Well lately Apple has been doing things quite right, while Vista was being such a headache for mainstream PC users, Apple was busy making sure that you don’t have the same problems on a Mac, and you don’t, seriously. Are you concerned about viruses? No need on a Mac.

If you have been one of the unlucky many to be caught by a virus on your PC over the years fear not, Apple computers don’t get them, and that means less stress, less worry and less expense in Anti-Virus software. I have both Mac’s and PC’s and one of the best things about them is the fact that you can browse and download emails in confidence that you are not going to open a nasty one that will delete all your data, eat all the food out of your fridge, leave drinks on your coffee table without a coaster, make long distance phone calls on your phone and leave the toilet seat up!

So let’s say that you buy one, okay so what if something goes wrong? Well, I have had experience with that too. One of the keyboards stopped working on some of the keys, while this is a major problem for workflow, I was straight on the phone with support, who easily helped my try to diagnose the problem, when one could not be found the support tech dispatched a new keyboard. All I had to do was put the old one back in the box the new one came in and send it back, free of charge. And it was a fast turn around AND I could track it all online. Pretty neat huh?

One of the things I need in business is Microsoft Office, you need Word and you need Outlook, so you want Office and guess what, you can, Office:mac is Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Outlook (although they do not call it Outlook in the mac version it is called Entourage). So taking your word documents to a mac is definately do-a-ble!

The operating system is stable, compatible and bug free, are you hearing me Vista users! It is very intuitive to use and you can’t really make a mistake with the system, one of the nice things is that it can think for you, now that may sound scary, but it’s not. All the scary configuration that you need to go through on a PC aren’t available to break on a mac, while they are there for advanced users to find, people who are playing in the control panel can’t do any lasting damage to the system, and a fix is as simple as turning the off switch that you were messing with back to the on position.

So I would expect at this point you are at least considering buying one? Am I wrong? Well if you are and I am not wrong, you will probably be interested in some of the cool new features that the new iMacs are sporting. Firstly, the screen, Apple claim that the point of the design of an iMac is to show off the display, and this is true, they are so minimalistic, it is just a screen, with an Apple logo! But it is a nice screen and the new ones are now 21.5″ and 27″ wide screens. With very high resolution. The other new features are the fact that they now come with a wireless keyboard and mouse, now interestingly they come with a very weird wireless keyboard, it has no numberpad on the right, which is a little annoying when you use it. That was a bizzare choice for Apple  if you ask me.

But they have made it up by giving us a new toy, a magic mouse. Spooky!!!! No not really, however it claims to be the most intuitive mouse you can have, instead of click buttons the entire top surface of the mouse is touch sensitive, which means you can click, scroll and do plenty more, by just rubbing your fingers across the surface.

Another good feature that isn’t really a feature is the fact that it is the entire computer, I have moved mine dozens of times, the reason I do this is because I can, there is literally two cords that go into the back. Which means its a simple matter of unplugging the power cable and your off. Brilliant!

It also plugs straight into your iPhone or iPod with no dramas at all. So no hunting for drivers or downloading software, it just works. And that is the best feature of all, it just works. It is pretty to look at, is a talking point with friends and it just works. What more could you want, and they are more affordable than you may think.

There you go, they are quite good, oh and you can run word on them, or Windows, if you are so inclined. Just have a play with one for a while, if you are not entirely confident using a computer, I bet that after an hour of playing with one, you will get the hang of it, they are simple intuitive, pretty and safe, all the things you want and need. Now that Windows7 is out it will be interesting to see if the frustrated masses will stay loyal to Microsoft or defect to the dark side?

Who knows? Only time will tell…

Essentially, they are all the same, and they are all around $700. There are some variations but basically if you’re looking at one, you’re looking at all of them. While they are not fast, have a small screen, no CD Rom drive, micro mouse track pad and miniscule features, you would imagine they are useless, right? Well, sadly for the most part you would be right.

However, they are very cute, and everywhere you take it people will say “Oh my goodness, how small is that!”, but the cuteness will wear off as soon as you try to do too much with it. And the frustration of hitting the wrong key on the tiny keyboard will make you forget how little you paid for it.

So if we are going to compare apples with apples, we need an example. So we will compare the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with the Asus EeePC 1002H.

So a quick comparison below:

Need I go on?

As you can see they are evenly stacked, it basically depends on if you like gloss or matt screens? Whoopee!

So we have established that they are basically the same specs and the same price, but just to look at it, I would have to say that the Dell is the winner, it is clear when you are looking at it that someone has at least tried to make it look like designer accessory, as opposed to a useless computer that you will probably never use.

To look at them positively, they do have a very good battery life, I can say from experience that you can watch more than 2 hours of videos with the screen brightness turned all the way up and still have a little battery life to spare, they are also the most portable computer you can own, so if you do need something to check your emails with while you are on the road that is light and relatively easy to use (if you have small hands), you have found what you are looking for.

But what about speed? No. None in here.

So they are slow and small, but let’s say that you are a regular internet user that just wants something cheap, that you can watch some YouTube videos and check your facebook with, you would probably consider one of these, they are cheap, they have a 12 month warranty, and when it breaks you can throw it in the bin and buy a new one. Perfect!

I personally am in two minds as to what I really think about them, I can see why people would want one, but if you get one, try to load a few web pages into internet explorer and see how long it takes for you to get up and go use another computer, I know it won’t take too long. But let’s look at it practically. The next type of computer you can buy from Dell is a full sized Dell Inspiron 15 for $699*, wait… that’s the same price, and it has a CD Rom drive, bigger keyboard and 15 inch monitor. Well isn’t that interesting?

Well there you have it, if you want to buy a small netbook for under seven hundred dollars, buy a full sized Dell Inspiron 15, you will find more uses for it, and it won’t make you squint.

*Prices correct at time of publication.