All I Want for Christmas is a Mini-Notebook

Do you want a laptop that fits easily inside your briefcase or book bag without weighing you down? Or how about one that tucks away in your purse or carry-on luggage? Well, there are several out there, and they're growing in popularity and diversity.

The mini-notebook, or netbook, was first introduced by Psion in 1999, and by 2007 Asus had brought out its Celeron-based version, the ASUS Eee PC, with a seven-inch colour screen. This model has been relatively successful, both on Amazon.com and in retail stores, because of its low selling price of $350.00. (Most full-sized laptops sell for a much higher price.) The biggest problem with this version is the fact that it has a less than standard-sized keyboard, making it difficult for those with larger fingers to use them.

This year, (2008), the mini-notebook market has grown considerably. In February, Everex presented "CloudBook," which uses a hard-disk and may be used with one hand, while typing, or with two when using the mouse-cursor control. MSI and Dell both quickly followed suit with the MSI Wind PC in June and Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 in September. The MSI model sports Bluetooth and a 10-inch LED, backlit 1024X600 screen. MSI has also incorporated Intel Atom low power technology, and buyers can choose between SUSE Linux or Microsoft Windows XP Home edition operating system pre-installed.

Dell's Inspiron Mini 9, selling for $339.00 U.S.D., if you want the Windows XP operating system, or $349.00 U.S.D. for the Ubuntu Linux OS, may offer the best buy. It has an 8.9-inch WSVGA LCD, 1024X600 screen, Bluetooth, 4 to 16 GB of SSD Storage, a 512M-1GB of RAM, and is powered by an Intel Atom N270. The weight of the Mini 9 is 802.11 grams.

The increasing popularity of netbooks has caused companies to bring out many new models of the tiny laptops. Lenovo has entered the marketplace with its IdeaPad S10, a 10.2 inch model complete with Wi-Fi and an Express Card slot for broadband access. The IdeaPad has onboard tools such as a Web camera for easy video messaging, two USB ports, a 4-in-1 multicard reader, and Windows XP. This netbook is only one inch thick and offers buyers either 512 MB of memory plus an 80 GB hard drive, or one GB of memory plus a 160-GB hard drive. The IdeaPad is reasonably priced at $400 U.S.D and comes in white, black, ruby red, blue, or pink.

Not to be outdone, Asus has brought out the Eee PC S101 mini-notebook. Carrying many features such as 20 gigabytes of free online storage, a 16-gigabyte solid-state hard drive, as well as an integrated flash card reader that accepts four kinds of formats, the S101 weighs only 2.2 pounds and is less than an inch thick. Its backlit, LED screen is a large 10.2 inches, with a display of 1024 X 600 WSVGA resolution. This netbook comes pre-loaded with Windows XP, and costs about $700 U.S.D. and is available in either brown, graphite, or get this...champagne.

So, that's what I want for Christmas. Now, if I can only persuade my family....