Netbooks - Hardware CRIMP?

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Dec 5, 2008 at 07:45 AM

Ken,

My own netbook experience is, as yet, rather short (I only bought mine less than a month ago) and limited to Linux, but you might find it useful nonetheless. You might also want to check out David Tebbutt’s opinion here: http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/blog/2008/10/26/a-netbook-in-your-life/

1. It’s small, light, usable, easy to carry around and it doesn’t feel like I should put it in a safe (my Vaio TX3XP cost me literally ten times as much).

2. The pre-installed applications (in Linux) are excellent and feel very familiar (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice etc)

3. Once you decide you need more than its default apps, you need to get your hands dirty into Linux’s command prompt. Learning Linux was actually one of the incentives for buying the netbook (I also have a second-hand desktop which seems to run like a Ferrari compared to WIndows machines) but I didn’t expect to have to do it so soon.

4. Why I wouldn’t buy a Windows netbook: I am convinced that from their very core, Windows encourage, if not impose, bloat. Just for the basics, my Vaio needs several applications running from the systray (like antivirus, firewall and the like) happily consuming my resources. These apps keep growing both in number and complexity, to the extent that I don’t consider a netbook’s specifications capable enough for a year on.

5. The one positive aspect of Windows netbooks is Windows XP, which is to Vista the Ferrari that Linux is to XP.

6. There are now several subnotebooks offering more than twice a netbook’s specifications for less that half the price. They should also be more upgradeable than netbooks. The specifications of my Vaio (bought early 2007) are currently offered by quite affordable machines and should be more than enough for road work—as long as you can somehow ‘downgrade’ them to Windows XP.

Just my 2c
alx