Have you ever wanted to talk your laptop to the coffee shop downtown but had to reconsider due to your laptops size or limited battery life? The best thing after the cell phone has been invented and the best part is that most of them are under $400, what is this portable product I speak of... it's a "netbook". Netbooks were the biggest thing in late 2009 but not many people knew just what the heck they were. Well if you are one of the many in the dark on this technological breakthrough here is your answer. A netbook is essentially a laptop with a screen size of less than 12'' and weights on average 3lbs. but a there are some under that. What matters most when shopping for a netbook? When your looking into buying a laptop you need to know a few things. The first being is a netbook for You? A netbook has it's limits in the kinds of things it can do. If you wanted a netbook for video editing then I'm sorry but it just won't be able to do it. The next thing is what type of hard drive do you need. If you want to store files like movies and music you should get a conventional hard drive the average size if 160GB for netbooks. The other option you have is SSD or solid state hard drive, these are faster than the previous option but it is faster and the average size for one is 8GB. After you decide what you want it's only a question of what company you want to buy from. Your options are pretty wide with all the major laptop companies offering netbooks as well as some smaller Asian companies. The prices for a netbook computer range from $250-$500 depending on the company.About the Author: