Surely you have heard of a NetBook, you see them in ads and on television for ridiculously cheap prices, but what is it about them that makes them so small and so cheap? Well basically, they are mini-mini laptops. You take a regular laptop, divide everything by two and you are left with a netbook.
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:
| Dell Mini | Asus EeePC | |
| Screen | 10″ Glossy LCD | 10″ Matt LCD |
| Wireless | Yes | Yes |
| Bluetooth | Yes | Yes |
| Hard Drive | 160GB | 160GB |
| Processor | Intel Atom 1.6GHZ | Intel Atom 1.6GHZ |
| WebCam | 1.3 megapixel | 1.3 megapixel |
| Operating System | Windows XP Home | Windows XP Home |
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.
