Wednesday 2 December 2009

Cheap Data Processing Made Possible Through Choosing Of Netbook Computers

By Nick Cantos

Netbook computers are the small nine to ten inch laptop computers that are being seen in many stores today. The concept of the netbook computer is not new, but technology to make them at an affordable price has increased their popularity.

At first glance, you may notice that there are several things that are missing from the netbook computer. The first you may notice is that there is no DVD or CD rom in this machine. Programs for these computers must be installed through use of a USB drive or downloaded from the internet.

Some of the small computers do not include a traditional hard drive, but depend on a solid state memory device, much like the memory in a USB thumb drive. This type of memory is more resilient than a hard drive and is smaller in size and lighter in weight than the typical hard drive. The one drawback is that you will not find a typical 160 GB hard drive in these small computers but may only find a 32 GB memory.

If more memory is needed, the Netbook can easily be connected to a USB external hard drive. Prices for external hard drives have also dropped recently. A one TB (1000 MB) external hard drive can easily be bought for $100 or less.

You will not find a phone modem capability for most of the smaller computers either, although all of these computers that are now being sold are equipped with WiFi connections. For home use, you will need a wireless router, but in public, the computer can access the web at almost any hot spot.

Originally netbook computers were sold with operating systems other than the current version of windows. For quite some time Windows NT was not offered on these little computers, although it was eventually offered. Now the netbooks are being sold with a netbook version of Windows 7.

Around Christmas of 2008, the price of netbook computers dropped to under the three hundred dollar mark. Black Friday of 2009 saw the prices drop to the one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy five dollar range.

The small size and weight of these computers makes the easy to carry either in a woman's handbag or a man's briefcase.

One of the things that has made these computers even more useful is that there have been many web based applications. Google has lead the way in many of the applications, allowing documents, photos and other data to be stored online. Since hard drive space is not required and data can be accessed by anyone with a password, work can be done on a desktop computer and accessed by the netbook.

With prices dropping and their small size, netbook computers are becoming a popular first computer for children. Younger children appreciate the smaller keyboards that make learning to keyboard easier for them. The online features make it possible for the children to play favorite video games, work online and prepare homework. Teens appreciate the small size that will easily fit into a backpack. Documents can be easily printed through any WiFi equipped computer.

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