How to buy a Netbook or small laptop
A netbook is a low-cost, energy-efficient laptop designed for tasks such as working on office documents, email and web browsing. Most netbooks weigh less than 1.5kg. Before the first netbooks appeared two years ago, a laptop of similar weight could cost £1,000 or more. Most netbooks cost less than £350 including VAT.
Buying a netbook involves many of the same considerations as buying a laptop. It is worth considering the following factors to ensure you get the best value for money.
Battery life can vary making some nnetbooks more suited for working away from a wall socket than others. However, most netbooks will last for at least 3 hours.
To ensure that you can work on the move you should make sure that your netbook has a 3G broadband modem and an accompanying SIM cardto allow you to connect to the web using the same wireless network as mobile phones. Some mobile networks, such as Voodafone and 3 mobile, will give you a free netbook if you sign up for a one or two your mobile broadbband contract. So make sure that if you want to use wireless internet access that your netbook has a 3G modem built in.
The bigger a netbook’s screen, the larger and heavier it will be. Netbooks with 10in screens or smaller weigh 1.3kg or less, while models with 12in screens are heavier. The netbooks with 10in screens will have a good resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels, which is large enough for browsing the web and editing documents. To get a higher resolution which makes creating and manipulating documents easier go for a 12in screen.
Most netbook displays have a glossy finish, although a handful have a matt finish. Glossy finishes make images and videos brighter, but they pick up reflections, which can make them hard to view under bright lights.
A large keyboard is essential to create and manipulate most documents in comfort. Netbooks with larger screens tend to have more room for a larger keyboard, but even they have a few undersize keys.
Some touchpads support multitouch geastures, so you can perform actions such as scrolling through windows.
Tablet netbooks have touchscreen displays and styluses, which are useful for notetaking and graphics.
Hard disks range in size from 60GB to 250GB. If you only need to store office documents, you can get away with a smaller disk.
There are a number of good retailers in the market such as Dabs.com, the co-op electrical shop, viking direct , and Eurooffice that provide excellent deals on Laptops, Netbooks and software. But you should also look for cheaper print cartridges at cartridge people.
