As you may already know, a netbook is basically nothing more than a small, compact, lightweight and inexpensive laptop. The first started to hit the market in 2007, where they were originally introduced as smaller and cheaper versions of the notebooks. However, unlike the common laptop, the netbook lacks certain features such as an optical drive, the keyword and screens are obviously much smaller on the netbook and the specifications and power outputs are significantly reduced.

If you are looking for a home or office computer, then the netbook certainly isn’t for you. The netbook is considered to be more of a portable system that you can use to write up quick emails and letters etc. The netbook is not capable of being a computer for gaming or anything else that requires a lot of processing power.

Over the course of the time that netbooks have existed on the market, they have slowly but effectively enhanced their appearance and capabilities. For example, when the netbook was first introduced it had a small 5” display screen, whereas now the display screen is as much as 12” which makes a big difference. If you were to buy a netbook today, it would most likely come with Windows 7 Starter by default as it’s sold at a much lower price than other Windows 7 brands and requires a much lesser system specification than the home or premium versions, hence it being used for netbooks.

The storage capacity on netbooks is of course much smaller than that of a home or office PC, simply because of their size. The normal storage capacity is generally anything from 32, 64 or 128GB. Most of the netbooks available today are also fully compatible with the internet and have built-in wireless hardware that will allow you to connect to wireless networks in range from your netbook in and out of the home, which can be very handy for business.

Netbooks are so common now that mobile phone operators are even offering them under contract plans where you will receive a netbook with the internet for completely free if you pay a monthly fee for the internet and data usage.

Although many netbooks run from the Windows operating system, many new ones are coming onto the market with different operating systems such as Linux, Android and Chrome OS. When buying a netbook you should always take this in to consideration. What operating system are you familiar with? Think of this and that should help you choose the right netbook.