The rise of the netbook

The article you are reading here was written on a netbook, a $350 machine. A lot of people thought netbooks would not have a market. They have small screens and less powerful processors than a laptop. Most of what a netbook can do can also be done on a smartphone like a BlackBerry.

But, this article is being written on a netbook. I have owned huge laptops for several years and a smaller one for the last year. When that died, I figured "why not take the risk? If it does not work out, how much money has been risked?

According to The Wall Street Journal, "A new breed of low-priced laptops called netbooks have been thriving during the downturn -- so well, in fact, that many high-tech companies are scrambling to adapt."

A netbook can run Linux or a scaled down version of Windows. Chip companies trying to sell high-end hardware like graphics semiconductors are out of luck. Whoever makes big laptop screens may not be around for long.

What's wrong with a netbook. The keypad is small. That takes a few days to get used to. The machine is a bit slow. For a heavy PC user that may cut productivity by five or ten minutes a day. But, it can operate with six or seven windows open and plays video just fine.

And, it weighs two pounds and can be carried around like a copy of a modest-sized biography.