Within techie’s circles, a netbook is seen as a toy. A diminutive version of a laptop – weaker, weirder and less usable. It definitely is weaker than a notebook. It’s not really that much weirder if you can get used to the 10.1″ screen and chiclet keyboard, and yes, definitely less useable to some extent.
It doesn’t run Adobe Photoshop CS5, for one. The 10.1″ screen has a resolution limit of 1024×600, causing many difficulties when playing games such as Civilization 4 or running apps such as Adobe Photoshop CS5. Both these examples require a minimum resolution of 1024×768, and being 168 pixels short, it makes a day-and-night difference. Of course, if you have an Intel GMA graphics chip, you could hack it such that it does larger emulated resolutions.
But there’s no need. Once you manage your expectations with a netbook, you’ll find that it can pretty much do 75% of what your notebook does, and sometimes it does it better than a notebook. Yes, I can’t use CS5, but I’m very happy using CS2, which runs snappily and functions perfectly for everything that I want to do with it.
But the greatest thing about a netbook is its portability, and it beats a notebook hands-down in certain situations. As I type this, I am visiting a doctor and have a bit of a problem with the weight of my 14″ notebook as I recently broke my collarbone. A netbook is so much lighter and portable, and I can do all my WordPressing on it without problems.
Then, I remembered the time when I was in Taipei. I was in a hostel and I met a few backpacking travellers. Everyone had a netbook, including me. The American had a Acer Aspire One, I had a HP Mini 110, and another guy had a HP Mini 210 in a nice silver matte finish. It then occurred to me that the ability to bring a computer that is small, non-intrusive and doesn’t take up much space for travelling is one of its greatest strength.
And then there’s the battery life. A netbook’s battery life is its greatest strength. It is possible to actually run a netbook for half a day’s work. With netbooks being able to last anywhere from 4-9.5h, you’d definitely be able to get some work done on it without needing a power source. Then again, the best part is on a plane. With my 14″ notebook, a two-hour movie is all I’m getting out of it, but with a netbook, I managed to survive a four hour flight while watching two movies on a screen that is bigger than what’s provided on an economy flight.
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Does PS CS5 really doesn’t run on netbooks with below 1024×600 screen resolution?
Mine is a Lenovo S10 netbook with screen resolution of 1024 X 576, and it can run Adobe Photoshop CS3, CS4 and even CS5 smoothly and normally, the App fits exactly on my screen and you don’t need to scroll down or up or something .. With due respect Sir or Madame, How is that? Can you explain it? Thankz
ಠ_ಠ…
With every new day that I administrate this blog, I learn something new.
I don’t have an explanation as to why CS5 won’t allow people with the 1024×600 resolution to run it, but why people with even lower resolution, like yours, to run it. Anyone else out there with experience with the later versions of Photoshop working on their netbooks?