Your Next Laptop

Your next laptop may well be a netbook.  What is a netbook you ask?

Thin, light, and cheap, is the answer.

With the ability to do more and more of you computing "in the cloud" rather than on your computer, there is less and less need to cram the horsepower of a desktop machine into a laptop.  If instead of Microsoft Office you are using Google Docs or Zoho, or using RocketMatter's on-line file management system, having a portable machine with great connectivity to the Internet becomes far more important than raw speed and power.  After all, when it gets to the point that Adobe puts Photoshop, a program generally the domain of desktops and only the biggest and fastest notebooks, on-line - as it has with Photoshop Express - this cloud computing thing is no passing fancy.

So maybe you don't need to lug that big Dell or MacBook Pro around.  I switched my laptop over to a MacBook Air about a year ago and I've never looked back.  It is not exactly a netbook, it is a bit bigger and more powerful than a lot of netbooks, but it is definitely heading in the direction of thin and light (if not cheap).

At that, I have been eying the netbooks with some envy when I've seen them in my travels.  So small, so light, (kind of cute too!) and when you are talking in the neighborhood of $400....  And, they might even be getting cheaper (at least for the up front cost).  In a plan that sounds a lot like selling cell phones, AT&T announced recently that customers in Atlanta could get a type of compact PC called a netbook for just $50 if they signed up for an Internet service plan.

The upshot of this is, when you go to consider your next notebook computer purchase, you should consider whether a netbook can do what you need to do.  Since we as lawyers are generally not crunching huge spreadsheets or editing video, we honestly do not need all the processing power in the world.  If you can save some money and maybe a few pains in your back by using a netbook instead of lugging a big full-powered notebook computer, why not?

If you are using a netbook, or considering one, I'd love to hear your comments.

Here are some more resources on netbooks:

• Wikipedia:  Netbooks
• Gadtetell:  Netbooks, iPhones for the Rest of Us
• New York Times:  Thin and Inexpensive Netbooks are Poised to Reshape PC Industry
• Engadget:  Netbook tag

- Peter H. Berge

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