Netbooks are testing my loyalty to Apple

Have you noticed how many Netbooks are being used these days?

These little stripped down machines, most running Windows, are typically under $350 and are so small they can be toted just about anywhere. In the past week, I’ve seen them in meetings, in use at fast food places as people ate their lunch, in a doctor’s office as patients waited to be seen, at a car dealer’s waiting room and even at church, where someone was using a Bible program to follow the preacher.

Those who use them seem pretty happy with them.

Here’s an Amazon page showing a bunch of Netbooks. Most have wi-fi. Several come bundled with wireless high speed Internet service from Verizon, Sprint or AT&T.

I have tried several for reviews and became intrigued by the portability but sometimes frustrated by the lack of features. I never got used to the small keyboard, either.

I use a MacBook AIr, which is a super slim, lightweight full-featured computer small enough to put in a brown manila envelope. I carry it pretty much everywhere and use it for note-taking, writing, programming, research and even video editing.

But it’s also super expensive, as, frankly, are all things Apple. Lately, as I see so many turning to Netbooks, I find myself wondering how many of the features that I use on my $1,700 MacBook Air could really be done on a $350 netbook and whether I’m being blindly loyal to Apple and the very elegant Air.

Soon, I will be reviewing a few of the newest netbooks running Windows 7 for my annual holiday gift recommendations and this time will try leaving the Air at home for a couple of weeks and rely strictly on a netbook.

Apple, by the way, seems to have taken notice of the netbook craze. It is widely expected to release an Apple tablet or slate computer sometime next year. But you can be sure Apple’s version of a super small and striped down computer will cost at least twice what a netbook does.

This article was posted by Tech Reporter Mike Wendland. It has been archieved under What I'm Thinkin'.

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190837 Responses2009-11-07+13%3A36%3A13Mike+Wendland to “Netbooks are testing my loyalty to Apple”

George Lien Says:
November 7th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

I will settle with “twice what a netbook does,”
thank you.

Netbooks are only making me desire MacBook Air more–not less.

BR,

George
Neil Mansilla Says:
November 7th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

I just picked up my first netbook at the PayPal Innovate 2009 conference in San Francisco. PayPal gave one to every attendee — an Asus Eee PC (1005HA – 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, webcam, 802.11n). It came with XP Home installed, and I’ll probably keep it that way. I’m unsure about how well I can get Linux to recognize everything as well as Asus has it set up to run on Windows, plus, I’ll be needing Visual Studio for coding.

It seems fairly speedy. I’ve watched YouTube HD videos and it handled the streaming quite well. The N270 processor is the 1.6GHz Atom with 512MB cache and hyper-threading. It has a single SODIMM slot, and can max out with a 2GB DDR2 chip. That should also help speed it up quite a bit.

I’ve run Eclipse, imported a project, and compiled it (Java), and it handled it quite well.. possibly even better than a Centrino (Intel P4-Mobile) processor w/more cache, due to the fact it has hyper-threading. Price tag on this thing was probably around $310, and phew, that’s incredible, especially considering you can extend your virtual desktop with a second monitor very easily.

If it weren’t for the pleasant surprise earlier this week, I probably wouldn’t have had a chance to integrate a netbook into my tech arsenal… but so far, I’m very happy. No question that if all you do is browse the Web, use a word processor, spreadsheet, and PowerPoint, it can handle those tasks easily.
dczar Says:
November 7th, 2009 at 9:26 pm

Go ahead and get a netbook. After a while, you’ll understand how limited they are as only being good for browsing, email, maybe NG’s if you use them and…low power things.
Larry Castle (@geekbert) Says:
November 7th, 2009 at 11:43 pm

I can see why they would grab your attention but I have found the perfect combination for me. I have a loaded 24″ iMac at home and a $99 iPhone on the road. I really use my iPhone like a netbook. One might also go with a basic white MacBook and an iPhone if you want to be more portable.

I agree that the Air is just too expensive for a machine with it’s limitations. Bottom of the line MacBook is all most people need. If you’re using pro apps and need to use your machine for production, then MacBook Pro or iMac is the way to go.

I really mean this: I couldn’t move to a PC if someone gave me a FREE netbook. It’s just not the same user experience. My two cents.
Josh White Says:
November 8th, 2009 at 4:38 am

Go back to your PC’s Mike – no one wants you using a Mac.
Ken Berger Says:
November 8th, 2009 at 5:41 am

A super light weight easy to carry computer is very attractive, using one is not so much.
I have a macbook air, and it small light weight (and expensive) but I still have to have a “real” notebook because it is not powerful enough for a long trip when I will be away from my main computer for more than a few days.
A netbook is not much more usable for “real” work than an iPhone. Everyone wants it all with you, all the time but for now the power and performance of netbooks are fine for simple email (like an iPhone) but they are not really good enough to do real work on the web let alone usable for anything more.
Joe Says:
November 15th, 2009 at 10:29 am

Well this article intrigued me enough to go out and buy one..I can now say that my Toshiba NB205 meets 95% of my needs and cost about 1/3 what the Macbook does in a smaller package to boot. These little machines are getting more and more powerful and definitely worth a look for the majority of laptop users.

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