> No. Manufacturers have redefined their too-big notebooks as "netbooks" to > confuse consumers as to what real netbooks are. A real netbook is 5"-8", not > a 10"-12" notebook. Those small non-netbook notebooks are not much more > portable than any other notebook, just harder to type on. Redefined cheap > "netbooks" are giving a bad name to an evolving segment of the small computer > market.
The 10 inch netbooks are a lot easier to carry around than the larger laptops. Having typed on a wide variety of keyboards ranging from the Original Sinclair/Timex keyboards to real IBM Keyboards and also even TTY terminals, the MSI keyboards aren't all that bad as long as I remember which keyboard I'm using. I do however have an intense dislike of rolled up rubbery keyboards since to me they don't have enough tactile sensation for me to type on without looking. One of the $300 netbooks with an encrypted filesystem strikes me as an ideal carry around laptop. It wouldn't be my everyday use machine but for out of the house and/or office, perfect. If you go into a retailer like MicroCenter and ask for a Netbook, you'll get something with a minimum screen size of 7 inches most likely and a maximum size of a little over 10 inches. You may not like the definition as used but that's what is being sold as a netbook. > What do you do with a netbook? It's too small for day to day computing. So > what do you do? Email? Web surfing? Find restaurants? Directions? Tweet? Wall > scribbles on Facebook? Actually they're not too small for most people to get a lot of usage out of. They aren't the fastest processors around but for surfing, taking notes in school, even running an LCD projector, they're workable. With OpenOffice, Firefox, Evolution or Thunderbird, you've got a package that most folks can do reasonable work on. Windows 7 also runs rather well on netbooks with 2 gigs of ram, but that's another issue entirely. Let's see a relatively decent sized drive and the recognition that you're not going to be editing movies or compiling large programs on your netbook, they work well for most people. Bluntly I'ld rather have a netbook on a long trip than a much heavier laptop. > The convergence of notebook computers and smartphones is an ongoing process. > The results are still in flux. I really don't want a phone combined with a computer, any phone I can reasonably carry won't have a screen big enough for me to read easily, and if I have to carry around a screen and as for typing, well given the size constraints of netbooks, the keyboards have to be shrunk, of course compared to the "keyboard" on something like the Treo phones, they're heavenly. Right now, I could run OSX on an MSI netbook, but I won't even though I have a copy of OSX to install (bought a family pack, only used two), the terms of purchase only allow installation on Apple machines. Besides, the new Ubuntu netbook version works quite well on the same netbook with no major issues, bye to Windows on them too for me and mine. If Apple does come out with a netbook equivalent (although I originally thought that was the niche the Air was aiming for), it still won't make netbooks obsolete. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
