I Love My Netbook

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I stand corrected. Months ago, I scratched my head in a posting back then just not getting the whole "netbook" craze.

(It's hard to blog and eat crow at the same time!)

Disaster struck a couple of weeks ago; disaster in the form of lightening frying my laptop.

This put me in quite a dilemma. Here we are less than three months from the release of Windows 7; the last thing I wanted to do is buy a laptop loaded with Vista to dogpaddle by with until then.

Answer: netbook.

I picked up a HP mini for under $350. It has one gig on the hard drive with an Intel Atom processor. It has Windows XP (tried and true) and I have been happy as a clam.

I paid careful attention to battery time. It's supposed to last up to nine hours. That's a stretch. But, I am very impressed that it does last at least five to six hours.

It's also cute. If it were a car, it would be a Volkswagen bug. I find myself wanting to hug it.

Irrational displacement of emotions aside; here's what else I like about it:

1. It fits in my purse.
2. It boots up faster than my old laptop.
3. It weighs about 2.5 pounds.
4. Have I mentioned how cute it is?
5. The keys are not too small, although man-size hands may be another story.
6. My handwriting is awful and now I can use it to transcribe notes at a meeting on the fly.

I do plan to get a larger, full size laptop later in the year when Windows 7 launches (or make the Mac committment). However, I'm not worried about my netbook functioning as my primary computer until then. I wouldn't want to do it long term, however.

Here's what I do miss:

1. Having a DVD/CD drive/burner (that's the biggie!).
2. I miss the bigger screen. I find myself scrolling down a lot on web pages and not getting the complete view that I would like.

Sorry, I can only think of two things.

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio