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When Laptops Go Light
By DAVID POGUE
Published: March 28, 2009.

Stuart Goldenberg

Did you hear about the new Hilton NanoSuites? You get a single bed in a room about 8 feet square — and no shower.

There, you can dine on McDonald's new McSliders: burgers the size of a half-dollar, with two drops of ketchup.

You might wash those down with a Coke Swigger — a cute minican that holds three ounces of noncarbonated cola.

What's that you say? Those are deeply compromised concepts that would bomb in the marketplace? Well, of course they are; I made them up.

The popularity of netbooks, on the other hand, is real.

A netbook is a laptop with a shrunken screen, an undersize keyboard and a processor that's so slow, you'd have laughed at it in 2007. The netbooks' crucial attractions are tiny dimensions, light weight and low cost, usually $350 to $500. Otherwise, they're all about compromises.

The term "netbook" is a euphemism, intended to stress its main functions: e-mail, Web browsing, chat, Skype and word processing. The hope is to distract you from what netbooks are too feeble to do well: Photoshop, video editing, games and so on.

But these days, price and size are enough to make netbooks a hot seller; ABI Research estimates that we'll buy 35 million of them this year, and 139 million in 2013. It wasn't always this way. When netbooks arrived a couple of years ago, they were so tiny, only spider monkeys would find them usable. But as they've inched up in size and usability, their sales have taken off.

Now, in fact, there are so many netbooks that keeping them straight would be a full-time job — and it is, for Joanna Stern of Laptop magazine. Since she's seen it all, I asked her to recommend the best four netbooks for my review.

In general, these four have identical specs: Windows XP ;1 gigabyte of memory; 1.6-gigahertz Intel Atom processor; 160-gigabyte hard drive; Wi-Fi wireless; 3 U.S.B. jacks; a webcam above the screen; video output and Ethernet jacks; and a memory-card slot.

Each has a 1024-by-600-pixel, 10-inch screen. The speakers are tiny and tinny, and online video can be a tad jerky. And there's no way to install software from a disc unless you buy an external DVD drive.

Finally, all of these netbooks have tiny trackpads and even tinier clicker buttons. Fortunately, you won't care; you can tap and double-tap right on the trackpad instead of aiming for the clicker buttons.


Low prices and small size make these among the leading netbook models. From top, the Asus Eee PC 1000HE and the MSI Wind U120.	The Samsung NC10, top, and the HP Mini 1000.

Here's how they stack up:

ASUS EEE PC 1000HE ($375)

Why are Asus's computers named Eee? Was somebody dictating name ideas when a mouse ran across the desk? Anyway, the 1000HE is clad in glossy black or blue, and it has a battery that lasts for more than seven hours.

Now, the trouble with a battery that big is, yes, that it's big. The Asus battery creates a bulge at the hinge that lifts the machine off the table and makes it uncomfortable on your knees. It also adds weight; the Asus is the heaviest netbook in this roundup (3.2 pounds? For shame!).

The keyboard feels cramped but nicely springy. Its tiny trackpad is multitouch-sensitive, meaning that you can scroll by dragging two fingers, or magnify or shrink Web pages, photos and documents by pinching or spreading two fingers (thank you, Apple).

There are four handy buttons at the top edge, two of which you can assign to favorite programs. Nice touch; the more you can accomplish without using the infinitesimal trackpad, the more efficient you get.

MSI WIND U120 ($330)

The MSI Wind's clean, simple, black-and-white design embraces crisp "folds" in its plastic rather than the rounded edges of its rivals.

This 2.6-pound machine, too, has a "six-cell" (bulky) battery. Strangely, though, it provides only 4.5 hours of life; it ought to go much longer.

The keyboard feels terrific. As on most netbooks, many keys control a secondary function (for example, brightness or volume) when you press the function key; on the Wind, secondary functions are labeled in blue on the white keys and are easy to see.

The software uses facial recognition as a security measure — if it's not your face, you can't log into Windows. Unfortunately, you can't upgrade this laptop's memory. There's no trackpad shortcut for scrolling. But how can you argue with $330?

SAMSUNG NC10 ($440)

Samsung's netbook looks great (from the top, anyway), with a glossy, round-edge lid and cool glowing status lights (like the power button hiding in the right hinge). At 93 percent of full size, the keyboard is relatively roomy. You even get dedicated Page Up/Page Down keys, which are missing on the other three netbooks.

The trackpad is tiny, but it has a scrolling strip on the right side, and it, like the Asus, is multitouch. Best of all, the battery doesn't cause much of a lump, yet it still drives the laptop for an amazing 6.5 hours. Only the steep price is a cause for pause on this 2.9-pound marvel.

HP MINI 1000 ($445)

One thing's for sure: to see this netbook is to want one. It's gorgeous. It's much smaller than the others — nearly an inch shallower front-to-back, and since it doesn't have a battery bulge, it sits low, sleek and flat on the table. At 2.4 pounds, it's also the lightest netbook here.

The other stunning achievement is the keyboard. Hewlett-Packard took what would be the obvious design tack: it widened the keyboard to the last available millimeter of horizontal space, right up against the laptop edges. The keys are huge and flat, and typing on them feels very close to normal.

Of course, you knew there had to be a catch — and there are several. First, the Mini comes with an 60-gigabyte hard drive, max. That's less than half the capacity of the others — and you're paying top dollar. Second, that nonbulgy battery lasts only three hours. (A 6-cell, 6-hour battery is a $40 option.) Third, the screen is 22 pixels shorter than the others, and you need a $20 adapter to connect a projector or external monitor (HP is borrowing the wrong ideas from Apple).

Worst of all, the trackpad clicker buttons are vertical strips flanking the trackpad. It's a design disaster; you can't left-click with your right hand, you have to look at what you're doing and so on. It would be a deal killer, in fact, if it weren't for that "tap the trackpad to click" thing. (The trackpad also has a scroll strip on the right edge.)

Netbooks don't make good primary computers; that's not their purpose. They're intended to be second machines: travel machines, countertop laptops, TV-couch computers. They really are irresistible for quick Web or e-mail checks, airplane reading and even PowerPoint projections.

If its battery and hard drive weren't so compromised, the sweet, small, solid HP Mini could easily walk away the winner. Meanwhile, consider the Samsung for its solid design, fine keyboard and long battery life; the Asus for its all-day battery and low price; or the MSI for clean lines and rock-bottom price.

So yes, choosing a netbook is all about finding the least-bad compromises. And in these four machines, you'll find some not-bad compromises indeed.

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com