I remember the first time I saw a computer, it was at the JAIMS (Japan America Institute for Management Science) in Hawaii Kai and for fun, the guy made a dot matrix print out of R2D2 for all of us kids there but I looked at this giant box that filled a space bigger then the Cowabunga! Computers office and a printer that was half the size of that. HUGE!
Remember that scene in War Games when Matthew Broderick walks by the room where the WOPR is sitting and it stands a good 5 feet tall and at least looks like a few tons. Just to simulate a war game. Now we have more power, faster and reliable strength in the cell phones we carry around.
We see the same thing with portable computers. Laptops can be in all shapes and sizes and a common question we get from our customers goes like this… “Should I get a laptop or a desktop?” I guess the best way to answer it is, do you need the portability? At least 3-4 times a week do you move around with it? If it is yes, then a laptop. If you want to go to Starbucks and look cool, not worth it. If you want to go to campus and have the latest and greatest, maybe. But over all, laptops can be more expensive and harder to fix and upgrade. I always recommend a desktop over a laptop. When you travel, you can always take everything with you on a portable hard drive or jump drive and just go to Kinkos or the office downstairs in the lobby. Faster. Trust me.
Even laptops come in all shapes and sizes. Some are what we call desktop replacements and often have HUGE hard drives and RAM and video cards equal to what we find in a tower desktop unit. Unfortunately, these are heavy, clumsy and just a pain in the butt! Some are so small, they can completely fit in your pocket (Like the SONY Lifestyle). And some are good and small and perfect to put into your bag and sometimes forget it is in there.
Netbooks are the latest rage right now. ASUS started this and was quickly followed by ACER and now everyone from DELL to Sony to HP are in on this as well. Netbooks are really cool and the best thing about it? They are simple. The processor is simple, the RAM isn’t all too great and they (for the most part) run on WINDOWS XP. The concept behind this is very simple. Its for road warriors who don’t want to lug around 7 pounds to check email, don’t want to bruise their thumbs using blackberry’s and just have a simple solution for email and web surfing.
When Netbooks first debuted, they were marketed towards kids and college students. Now you see more and more business people using them on planes, sitting at the gates and taking them on trips! Why? Cause again, it is simple, small and most of all, many of them are under 300 bucks! So if this is so good, why not more useage? Well, before we talk bad about them, lets just remember that they accounted for almost 16% of ALL computer sales in 2008 and projected to hit closer to 20% in 2009!
The ugly is simple too. Netbooks for the most part come with nothing. Imagine getting a car with the absolute basics. No radio, no power steering, no power windows and imagine, no air conditioning! That’s pretty insane right? There is no device like an optical drive or hardly any wiggle room to increase RAM and / or Hard drive space but with the advent of everything being able to plug in via USB, it might be worth checking out. For the price (sub $200), 16 million people thought it was worth it.
More and more manufacturers are getting on the netbook bandwagon and there are rumors out there that Google is getting into it and working with manufacturers to have a netbook ready to go with their new (or soon to be released) Google Chrome Operating System! AT&T is even getting into it and selling netbooks along with a wireless internet connection… Like a phone!
If you ever need a quick and simple solution for your quick trips to Vegas, addicted to Facebook, tired of thumbing your telephone for emails, this is a quick and cheap solution. Just remember, like what I tell all of my friends who want cute and small things, make sure you buy the extended warranty. This thing breaks once and it was worth it.
Enjoy happy computing and remember, be safe, surf well and always let me know if you have a challenge with the computer! Send me email anytime.
