For reporting, in the field, the HP Mini 1000 is great. I used it for 2
weeks in Asia and it was everything I needed -- rugged, light, usable.
I still use it when I need to get away to a coffee shop and do some
writing.
But no, it's not my main machine. I don't like what it calls a mouse, for
one thing. The ink on the keys washes off too fast -- letters are
disappearing after just three months. And 8 GBytes is not enough main
memory to do serious work.
That said, things are going to change and improve. Sticks will have
more storage by this fall. Thinner netbooks can have bigger keyboards
and screens.
But it will never be the PC. It's a laptop, and guess what happens to
your lap when you stand up? That's right, you need an iPhone.
Let me get right to it about netbooks when it comes to real work: 1) the displays and display images are too small, 2) keyboards are too small, 3) depending on model, the mouse is often a kludge, 4) performance is slow, and 5) netbooks have yet to get an operating system tailored to their unique and small characteristics. I could dig up a couple more reasons about why netbooks are wanting.
netbook keyboards: too small!
Don’t get me wrong. I like netbooks and have used them extensively. In fact, I reviewed several first generation netbooks earlier this year from Lenovo, HP and Asus. And I just got a Dell Mini 10v, a second generation netbook that came out in June.
How did I come by this revelation? My wife has been after me to spend more time at our second home where I could easily have home office II. Internet access is adequate, but I don’t have a full notebook or desktop there so I’ve been trying to get by with a netbook. The result? Every Monday I trek two hours back to the home office.
You can’t sit for hours staring at a netbook display that hosts a quarter of the image I would see on my desktop or full notebook. While the keyboards (92 percent the size of a notebook’s) in second generation netbooks which came out in the second quarter are much improved, they still do not provide the ease of use or comfort found on the the ivories in a full notebook.
My favorite notebook keyboard ever was in a five-year-old IBM ThinkPad T45. It was a delight to use! Keys were spacious and the feel was great. First generation netbooks with the exception of HP’s 92 per cent keyboard were a disaster when it came to typing. Tiny keys and cramped real estate made for an awful experience.
Netbook displays: too small!
What’s more, netbooks are so light and small, they tend to fall out of lap if you’re desk-less. There’s a reason notebooks weighing four pounds or more are also called laptops. They fit well in that real estate.
Earlier this year, I wondered if the days of full-sized notebooks were numbered thanks to netbooks. Some vendors and analysts called netbooks “companion PCs,” suggesting netbooks were really a small extension to the mothership laptop. That view was spot on.
And now I realize the question should be flipped: what’s in store for netbooks whose sales have been pretty robust for a full year now? They’ll morph into notebooks for the same price or be giveaways as they are now at Verizon and furniture dealers. Their small size still has appeal, but if you venture much beyond browsing, Twitter, Facebook and e-mail, your style is sure to be cramped. Word processor, spreadsheet and jpeg jockeys are better off sticking with notebooks.
Mouse buttons on the side!?
Attempting to do real work on a netbook this morning sealed my opinion. I was using a netbook in the living room where the AC was nicely cooling the room during this spell of hot weather. I had the same old problems with the display and keyboard and in short order trekked upstairs to hot home office where the full size keyboard on my trusty Dell Desktop and a 19-inch monitor cooled me right off.
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