My first hands-on experience with a netbook was just this past summer.  Our babysitter was headed off to college and had just won this little thing – she needed my help to make sure the software she needed was loaded up and it was generally ready to go.  I agreed, so I got to test-drive her netbook for a week.

If you haven’t looked into a netbook yet – you really should, especially if you think you’re in the market for a laptop.  First and foremost, netbooks are small.. screen sizes on netbooks are usually in the 10.1″ widescreen range which is similar to some of the nicer portable DVD players out there.  Most netbooks are built on the Intel Atom processor which was purpose-built for mobile computing devices.  As far as other specs you might be more familiar with – netbooks usually come configured with a few gigs of memory, a sizable hard drive (sometimes substituted for a SSD), wired/wireless networking, a few USB 2 ports and a webcam.  Before the general release of Windows 7 most netbooks came with the Windows XP home operating system we’re all familiar with though now the newer versions of these devices come bundled with Windows 7.  I wouldn’t be concerned by that last bit.. the hardware spec of the older models seem to be the same as the newer versions with Win7.  What they don’t come with.. a CD/DVD drive – though they work fine with external drives.  This is by design.. USB memory sticks are so ubiquitous now that I prefer them over CD/DVD.

Netbooks are designed for mobile connectivity, pure and simple.  They are perfect devices for students because of their low cost, battery life and portability.  For example.. the netbook that our babysitter is toting around has a battery life of about five hours so she can leave the power brick in her dorm, and the outside case is ruggedized with rubber so that she can lug it around in her backpack without worrying about scratching it up.

But, Mr. Blogger.. are they slow?  Not at all.  These things are perfect for web surfing, skype, email, and office-type programs and it does those jobs happily.  Don’t try cpu-intense operations like gaming on one.. that will never work.  Feel free to sync your music player to it or download photos from your digi-cam.. that works just fine.  Linux folks.. Fedora 12 just dropped and it has specific enhancements for netbooks!

At around $300 for a decent netbook these things are going to be hot for Christmas.  One word of warning though.. don’t fall for the ads that some wireless companies are touting where they’ll give you a netbook in exchange for a contract on a mobile data plan.  You’ll do much better getting your own netbook and having the free will to choose who you might want to use for mobile connectivity assuming you need that.

Got a netbook?  I’d love to hear from you, so post a comment!

Want a netbook?  Check out the Gateway LT2022u NightSky Black 10.1″ WSVGA Netbook over at Newegg.com.