subject: New Advances in Laptop Portability [print this page] New Advances in Laptop Portability New Advances in Laptop Portability
Although laptops have always been touted as portable devices, it is only in recent years that devices that can truly be considered portable have hit the market. Prior to this, whilst it was possible to get a few hours usage "away from the laptop charger," essentially, much of laptop computing was done connected to the mains.
With the advent of ultra-portable netbook computers, however, there have been significant advances in portability, and now it is possible to get over seven hours of usage from a single charge, which makes laptop power supplies for netbook computers less important than laptop power supplies for their larger counterparts.
There are several reasons why netbooks are able to achieve increased portability over latpops or "notebooks." On a simple level, netbooks are smaller than laptops (with a screen size of around 7 to 10 inches, as apposed to around 14 inches for a laptop) which means that not only can they be transported more easily, but there is less demand in regards to power consumption.
Also, the internal hardware of netbooks is designed to achieve maximum power efficiency. For example, by using SSD (solid state drives) which do not spin like traditional harddrives, a significant amount of power can be rescued.
Of course, with increased power efficiency there is a compromise, and whilst netbooks (as their name suggests) are perfect for surfing the net on the move, checking e-mails and even writing documents etc, for more processor hungry activities, such as gaming, netbooks may not perform adequately.
The promised land, when it comes to portable computing, is a device that is streamlined for portability, but is also able to multi-task and deal with processor hungry activities; as for now, netbook computers are an important step in the right direction.
