Top 3 Netbooks

Experts universally agree that Netbooks are going to take over the market of personal computing. In 2008, a remarkable revolution occurred in the PC market, with the sale of laptops overtaking the sale of desktops for the first time in history. The new trend now is towards small laptops though. A netbook is a small, cheap laptop that is optimized for wireless Internet and word processing. It is underpowered, low-cost and very small. The three best-selling netbooks of 2009 are:

Acer Aspire One

This is the world's most popular netbook to date. People have quickly taken to its great keyboard, and very bright screen. More importantly, the cheap price has seduced laptop users worldwide. This small apparatus (249x170X29mm) weighs barely 995g (2.19 lbs). It is therefore ultra-portable and very practical. Wireless communication is however limited to Wi-Fi (there is no bluetooth or 3G). Accessing the Internet requires a USB modem that is quite easy to operate with XP but not with Linux.

ASUS Eee PC S101

Asus is the netbook pioneer. It is thus no wonder that Asus should have a model as one of the top 3 netbooks of the year, as it did last year. The S101 is notably different from its predecessors who were primarily geared towards the lower end of the market. The S101 is better looking and more stylish than any Asus netbook so far. Virtually of the same size as the Eee PC 1000 (which was part of the top 3 in 2008), the S101 is slimmer, measuring just 23mm at the front and 26mm at the back. It is lighter too, weighing about 1.1 kg compared to the 1.4kg of the Eee PC 1000. The exquisite light brown color with a glossy finish gives the S101 a luxurious appearance.

The keyboard is large and makes for comfortable typing, even for extended periods. There is a large touchpad with a single, wide mouse button, but it clicks at each end. The screen is 10.2 inch with a matte finish so that it can be used under a wider range of lighting conditions than laptops with glossy displays. The image quality is clear, bright and quite good. The battery life is considerably less than the preceding Asus models with fewer than 4 hours of heavy use (compared to the 6+ hours for the Eee PC 1000). The performance of the 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 processor together with the 1 GB RAM is pretty much the same as the Eee PC 1000. However, the S101 runs more quietly.

HP Mini 1000

The HP Mini 1000 is a new and vastly improved version of the 2133 Mini-Note PC, which had a weak VIA processor and a higher price. The HP Mini 1000 has a better Intel Atom processor and is more competitive. While the design is similar to the earlier model, it is made of lightweight plastic and has a slimmer body. The large and very comfortable keyboard remains the HP Mini 1000's best feature--92% of a full-size keyboard.