Before you can decide which one is for you, understanding what the reason is for their creation and what the difference is between the two is very important.

Notebooks were originally created for the reason of having a mobile computer than can be carried around and used anywhere you go. That is why it was called a laptop, because it was a computer that was small enough to work on your lap. These computer grew more powerful as technology advanced and because of the trend of smaller is better they became so powerful that they have today the same computing power as desktops. Notebooks have come to a point where more people buy notebooks than people buy desktop pc. The problem with notebooks is that they are the beginning of the evolution of desktop pc’s becoming mobile. But because the hardware is very powerful they use a lot of electricity and cause the batteries not to last very long.

The battery in these netbooks sometimes are so inefficient because the big strain from the powerful hardware that they are nothing more than a UPS unit that keeps the computer running in the case of a power outage. This can be a problem for a traveller or user looking for real mobility and portability as you are not always near a power point.

Netbooks were created to solve this problem. Developers realised that the majority of computer users don’t need these ultimately powerful hardware for daily use and that all these capabilities of excessive computing power goes to waist. If you are surfing the net or using office applications for work or play normal games online like age of empires or any other all time favourite you don’t need this massive computing power and electricity hungry hardware. Another device in computers that is very necessary but not used very often is the DVD/CD drive. If you think about it except when you are installing software you don’t use this every day. So they created a small version of laptop without a CD/DVD drive that is using power saving hardware. This ended up being called netbook as this device was perfect for people who used their computer predominantly for surfing the net.

These netbooks can all uses an external CD/DVD drive if needed via their USB ports. They are lightweight and their battery life can last a full working day depending on the model. This made these netbooks the answer to mobile computing.

Ask yourself if you really need all the hardware power and decide what is more important to you. Mobility and ease of taking a computer wherever you go or massive computing power that is actually only used by serious and heavy gamers. This will help you decide what you need. Netbook vs notebook the decision is yours I believed that this article helped you understand the difference between the two and to maybe choose your next computer to satisfy your computing needs.