The A to Z of Netbooks
From A to Z, here’s a glossary of some of the most important things in the netbook world.
A is for Atom
By far the most popular netbook processor, the Intel Atom. At the heart of a huge number of best-selling netbooks. At the head of our alphabet!
B is for Battery Life
The ‘killer app’ of the Samsung NC10 was its massive battery life. Ever since, netbooks have been measured by the ‘run a whole working day without recharging’ benchmark.
C is for Cheap
For years, Sony sold tiny little laptops for £1000 and up. It was always assumed that ’small equals expensive’. Not true with netbooks. You can get a very solid machine for under £250.
D is for Design
Fitting a 97% full-size keyboard on a 10" netbook? Getting 3 USB ports, a monitor port, SD slot and numerous other extras onto a machine solid enough to carry in your bag & pretty enough for people to stare at you on the train? Design is one of the key elements of today’s successful netbooks.
E is for Extras
Dongles, external drives, cases, skins, touch-screen kits. There are a million and one extras for your netbook – and that’s half the beauty of them – flexibility to use them how you want and add to them as you choose.
F is for Features
The key features to look for in a netbook are: Processor speed, Memory size, Storage type & size, Keyboard size, Screen size, Weight & Battery life. With a laptop you probably wouldn’t think twice about ‘keyboard size’ or ‘storage type’ (maybe even battery life), but here these are very important
G is for Google
Well you have to fit Google in somewhere don’t you? Google’s Chrome OS will be heavily, heavily geared towards netbooks. Scheduled for release in 2010, we look forward to seeing this.
H is for HSDPA
“HS Who?”… HSDPA is ‘High-Speed Download Packet Access’ – the 3G extension that lets you download at up to 10Mbps from a mobile network! Present in more & more netbooks as the months go by.
I is for Intel
OK, so we already had ‘Atom’, but Intel have been so influential in the netbook world we had to include them again. With their funny rules about only including certain amounts of memory with their chips, and keeping your screen sizes to certain limits – they have shaped the modern netbook.
J is for June 2, 2009
June 2nd? Huh? Psion applied for the trademark ‘netBook’ in 1996 and later released a product called a ‘netBook’ in 2009. They sent out cease and desist letters to all & sundry, until June 2, 2009 when they announced they were waiving their rights to the term, and all other manufacturers could happily call their machines Netbooks without worry.
K is for Keyboard
When you’re using something of this size, it’s essential the keyboard is well designed! Modern netbook keyboards are an absolute revolution. Antibacterial, moulded to match your fingers, made to fit all of the keys in a tiny space while still feeling comfortable. The mark of a good netbook is the quality of its keyboard.
L is for LED
Most netbooks use LED screens. The advantage of these is they warm up instantly, they’re more eco-friendly (because they use less mercury) and they’re less likely to fade or get screenburn.
M is for Mac
There are always rumours of a Mac netbook, and Apple are said to be annoyed about people installing their operating systems onto other companies’ netbooks (‘Hackintosh’ netbooks). It can only be so long before Apple bring something of their own out.
N is for …
OK, We can probably skip this one right? IT’S FOR NETBOOK!
O is for Overtaking
Netbooks have gone from 0% of laptop sales to 20% of laptop sales in a little over a year according to a National Purchase Diary survey in September 2009. The big question is: will they ever overtake laptops?
P is for Portable
Let’s face it – if it’s not portable, it’s not a netbook. Gone are the days when backpackers would lug around 15" Dell beasts. The age of the tiny netbook is here.
Q is for Quiet
Remember those noisy old laptops? Keeping you awake while you tried to sleep and download a torrent at the same time? Netbooks, with a few small exceptions, are soothingly quiet.
R is for RAM
While Intel’s funny rules kept most netbooks at a 1GB maximum, we’re now seeing more and more 2GB machines and rumours of 8GB & above for the near future.
S is for Solid State
Though it’s still the exception, netbooks are far more likely to have Solid State Drives than your average laptop. Solid State is good because your machine can take knocks without the chance of losing data, the access is much faster (meaning programs seem to load & run faster), they last longer (no moving parts!), they’re quieter, and they’re cooler.
T is for Touchpad
A very important part of the netbook experience. ASUS nailed this quite early one, with touchpads very similar to those you’d find on a Mac. Unless you’re carrying a mouse everywhere, it’s important to get a netbook with a decent size touchpad.
U is for Ultraportable
The more powerful, battery-hungry cousin of the netbook, those 11" Core 2 Duo beasts that eat batteries for lunch occasionally try to call themselves ‘netbooks’ before being slapped with the badge ‘ultraportable’.
V is for Via
The only real contender against the Intel Atom have come from VIA. Samsung’s NC20 notably packed in a VIA processor which, while being dubbed 1.3GHz against the Atom’s usual 1.6 (or 1.66GHz), the VIA processor came out ahead in tests. Shame we don’t see more from them!
W is for the Web
The big selling point of netbooks was that they were designed for surfing the web. We spend more and more of our time on the web, and web applications mean we no longer need ultra-powerful laptops to do what we need to do. Facebook & Google Docs are very complicated applications – but they run totally on the web servers, meaning we get to use these cool little netbooks instead of the bulky monster laptops of old!
X is for XP Home
The first netbooks all shipped with Ubuntu and various other Linux variations. Windows was quick to scramble into the market leader with (who’d have guessed it?) Windows XP Home. With the launch of Windows 7, every netbook manufacturer quickly scrambled to bump their models up to that.
Y is for Youtube
While not directly related to netbooks, Youtube has been instrumental in spreading the message & showing the world what netbooksk can do. With 18,500 netbook videos and counting, if you’re not sure about a particular netbook take a look on Youtube.
Z is for… Zelybron
OK, so this one is clutching at straws, but there is a point. A company called ‘Zelybron’ released a netbook. Ever heard of them? When even companies you’ve never heard of are trying to produce these things, you know they’re becoming popular!
[thanks to Jeremy Burgin for the alphabet block photo]
