A lot of people, have wondered what the difference is between those tiny little cheap netbooks and their larger brothers, the laptop. The two are not the same, and therefore your needs will let you know which one to buy. This article will show in detail the difference between the two. The price is the biggest difference. You will probably spend less on a netbook than a laptop. The bottom price for a netbook is around ttdownloads $250 and can go up to as much as $800. For most peoples needs, a good bet is to spend under $500. Laptops can run you all the way up to $1500 and it will be hard to find anything for less than $600 on average. Size of the screen After the shock of seeing the actual size of the computer, most will notice the seemingly tiny screen. They are small, so it will take some getting used to. Netbooks can be purchased with 7 or 10 inch screens. This is something that you can get used to; however you might have to fiddle around with the browser settings in order not to waste tons of space at the top of the screen with toolbars that are not really used. The quality of the images however is superb. Most of these computers have excellent video cards in them. Most of the 10 inch screens have a resolution of 1024X600 which is just fine. They weigh next to nothing. Of course a smaller computer equals a lighter one. Travelling is so much better because of their weight. With all of the restrictions that airlines are placing on checked baggage, many of us try and carry on all of our things. These computers take up much less space and are a pleasure to carry around. They are also easier to deal with at airport security. Operating System Most of the netbooks these days come with either Windows XP or Windows 7. Many of the older ones still have Windows XP. It must be remembered that these computers will be used much differently than laptops. Storage One of the best advances today is in hard drive capacity and storage in general. There are two types of storage that you will be able to find. One is a traditional hard drive called an HDD or Hard Disk Drive. These are more popular in the cheaper models 515exteriors and come in sizes from 80G all the way up to 320G. The other type is called the SSD or Solid State Disk. This type of memory is available from about 4G up to 32G, but it is more shock resistant than your HDD type so keep this in mind. RAM memory Small ram sizes are one of the disadvantages to these computers. Most of the time you will find them with about 1G of ram which is not really enough to do major computing. If you want to pay more, you can find them with 2G or you can just upgrade. Sometimes the 1G of ram is not enough when using lots of social media apps, or the machine slows down too much. Keyboard Size Well, what can one say except that it can be annoying typing on one, but again, as will be stated later, these computers were not meant to be used to write your next 1000 page novel! They are just fine for working with email and basic word processing. Type of processor Because of their small size, netbook technology takes advantage of smaller processors, mainly to conserve battery life. Most if not all of them use a standard single core processor while laptops use a dual core processor. For this reason, if you need to be doing tons of heavy computing and graphics editing, maybe a laptop is a better choice. Connectivity This is where netbooks really shine. If there is a way to get online where you will be, the netbook can do it. That is their forte! CD or DVD Rom Drives Sorry on that one. They don't have them. If you need a specialized program on there, you can most likely download it from the internet. For example, if you need an office program there are several options. Free ones include Open Office and even Microsoft has a downloadable version of Office, so you should be good to go. In conclusion, the decision on whether to buy a cheap americanvisionwindows netbook or laptop depends on your planned uses. For travelling and keeping in touch with your email and basic net surfing while you are away, a cheap netbook is just the ticket.