The future of netbooks

Will the netbooks live on or will they fade away leaving just memories

How will netbooks affect personal computing going forward?

Netbooks are usually loaded with either the Linux operating system or a similar type of OS. The inherent safety of Linux will popularize the use of netbooks with users sick and tired of fending off malicious software. However, with the launch of Windows 7 for netbooks, we can see good times for windows OS too.

Netbooks will be the first computer for a whole generation of children, who want to complete there school projects and have fun with it too. We have already seen and read about the popularity of the OLPC program under which school children are given free XLO netbooks. Netbooks will help and benefit from the transition away from plastic DVDs as a movie medium to electronic media. Likewise, they will help and be helped by the transition to SSD’s and the move away from spinning hard disks.

Netbooks may make the Kindle (E Book reader offered by Amazon) into an extinct species. Why carry a small device that does only one thing, when you can carry a small box that does many things? Why buy a dedicated Internet radio, when a netbook can do that? Why buy a small DVD player if you can get a movie on a flash memory card? Why buy a high-end smart phone, when a netbook can do all that on a larger screen? It's an exciting future for netbooks.

For standard computing tasks, the small netbook screen and keyboard will, no doubt, limit its audience. That said, you can always connect a netbook to an external monitor, a real mouse and/or a real keyboard and software tricks can be played to increase the font size when an external monitor is not available.

So, should you go for a netbook or a notebook?

There's no doubt that netbooks are an exciting addition to the world of mobile computing. However, we wouldn't really recommend a netbook as your sole computer unless you're a fairly un-demanding PC user. For more intensive tasks, you'll find that a netbook’s limited performance really gets in the way. However, as a companion for your existing laptop or desktop PC, a netbook is hard to beat. They're highly portable and the good battery life is also a boon. Add to this the fact that they're so competitively priced and you've got a really tempting device.

Interesting to see is that, as per Christian Morales, Intel's European sales chief, netbook sales were currently about 16 percent of all notebook sales globally and a little higher in Western Europe, and this figure is still growing which is in fact the evidence that Netbooks are going to stay.

So where are we heading:

Netbook vs. Notebook is a question many consumers will be faced with in the coming years. There are instances where people would choose to get a netbook instead of something with more power and better specs due to price, the way they intend to use the laptop, and whether they have an existing laptop or desktop at home. But to say that netbooks will triumph over ultra portables or any other laptop when a consumer wants high-end or even mid-range power and capability is overstating the issue in a big way.