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Netbooks Come Into Their Own

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By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 10, 2008

Somewhere between the laptop and the smart phone, the computer industry has long believed there could be a small, low-cost device that would please consumers and sell well.

The device would be more versatile than an iPhone, but cheaper and more portable than a ThinkPad. The trouble is, every attempt to create such a category of computer has met with failure - until now.

This year, that in-between type of computer now called a "netbook" has finally caught on. Since January, the market has been flooded with new and better netbook models. Nearly every company - from big names such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, to obscure ones such as MSI - has jumped into the fray.

Netbooks are much more portable than most standard laptops, and cheaper at about twice the price of smart phones such as the iPhone or GoogleG1. And they can run more sophisticated software and perform a wider variety of computing tasks.

But netbooks come with compromises. While they are great for light use on the go, their cramped screens and keyboards, and slow processors, make them much less potent and less comfortable to use than even a so-called ultraportable laptop.

Compared with sleek, thin, but costlier notebooks, netbooks are stubbier and chunkier. But they take up less room on an airline tray table.

Now, many netbooks offer decent-size hard disks and include serious programs, such as Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works. But none offers a built-in DVD drive, which makes it hard to install some new software.

Here are minireviews of these four netbooks:

Acer Aspire One: The $349 blue Acer One weighs a little over 2 pounds and has a bright, sharp 8.9-inch screen. It comes with a 120-gigabyte hard disk and 1 gigabyte of memory.

The Acer's small keyboard is nice but the Acer has two big drawbacks. Its battery life is miserable and it has a terrible track pad that's cramped.

Dell Mini 9: Like the Acer, the $399 Dell Mini has an 8.9-inch screen. Its standard battery is larger, making it slightly heavier but still very light.

The Dell lacks a hard disk and offers just 8 gigabytes of flash memory, 2 gigabytes of free online storage and half a gigabyte of memory.

The Dell has the same wimpy Wi-Fi and webcam as the Acer. But its track pad, while small, is much larger vertically and easier to use.

However, the Dell had by far the worst keyboard in my test group.

MSI Wind U100: This is a $399 machine with a 10-inch screen. The model I tested, with a double-size battery, is $429. My test unit weighed a tad over 3 pounds, and had 1 gigabyte of memory and a 160-gigabyte hard disk.

Despite the larger screen, the Wind still fits very well on a cramped airline tray and has a standard, decent webcam and can use the newest "N" flavor of Wi-Fi.

Overall, I liked the MSI Wind a lot. My only real gripe is that the track pad is small and has only a single thin button, which performs a left or right click. This button is too small and sluggish for optimal use.

Asus Eee 1000H: Asus is the king of netbooks. In fact, it has so many different, and frequently changing, netbook models that its product lineup can be a blur. The one I tested has a 10-inch screen and costs $475, making it the costliest netbook in this group. It's also the heaviest.

Like the Wind, my Eee 1000H had a large battery that protruded from the bottom. It doesn't come with a smaller battery. Also like the Wind, it has a standard webcam, the faster "N" Wi-Fi, and a 160-gigabyte hard disk with 1 gigabyte of memory.

The keyboard was the best of this lot and the 1000H got three hours and 32 minutes in my battery test, suggesting that it could deliver between four and five hours.

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