Difference between a netbook, a notebook, and a laptop

13 December 2009 Comments

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What’s the difference between the terms ‘netbook’, ‘notebook’, and ‘laptop’? I’ve always just called portable computers "laptops", but apparently there is a technical difference between the three.

Laptop / Notebook

The term’s laptop and notebook are generally interchangable. Traditionally they refer to any type of portable computer. However, with the introduction of the netbook, a laptop generally refers to computers with screens of 14+ inches. These computers are considered "full featured."

Full featured means they have regular Intel or AMD processors and optical drives.

Netbook

A netbook is a small, ultra-portable computer. Microsoft defines a netbook as any portable computer with a screen less than 10.7". They generally weigh less than 3 pounds and have no optical drive. Currently netbooks mostly use the Intel Atom processor.

Ultra-portables

There is another type of laptop that covers portable computers with screens that are 11"-13" in size. These are generally very portable, light-weight, but are full featured (have full blown Intel/AMD processors). They usually have optical drives.

Reference:

As further reading, here’s a recent article arguing it’s "Time to drop the Netbook label": http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/08/20/cnet.drop.netbook.label/index.html
http://superuser.com/questions/8954/difference-between-a-netbook-a-notebook-and-a-laptop/31162#31162

Arthur

I recently purchased the Toshiba NB 205 to replace a first generation HP netbook that was no longer fulfilling my needs. I'm a graduate student that spends a good deal of time away from my home base, and I required a system with more "oomph" that allowed me to do essentially everything I do on my desktop (mostly word processing, database creating and management, heavy web browsing and viewing streaming video).

While I'm basically comparing this product to a very barebones system running Linux SUSE 10 and with an outdated processor, I have to say that thus far, the Toshiba really is top of the line. I can essentially run any combination of programs at any time with no slowdown, it has no problem handling streaming video, and it boots up in seconds (very nice when dashing from class to class with little time for waiting around). One of the features that attracted me to this netbook versus the many others flooding the market was the chicklet-style keyboard. It doesn't just look snazzy; the spaces betw

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