Netbooks Carnival

Way back when I use to go school, I had a Compaq laptop with batteries that lasted less than 2 hours before I had to plug it in to recharge.  It wasn't a big deal, except that whenever I was in a rush, I seem to always be in the middle of a charging session.  So most of the time, I had to decide on what's more important, eating lunch with friends or not writing down my poli-sci notes by hand.  In the big scheme of things, the outcome of the choices was not important, but life would have been so much easier if there were less conflicting choices to make.

So now, whenever I dabble into laptops, either as an advisor to a friend or for my own use, I do pay attention to the battery life of the product.  To me, it's one of the selling points.  What's great is the current consciousness in green technology because it pushes the envelope on energy efficiency.  We see that predominantly in cars and household appliances.  And now, the laptops through netbooks are staking their claim.  Foremost among them is the Toshiba Netbook NB205 with an amazing battery life of 8-9+ hours.

I don't know about you, but when I'm looking at mini netbook specs, they all seem to look the same to me.  They're pretty much Atom-based Intel processors, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB disk space, and hi-speed WI-FI connection.  The few things that I notice changing are screen size, dimensions, and operating systems (Linux, Win XP, or Vista).  Disk space change too between XP or Vista, but they're pretty much at least 160 GB.

One thing that's catching my eyes is the improvement in battery life.  Many netbooks are pushing the envelope to 6+ hours of operation with 6-cell batteries before having to recharge.  Many more are at the 2+ hour range with 3-cell batteries.  Contrast this with top of the line laptops, such as the gaming specced Dell XPS M1730 uses a 9-cell battery.  It can only operate for much less than 2 hours before having to charge (Digital Trends).  To be fair, gaming laptops are used differently and equipped with top of the line components that are resource hogs.  Just like any other competitive activities, equipments are just as important as skills and training for the winning edge.  You don't cut corners in order to win.  Makers of gaming laptops know this, so they're willing to sacrifice energy efficiency for faster performance.  That's why their cost is at the $2000 range.

Netbooks, however, are ideally made for students to aide in their school work and business professionals for work away from the office.  They're just using the netbook for word processing and Internet connection for research and communication.  Portability and long working session are important.  The Toshiba Netbook NB205 with a 8-9+ hour battery life delivers just that (APC Mag) for less than $500.

See Toshiba Netbook NB205 for sale on Amazon.