Dr. Ware

Sometimes called mini-laptops and sub-notebooks, Netbooks are becoming ubiquitous, and for good reason. I recently purchased an Acer Aspire One for my wife. For over a year she has been struggling with finding just the right device. I bought her a full size laptop but it was just too heavy and clunky for her to carry around – impractical. I got her a dual device that plays DVD’s and carries a video iPod that displays the image on a larger screen but that was too complicated to setup and operate. So I took a chance a couple of months ago and I bought her a Netbook for around $300.00. She fell in love with it almost instantly. It weighs 2 pounds, came loaded with Windows XP, 1 GB of ram, 1.6 GHz processor, 120 GB hard drive, 802.11 Wi-Fi, SD card and multi-media card reader, and a Web cam. And for the price – Wow! Netbooks do not usually come with DVD players in order to keep the weight down. However you can get an external DVD player for about $50.00. On the latest 10″ Acer Aspire One the battery life is about 6 hours. The LED backlit display is amazingly clear and detailed with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels. It seems to respond as well as my high-powered laptop but at a fraction of the cost. If you are looking for the perfect mobile device for under $400.00 I think this just might be the one. Here is a CNet review (pardon the ad):

Of course there are more expensive models with even more offerings for the gadget Guru. The Sony Vaio Lifestyle PC weighs less than two pounds but will set you back about $1000.00. HP has a couple of nice offerings in this field: the Mini-1000 and Mini-2000 series. The generous keyboard is their most outstanding feature. For some strange reason the Mini-1000 comes with a 16 GB hard drive upgradeable to only 60 GB (extra price). By the time you configure it to nearly match the specs on the Acer Aspire One the price doubles to around $600.00. These units weigh about 3 pounds. Asus, the mother of all Netbooks, has the impressive Asus Eee PC 1000. It is comparably equipped to the Acer Aspire One for $50.00-$100.00 more. It weighs 3 lbs and has up to a 9.5 hour battery life. So, bottom line, my suggestion would be to go with the Acer Aspire One or the Asus Eee PC 1000. For the money you won’t beat the Acer. For a few bucks more you get a longer battery life and wider keyboard with the Asus. Either way you can’t go wrong.