What Are the Major Differences Between a Laptop and a Netbook?

By Mika Staplesson

Tags:notebook computers,What Are the Major Differences Between a Laptop and a Netbook,notebook computers

Now that netbooks are in their third year on the market people seem to be more and more interested in them and this popularity naturally attracts questions. Are they good enough for YouTube? Are they good enough for word processing? What are the differences anyway?


The main differences between laptops and netbooks are their size, weight, performance and indirectly the price, too. There are a few minor differences in connectors and ports as well.

The size is the first everybody notices, I still remember my girlfriend yelling at me when I bought my netbook. She was mad at me because I bought such a little... thing. It took her a few months to get familiar with the size and now I often find her using my netbook instead of her 15.6" Fujitsu after waking up. I guess it's easier to grab while still laying on her side in the bed than a 7 lbs full size notebook.

The weight the second people seem to notice, and I personally can't get used to it. I've had my netbook as a main computer for six months now, and I still happen to double-triple check my backpack to make sure it's there. My umbrella feels heavier than that, but obviously it isn't. 2.5 lbs is a weight you can be friends with if you're on the go for a good deal of your days.

The performance is a shocking part usually, I read all the articles all the benchmarks and all the opinions before I put my money in this Asus 1005HA. I wanted to know if it will run the things I was planning to use. Well, it does what its name implies, puts you online and not much more than that. The browser runs flawlessly even with multiple tabs, but a normal size laptop gives more screen space.

The screen resolution is always a point of debate, 10" netbooks rarely go above 1024 by 600, about 20% less than that of a 15.6" screen. If you plan on playing games or do heavy multi-tasking, I can't suggest you buy a netbook, but the price justifies the weaker parts.

In fact, the price is so low that you won't be able to get a full size notebook for that kind of money, not even a slower one. You'd have to dig piles of refurbished or second hand ads to find one that works well and can be had for $300, the price brand new netbooks go on major online webshops.

Another interesting difference between laptops and netbooks is that while laptops always have DVD/CD optical drives, often with write/rewrite functions, you can't find one on a netbook. The size is just too small for the manufacturer to squeeze in a DVD drive. No problem though, if you really have to have one you can still buy it for about $40. I don't use any because I've got a pen drive and all drivers are available on the manufacturers site online.

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