It's a general opinion that Asus created the netbook category with the first Eee PC. It is beyond any doubt that the Taiwanese manufacturer represents a significant part in the mini-notebook's success as a trendsetter. A generally less well-known company with the name "Psion" had already nominated one of their mobile computers as "netbook" several years earlier, which ultimately also brought a wave of lawsuits against manufacturers and media. Nothing has yet been decided and the mites may further on be flagrantly called netbook or mini-notebook.

A distinction to the classic notebooks is made primarily in the display size. As a rule, screens with up to a 10 inch screen are netbooks, whereas subnotebooks start at a 12" display diagonal. A thorn in the side for members of the writing press, as these boundries are becoming increasingly blurred. For instance, many manufacturers include netbook hardware in 12" notebooks. The rapid development of processors and graphic chips also give hope for a well and truly performance increase of mini-notebooks, but which has occasionally not been promoted, for let's say, retailing reasons.

One central subject currently occupies the gaming world: Will World of Warcraft (WoW) run on netbooks, or won't it? As one of the most successful up-to-date multiplayer online games, of which the hardware requirements turn out almost modest in comparison to a few current shooters, this question is quite justifiable. Not least, as there are a row of quests in the gameplay of WoW that the gamer has to tackle, and are possible even at a low frame rate. No sooner said than done, and after a bit of waiting time, we found our character in the world of Northshire Valley once again.

The summary of our test system turns out as less than satisfactory, though. Fraps establishes a frame rate between 0 and 17 fps at a discovery hike through the forests, hence reoccurring short interruptions. It looks significantly better in interiors, though. A good 30- 45 fps could be observed, which adds up to a reasonably smooth presentation. Generally, this is enough to execute undemanding gaming actions, but performance-prone operations up to combats with flashing-fuming special effects are definitely not to be recommended. It therefore depends on the user's requirements, if the performance with WoW can be called just still adequate or entirely unsuitable. The current distributed netbook basis with Intel Atom N280/GMA950 is barely suitable for an advanced gameplay.

Netbook and gaming are not inevitably two completely incompatible terms, but it does depend strongly on the individual notion of the broad term "gaming", and if you can draw up a positive or a rather unsatisfactory summary in view of this. Generally, it can be said that older games, as in the time of the launch of Windows XP, run reasonably tolerable - at least at low graphic settings. Present-day games are a bit too much for the mini-computers, even for the efficient representatives among these. Also, you quickly move in price regions where low-priced multimedia notebooks, which easily top their little siblings in regards to performance, can also be acquired. So the only other option is to set on upcoming technologies, like Nvidia's ION platform, which give hope for a performance thrust in the low-priced netbooks. However, till then the offered processors still have to gain a bit on power in order to give a balanced relation in combination, and not to end up surprisingly as an invincible bottleneck.