The chances are that you’ve probably noticed the term ‘netbook’ by now – it’s pretty much everywhere. Recently Nokia hit the headline with a new machine, but made much of the fact that its Booklet 3G was ‘not’ a netbook, even though much of specifications made it appear to be one.

[b]So what is a netbook?[/b]

The netbook was originally conceived as an inexpensive, but highly portable computer. The first one burst onto the scene in mid 2007 in the guise of the Asus Eee PC 700 and cost just over £200 – a breakthrough price for a computer.

The term ‘netbook’ was actually originally used by British company Psion for a small computer based on the EPOC32 operating system back in 1999, and the company indeed tried to sue Intel for use of the term, but the two companies came to an agreement in June 2009.

The first few ran variations of Linux, purely for cost reasons. However, when Microsoft saw the potential loss of revenue, it cut off Linux's chances by offering Windows XP to OEMs at a cut price. Most users also proved keen to stick with Windows due to its familiarity, especially when it meant little increase in price.

Early machines also featured SSD drives – which are hard disks based on flash memory with no moving parts. However, as these offered very little storage capacity, generally 8 or 16GB, as any more would have been prohibitively expensive, they were soon replaced by standard hard disks.

That said, Asus itself soon followed up its original machine with a more expensive model with better specs, and as these new models began to appear the features and then the price began to creep up. This means that in some cases it has become difficult for purchasers to see the differences between a netbook and a laptop.

[b]So exactly how do they differ?[/b]

The main differentiator between a netbook and a laptop is in two key areas – screen size and the choice of processor.

First, there’s size. Netbooks are designed to be smaller and more portable than the average laptop. Of course we’ve had ultra-portable tiny laptops for many years, but these tended to cost considerably more than standard machines, rather than less.

Netbooks tend to use a fairly low power but relatively energy efficient processor. Most use Intel’s Atom processor, while some use Via’s Nano.

By contrast a laptop will run a more powerful processor, such as a Core 2 Duo from Intel, or a Turion from AMD.

It will also run a different operating system – most likely Windows Vista – or from 22 October, Windows 7. Currently almost all netbooks run Microsoft’s Windows XP, a tacit admission from Microsoft that its Vista OS is too demanding for the lighter specs on netbooks. That said there are some models that do feature Windows Vista Basic, which eschews some of Vista’s more complex graphics effects. Windows 7 is light enough on its feet to work on netbooks.

Microsoft has planned to limit Windows 7 on netbooks to a ‘Starter Edition’, that was limited to having only three programs open at once, but changed its tack due to the negative industry reaction.

To give you a yard stick of performance, most current netbooks feature an Intel Atom 270, which runs at 1.6GHz. In our benchmarks, netbooks based on this achive a score of around 0.39, compared to a reference of 1.0 for a Pentium D 870, a standard desktop processor from 2005.

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[b]That’s not very fast then. Why would I put up with that?[/b]

Because it’s still fast enough to do most things that most people want to do most of the time – i.e. browse the web, check your mail, and watch videos on Youtube.

[b]So what can’t I do with a netbook?[/b]

Intel likes to describe netbooks for being for consuming content, and full laptops for creating content – for say picture editing or video editing on the go.

That said, netbooks still aren’t powerful enough to convincingly run high definition video – even the 720p streams from YouTube will be beyond almost all of them.

[b]What are the business benefits of netbooks?[/b]

For many business uses a netbook fulfills most of the functions that they need when on the road – checking mail, accessing data and filling in forms. They are also both practical and beneficial for taking into a meeting as they are light and portable and you can either show your presentation slides directly on the netbook or hook it up to projector. Get one of the more premium models and they also look pretty swish.

What’s more, if you need to kit out a team with portables and their requirements are modest the netbook is an inexpensive way of doing that.

[b]So who makes them?[/b]

Pretty much everyone. Asus started the ball rolling, and initially the major manufacturers turned their noses up at them but eventually they were forced to join the party.

The latest to succumb was Sony, who famously declared that it would never produce a netbook as in terms of the market they were nothing more than, “a race to the bottom”. Sony’s VAIO Mini W-series netbook came out in July.

You can also take your pick from Asus, Acer, Dell, HP, Toshiba, Samsung and MSI. The only major exception is Apple, and the industry is waiting with bated breath for it to eventually produce its own take.

[b]So netbooks are just cheap laptops?[/b]

A prime example would by the new HP Mini 5101. It’s clearly designed as a premium netbook, but the price is equally premium, so the cheapest you can find it for is £375 including VAT. Alternatively, you can get an Intel Celeron based Dell Inspiron laptop with a 15.6in screen for less than £300. It’s larger and heavier though, so size is clearly a factor here.

[b]Go on then, what the best netbook?[/b]

That’s tricky , as there are so many on the market now to fit different wallet sizes and needs and more coming out all the time. For a starting point, check out our buyer's guide – our current favourite is the Samsung NC20 – a larger model offering the usability and build of a regular laptop at a netbook price.

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Author: Benny Har-Even

Need to Know: Netbooks