Netbooks vs. laptops: What's right for your needs?

Laptops and notebooks are meant to give you a multifunctional computer. They have built-in Wi-Fi1 to give you the freedom to work and play wirelessly. Depending on the model, larger screen sizes, bigger hard drives and built-in DVD drives increase laptops' weight, which makes them less portable than netbooks but an excellent choice for your everyday computing needs. It really comes down to how you'll use the product and your budget. If you want to edit videos, watch movies, play games and run more than one application at the same time while on the go, netbooks can't compete with the multifunctional prowess of laptops. But if you're looking for a compact mobile companion with built-in Wi-Fi1 for surfing the web, blogging and staying in touch with friends, the small price tag of netbooks is hard to beat for a secondary computer.

	Laptop	Netbook
Cost	Cheaper	More expensive
Processor	Although there are cheap laptops, the processor that is included with most laptops will be a lot better than that often included in a netbook.	Usually low-end processor is used. This can cause a degraded experience when doing more intensive tasks such as watching movies or playing games.
Keyboard size	It comes with a much larger keyboard.	Small size keyboard
Travel	Because of its larger size and often weighs 2 to 3 KGs, carrying around a laptop could be more of a burden for some users.	Netbooks are very light and weighs less than 1 KG and with their much smaller sizes, netbooks are a lot easier to carry around.
Screen size	laptop is going to have a much larger screen size. Laptops screens are atleast 14¡å which goes upto 17¡å.	Netbooks are much smaller making the screen much smaller. Netbook screen size is much smaller and they come around 9¡å to 11¡å , 10 inch screen being the most popular one.
Hard drive	Hard disk drives especially in cheaper laptops are often 5400 RPM hard disk drives and can be slow when it comes to opening a program or otherwise accessing the drive. Almost all of them come with minimum 160 GB Harddisk which goes upto 320 GB.	Netbooks use a SSD (solid-state drive) drive instead of a hard disk drive. Although these drives are often a lot smaller, they're also much faster when it comes to accessing data. Netbook normally comes with 160 GB hard disk though you can ask for upgradation too.
Disc drive	Like any traditional computer, almost all laptops made today will come with some type of disc drive capable of reading CD's and often even reading DVD's, and/or creating a CD / DVD.	Many netbooks will not have a CD-ROM / DVD disc drive. If you wanted to load something from a disc or play a movie or CD, it would not be possible, unless you connected an external drive to a USB port.
Operating System	Almost every type of laptop is capable of supporting any operating system. Which means you'll have the ability to run the latest version of Windows and will likely not have issues updating to a later version. Laptops are specifically designed to handle multitasking. Most new models come with at least 2GB of RAM and some go much higher.	Because many netbooks are stripped down to help lower the overall cost and power consumption, many netbooks are incapable of running the latest version of Windows, and will often come with an older version of Windows. It is good for now that you can get the windows XP. The average netbook comes with only 1GB of RAM and can experience considerable lag when multiple programs are in use.
Multimedia Display	It is good for viewing videos or playing games.	Netbooks are great for surfing the web, they are not as useful for viewing videos or playing games. Most feature only basic graphics capabilities and relatively low RAM.
Battery	Most of them carry 6 to 9 cell battery and due to bigger screen and power processor, the battery backup time is much less of 3 to 4 hours.	Netbooks come with 6 cell battery and often give backup time of 8 hours and more.

Next time I will be discussing "What you need Netbook or Notebook?". Watch this space

Posted in: Laptops