The best netbook resides in a gray area somewhere above PDAs and slightly below full blown laptops. Initially sporting 7” screens and limited processing power, today’s best netbook is almost the equivalent of fully equipped laptops. Their niche in the marketplace is for lightweight, extremely portable, long-lasting computing. Every person who has lugged around a large laptop with extra battery and power cord knows the benefits that a tiny, sub 3 pound netbook can provide. The best manufacturers include some, well-known names like Samsung, HP, Dell, and Acer as well as lesser known producers like MSI and Asus.
The secret to these lightweight netbooks is their incorporation of the Intel® Atom™ processors. These battery sipping processors provide sufficient computing speed at a fraction of the power consumption of their dual and quad core counterparts. Low power means longer battery life, lower weight (smaller battery), and cooler operation. A netbook is an easy sell to road warriors tired of carrying heavy laptops and running out of battery life at the airport or on a plane.
Today’s best netbook has a 11.6" HD WXGA LED-backlit displays (1366 x 768-pixel resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio), full size keyboards, 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM, 250GB SATA Hard Drives, Digital Media Card Readers, 54g Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), Bluetooth, Webcams, and 6-cell Li-ion batteries that provide up to 10.5 hours of portable computing. Today, the best selling netbook has a 10" diagonal screen, 1GB of SDRAM, 6 cell batteries, 802.11b/g, 160GB hard drive, 7+ hours of operation, and weighs in well under 3 lbs.
Many companies are designing next generation 12” and 13” screen size versions and, while most run Windows XP (some Linux), it looks like Microsoft Windows 7 will be the eventual dominant operating system (unless Google is able to take substantial marketshare with its upcoming netbook operating system). Windows 7 runs very well (better than Microsoft Vista) on today's laptops and will be offered widely.
Today's best netbook manufacturers are Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and Dell. Asus is seen as a pioneer as it introduced the Eee PC series very early. Asus continues to produce an extensive variety of the EeePC family. Another early participant was MSI with their MSI Wind netbook. Acer has recently introduced many pf the best netbook variants and, as a major computer and laptop manufacturer, some of the newest and best models continue to come from Acer. Other leading netbook manufacturers like HP, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung, and Sony have more limited offerings and tend to be priced a bit higher. HP is said to have the best keyboard (although new models from Samsung and Acer will contest this), Sony the smallest netbook, while Samsung, Dell, Toshiba are known for netbook reliability and Samsung, Acer, and Asus are known for long battery life. At present, Acer leads the market with the best selection incorporating the latest technology.
We take an in-depth look at all the netbook manufacturers and share our opinions of their offerings to provide you with our choice of the best netbook available.