Netbooks may be great for certain tasks, but they can be woefully lacking in their ability to perform others. As a professional who depends on your devices for important matters, what functions are required, and which features, or lack thereof, are deal killers?
Netbook Power - Guts Enough for Glory?
Sometimes it seems as if netbooks just fell out of the sky one day and caught everyone by surprise. However, once you understand what netbooks are and where they came from everything makes a little bit more sense. Still, the question remains, are netbooks worthwhile tools for professional use, or just tiny computers for unimportant tasks?
Typically, a netbook is a portable computer that is smaller, lighter, and less powerful than a standard laptop. Just how much smaller, lighter, or less powerful, is a matter of opinion. Most professional users can imagine ways to get around things like smaller hard drives and less memory. Keeping files stored on the netbook to just the “office types” like word processing files, spreadsheet files, and even PowerPoint files means fitting comfortably within the smaller hard disk.
Using less RAM can be achieved by limiting or eliminating multi-tasking.
Still, professionals whose function includes any sort of compiling, multimedia editing, database work, or other intensive applications would be best to stick with more expensive and more powerful hardware.
Netbook Monitors
One of the major limitations of netbooks is the size of their monitors.
Microsoft released the highly unpopular and resource hungry Vista operating system before the netbook market started catching on. The hardware netbooks ran on had no chance of running Windows Vista, so manufacturers installed Linux instead.
Faced with the choice of letting the entire netbook market become an installed base of Linux systems, or re-opening the decision to eliminate Windows XP from the market, Microsoft chose to allow netbook makers to install XP, if it was limited to machines with low-end hardware.
Netbook screens can be no larger than 12.1” to qualify for a Windows XP installation. Ironically, the requirements for using the upcoming Windows 7 Starter edition are even WORSE when it comes to screen size. This comes as a huge blow to professionals looking into purchasing a netbook.
While screen width has been largely eradicated as a limiting factor for most non-multimedia applications thanks to features like word wrap, screen height is something for which little has been done to overcome. Scanning a document for a bit of information is tedious at best when only a handful of lines at a time display on the screen. Even the netbook's bread and butter function, surfing the Internet, is less productive with a short screen.
Most pros have upgraded to widescreen monitors in the 20-inch plus neighborhood, and many laptops have gone in this direction as well. It makes the old standard 1024 x 768 seem unusable, but on a netbook, you’ll be lucky to find 1024 x 600.
Netbooks for Professional Users
Sure netbooks are a fun way to send tweets to Twitter or update your Facebook page, and maybe even play some games or do some chatting with friends. But, is there enough power and function to be a professional tool for serious users?