 7 the replacement to Vista.
Windows 7 is a pretty cool looking OS with a touch screen interface it kind of works like a big old iPhone. Unfortunately youll have to buy a new computer to use it or youll at least have to buy a touch screen monitor.
Well just have to wait and see if this OS is worth the move.