Compare Ultraportable PCs

Welcome to a Laptop Battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.itsbattery.com

First of all, let's separate once and for all notebooks and netbooks with batteries such as Toshiba PA3250U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3356U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3291U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3591U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3641U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3641U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PABAS123 Battery, Toshiba PA3727U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3534U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3535U-1BRS Battery. Both can rightly claim to be portable computers, but the target audience and general approach of each is a little different.

For the vast majority of netbook users, their netbook is a secondary computer, designed to be taken on the road, but not to replace their main machine--which might well be a regular laptop, or could just as easily be a desktop computer. The absence of a DVD drive, the small screen and the cramped keyboard all point to the fact that netbooks are just one answer to the classic trade-off between performance and portability, with the advantage weighing in favor of the latter in the case.

There are three big questions that are likely to weigh heavily in your choice of netbook:

· Storage: Flash Memory or Hard Disk Drive?

Flash memory is quiet, offers better shock-resistance and excellent read speeds from the drive. Hard drives, on the other hand, offer more space (currently up to 160 GB compared to just 16 GB for the largest SSD in a netbook) and better overall performance when read and write speeds are taken together. This is a subject that's set to change, though, as developments in SSD technology could lead to much more flash memory capacity.

· Screen Size: 8'' or 10''?

There's a simple relationship between the size of your screen and how portable your netbook is: the bigger the screen, the heavier it will be! Measured diagonally from corner to corner as with screens on other devices, a 10'' netbook screen is perfectly comfortable and leaves room for a decent-sized keyboard. In general though, 10'' netbooks are between 100 and 200 g (3.5-7 ounces) heavier than the other common size for netbooks, 8''.

· Operating System: XP or Linux?

Windows XP and Linux are the two main options to run your netbook. Provided you choose a reasonably powerful processor and at least 512 MB of RAM, XP runs perfectly well, and will bring a familiar environment right into your backpack if you're already a Windows user. Installing the software and peripherals that you're used to having around on larger computers shouldn't be a problem either, within the limits of the netbook's less powerful performance.

There's more variation with Linux, with most manufacturers customizing an already-existing distribution with the aim of making it more accessible. Going beyond the basics to customise your computer or install your own software does require a minimum of technical knowledge.