There has been somewhat of a revolution in laptop design over recent years; culminating in the arrival of netbooks. A lighter, cheaper and stripped down version of the traditional laptop, they have come a long way from their beginnings as an answer to providing developing countries with affordable computers.
This excellent project, which continues to help those less fortunate and vulnerable, was just the start however. In the western world, sales have soared in the recent global economic downturn, whilst sales of traditional laptops and most certainly home desktop computers has all but bottomed out, to all intent and purposes.
This has of course been hugely driven by the lower cost, with no real degradation in performance and use for most casual users. However, it is far more than price alone which has kept sales rising. They are also highly portable; being lightweight and much smaller of course; quite able to be carried around in a handbag or shoulder bag with ease.
They will not appeal to business users of course; not to any great degree anyway, but for the consumer, they are more than adequate for emailing and surfing the web. Other such basic functions such as simple spreadsheets, and word processing can also be managed perfectly well.
Instead of relying on high performance processers, as with the traditional laptop, netbooks have employed the use of far smaller components. Battery size too has been reduced, though with their lower functionality, less power is used anyway.
The quality of the kit itself has not been reduced either. Whilst screen sizes are obviously smaller; they are not ridiculously small. Screens are most often touchscreen affairs too, whilst the keyboards are very near to a full sized standard laptop keyboard. With a many connectivity options too; certain peripherals can be added if necessary.
It has not all been good news however; with many people claiming that the unfamiliarity of Operating Systems has prevented them from getting the best from netbooks. Windows Vista and XP often proved too powerful to run on such a machine, and the casual user was unfamiliar with the Linux OS, which was offered as standard.
However, problems that existed with Windows OSs were soon overcome. The recently launched Windows Seven is set to be further developed; with a newly configured version of the platform being designed specifically. For the growing number of manufacturers of netbooks, it looks likely that they could well become the standard in the not too distant future.
Matthew Kerridge is an expert in computer consumables. If you would like further information about netbooks or are looking for a trusted laptop online retailer please visit http://www.ebuyer.com