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Dave Winer asked the other day, "What is a netbook?" and then he listed all the components that he thinks would make a netbook, which is basically a specs list. I'm not big on specs because they change over time, I'm more of a concept guy. I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm saying at this moment, his list is true of the majority of netbooks out there but in a year, two years, who knows?

I wish I can think of a better name for this new class of notebooks because it just doesn't sound right. A netbook implies a dependence on the net or having it as a requirement to be functional. At the early point of its life it may have been true because the Asus Eee notebooks, which kickstarted this whole craze had only 2-4GB of storage space. That prompted a need to be connected all, if not most the time and you also would have a dependence on a USB flash drive to expand your storage space. It was not practical to have it run a full fledged OS (ie. XP) because it left very little remaining space to work with. Within less than a year, we're seeing these small notebooks carrying 80-160GB of drive space. No longer are we dependent on the net to run applications or save our files.

To me, this new class of mini notebooks are still notebooks and I agree with Michael Gartenberg and John Gruber on the following point. They're just smaller and cheaper versions of existing notebooks. And you need to hack'em to run Mac OS X. Why Mac OS X? First of all, I'm used to it, secondly, no virus or malware to speak of, and thirdly, it works right. "But Mac OS X is such a bloat" you say. Not so much. OS X runs iPhone and iPod touch and they clock in at around 300MB, the size of Mac OS 9. Mac OS X on Apple's full fledged computers contains many apps, services and graphical elements that are very nice to have but not terribly necessary for most people. It also contains the iLife suite, whose themes and templates are just monstrous.

I've used a few of those tiny notebooks and I can't get used to using them. The keyboards are to cramped for me to type on. "Duh! How else are they going to fit in that small space?" Well, of course. Other people are fine with it, I'm not. They may be wonderful little devices but it's not for me. At least not in the current form because I have a need for a full size keyboard. The iPhone? That's a completely different category and a different way of typing.

Speaking of which, Winer scoffed at the idea of using an iPhone in place of a netbook. Well, that's actually how I work away from my Mac. I can churn through a 500 word piece on an iPhone but it's not as convenient as on my MacBook. And I can't format my articles yet–Come on Apple, when are you going to release iWork for iPhone? Although it's convenient in other ways like when I'm in the bus or in the car, places where popping out a MacBook, or any other notebook of any size is just too cumbersome but I needed to just put in a couple of points that I thought of at that moment before I forget. It also auto saves when I leave the Notes app.

So what do I think makes a good mini notebook? I don't know. As with a full sized keyboard, I need a large screen though 12-inch is fine. I used to work with a 10-inch Compaq and Toshiba Portegé in high school, but I don't know how you can call a 12-inch notebook a mini notebook or a netbook for that matter. My wife has a 12-inch iBook, it's certainly not a netbook. 

Dell recently released their line of minis, a 9-inch and a 12-inch and I attended their local launch at 3 Degrees a couple of days ago. They're nice. Yes, they're Dell's but I like that they have HSDPA SIM slots so people can pop them in and get mobile broadband. 3G and WiFi are pretty much a requirement for small mobile devices and I suppose that's what makes them a netbook although I bet some form of mobile broadband support will c ome to full-sized notebooks in the near future. I'm fine with the 9 inch being a netbook but 12 inches is a bit large for what you'd want to call small these days. Still handy though.

Despite that, my current aim is to get one of those new MacBook Pros. Those are sweet sweet machines.

   

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