Netbook or Laptop

Hi wg

It depends on what you want to do with your laptop/netbook.

Netbooks

Designed to be small and lightweight Netbooks generally have a screen size between 7” – 13” and weigh less than 1kg, they also tend to have a longer battery life between 4 – 10 hours. This makes them ideal for carrying around and working from anywhere be it lectures, the library or even the student union! Netbooks are powerful enough to browse the internet and complete basic tasks such are using Microsoft Office programmes and also have sufficient hard drives for data storage with most coming with 160GB.

Netbook's don’t come with a DVD Drive built in so you’ll need to use memory sticks or buy an external drive if you need to use DVD’s. Also the keyboards can be too small for some people so look out for ones with full size keyboards to give you extra comfort.

Plus Points

Small and Lightweight
Long battery life
Minus points

No DVD Drive
Too small for some hands
Not powerful enough for gaming or watching movies
Laptops

Laptops are amazingly versatile, not only can they help with your work you can watch TV on them, watch and burn DVD’s, listen to music and play games. This means you don’t need to take a TV, DVD Player, Hi Fi or console with you when you go to Uni, just a laptop.

With a screen size between 13” – 18” you get much clearer visuals. The full size keyboard also means you can type with comfort which is essential if you’ve got lots of essay’s to write. If you need to do design work or want to play games then make sure you get a laptop with dedicated graphics.

Plus Points

Larger screen
Full size keyboard
More powerful
DVD Drive
Minus Points

Larger and heavier
Shorter Battery Life

Source: http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Netbook_vs_Laptop/page.asp

I recently asked that question myself -

Firstly, I wanted to have the ability to work within a clients office, when required, but still have access to the applications that I run, and they don't!

Secondly, I wanted to have the flexibility to work around the house as needed. I have a home office, and not that large for clients to sit in, so tend to do most meetings in the kitchen/dining room!

Thirdly, I didnt want to end up in the situation of having files here, there and everywhere and be using memory sticks constantly transferring files. Nothing worse than going out to client and you havent the right files copied across.

Fourth, I wanted the solution to back up to the same system that I use for my main PC so everything in one place.

Lastly, cost was also an important factor!

I went for a netbook, this one - http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/sony-vaio-vpcyb3v1e-11-6-laptop-silver-11296511-pdt.html
4gb ram, 500 gb hdd, dual core processor, a great little machine!
As for keeping everything in one place, I use an application called "TeamViewer" which is similar in concept to LogMeIn and allows me to easily see my two monitors connected to my main PC.
The only tech this requires is for me to have internet access so that I can view my home PC - other than that, the netbook really suits its purpose for me and if I know I wont have internet connection, I just copy the files I need and get on with it!

We have both in our office, with the desktop being the main machine, the laptop for mobile use and the netbook as a back up. All three machines are networked and synchronisation software makes sure the contents of the desktop are mirrored in the other two.

We found the cut down processing chip on the netbook meant programmes like Office just didn't work (not that microsoft products work very well anyway) so we downloaded OpenOffice instead and that works perfectly with all the features we need to operate without it constantly failing or running slowly. It's fast, easy to use and so much more intuitive.

Saying this I have to point out that the even on the laptop with huge processing power, massive memory and lots of hard drive we still find those two words cropping up almost hourly with microsoft office - "not responding". It then spends an hour trying to find a solution!

As a result of this we are even thinking about scrapping office completely and using OpenOffice across the board and all because we noticed how much better it ran on the netbook.

As an aside, with the Acer laptop we ran a whole days training course, running powerpoint and driving a projector all on battery and still had enough juice to do some work on the train home!!

Payrollpro