Notebook or laptop is a petite portable personal computer that has similar task compared to desktops. It has monitor, keyboard, CPU, etc. same as the parts of personal computers. The only difference is laptop is compressed in a much smaller space. It can be used while on the move because it has rechargeable battery within it.

Osborne 1 came in the market in the year 1981; the first portable computer. It has 5” CRT monitors. It is very huge compared to the present laptop today. In the year 1982, GRiD Compass 1100 was the earliest laptop which used the clamshell design. The next year, the first notebook that was called laptop came in the market. It is the Gavilian SC.

Based on the function, laptops are classified as follows:

When it comes to portability, you definitely want a subnotebook laptop. Therefore, they are not too big in size and have a maximum of 13” monitor. It has fewer features and moderately has an extended battery life up to 10 hours. It usually uses the desktop operating systems like Linux, Windows or Mac OSX.

Next is the Netbook laptop. It is a second rate and smaller adaptation of the Subnotebook. It is also as portable as the first one. In general, it has a screen size of 10” or less than. If you want to save power utilization, you can use SSD drives rather than the normal HDDs. With the use of Netbooks you can perform basic office tasks and internet surfing.

Laptops with a touch screen interface is called table PCs. It is used to perform definite specific tasks only. Then, we have these desktop replacement laptops which maintain performance as the main feature above portability. It has a 17” screen and with many ports. They are usually called as a “baby” PC because they can do almost all the tasks of a personal computer. Since they have a larger screen size, it consumes large quantity of power. Therefore, the batteries of these laptops can provide a smaller amount of time.

Keeping a balance between the performance and portability is the characteristics of our next kind of laptop; the standard laptop. It has a 13-15” monitor and have a moderate battery life. Manufacturer of this laptops are Apple, HP, Dell, Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Panasonic, and Samsung among others.

Laptop and desktop are the same when it comes to basic hardware components but are small variants compared with the later. The advantage of using laptop is it can be used even if there is no power supply for it is powered by chargeable battery. In addition to that, laptops make use of lesser energy than the usual desktop computers.

On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages if you are using laptops. It can not be upgraded anymore because of the compact design of the laptop. This is a major problem identified by many. Because of the compact design, they can not be cleaned as it should be and these leads to unacceptable functioning due to the build up of dust within it. One more shocking thing; researchers have found out that the heat generated from laptops decreases the sperm count in male users.

Even if laptops have certain disadvantages, there is still an increase in laptop sales as compared to the number of PCs sold in the recent year. Therefore, we can say that in this twenty first century, we need mobility and laptops are here to meet our need.