Lots of mini laptops or Netbooks hit the Market over the past year, as many manufacturers recognized a hole in the much saturated laptop Market.

But is this a good or bad thing for the consumer?

In the world of laptop specs you get what you pay for, so can cheap Netbooks really compete with small full blown laptops?

I’m all for cheap mini laptops – that is of course if the purchaser understands what they are actually getting.

Over the past year lots of manufacturers have released cheap mini laptops.

There is a huge choice of Netbooks and Mini Laptops Currently Around

They all seem to run either Windows XP, or really cheap Netbooks run some flavour of Unix.
As soon as I saw Unix this started the alarm bells ringing, not because Unix is a bad system, but because it can run on much lower hardware specifications than Windows.

After checking out various specs it would seem the reason for this is indeed the low hardware specifications.
Releasing cheap mini laptops is a great thing, as long as it’s understood this means low specs, in essence a laptop that’s really designed for word processing, email & browsing, but as for large apps, recent games or any higher end graphics forget it.

If you’re in the Market for a cheap mini laptop for light use such as browsing, email, word processing etc then cheap Netbooks are ideal for this.

Just make sure you buy one running Windows XP rather than Unix if your not used to Unix as changing from Unix to XP on this type of laptop is generally very difficult due to the hardware specs.

General Specification comparison of cheap mini laptops / Netbooks compared to an
IBM X60

As a guide we’ve created a list of some of the most common expensive and cheap Netbooks with their spec list.

For more on powerful mini laptops – checkout out main laptop section where we cover much more on what to look for, finding the right laptop for you.

Other Netbook Features

Depending on which model you choose the option and extras are numerous to say the least and can include.

Wireless Card – to allow connections to any wireless enable network.

USB Ports – Most have 3 USB ports which really are a must as they allow just about any device to connect to the Netbook, such as Printers, DVD drivers, Card readers, Scanners etc.

Webcams – Some Netbooks have webcams built in, and although the quality of the camera is not the best its nice to have everything build into such as small package

Card Reader – useful to have a card reader built in of you take have any card data from cameras or MP3 Players.

Integrated speakers – Although not going to be the best quality speakers always very useful.

VGA Port – having a VGA port means you can connect the laptop to a larger monitor when needed as opposed to using the small screen all the time.

As you can see most of them use the Intel Atom Processor which was designed as an affordable low power processor, which makes it ideal for cheap Netbooks or laptops

As such the battery life is excellent in many of the models, but the price of this is of course is its lack of processing power, as it only has a single core processor, and the secondary cache is limited to 512k.

As opposed to the IBM X61 we have also listed above which not only offers a much more powerful processor, but also better upgrade options in terms of RAM and Operating system.

Conclusion
If you are looking for a small cheap laptop with superb battery life to perform general functions such as Internet browsing, Word processing and email then one of the cheap Netbooks makes an excellent choice.

Consider your present and future requirements in terms of what you need to use the Netbook for. One of the biggest problems that many people encounter is the screen size. Having a 10” screen in the highest resolution to get the most on the screen means everything will be very small, but increasing the resolution to make everything larger means that the actual screen viewing area will be much smaller, so you will actually get less on the screen.

If on the other hand you want to run games, more CPU intensive spreadsheets or Windows Vista then a small dual core laptop such as an IBM X60 or 61 would make a good choice.

Netbook Pluses and Minuses

Pluses

• Many models are cheap
• Good battery life
• Light, easy to transport
• No built in CD/DVD Drive

Minuses

• Not so good at running Windows Vista or 7
• Slow processor
• Very limited upgrades
• Top end Netbooks cost as much as Dual Core laptops

computer adviser mini laptops article