There has been a quite dramatic advance in laptop design over the last few years; resulting in the arrival of netbooks. Lighter, cheaper and more portable than the traditional laptop, they are a long way removed from their humble beginnings as a solution to providing developing countries with affordable and accessible computers.

Whilst the aid to developing countries instigated the arrival of netbooks, it has been back in the western world that they have made their mark in equal measure. Through the recession, sales have soared; bucking the industry trend for other types of computer.

In part, this has been driven by the lower cost of course, as the world plunged into financial crisis. However, their diminutive size with great performance has been the real sales leader, and has appealed to on all fronts to the consumer market.

Of course, it has not been a hit with business users, but this market has not (yet) been targeted. With reduced weight comes reduced performance of course; but for surfing the web and doing basic word processing, they are more than adequate. Gamers too of course are not their biggest fans!

This is because of their reduced capacity processors. However, this does not affect the basic functions, as the small battery requires less power, so the life of a charge is more than sufficient in most instances.

The quality of the kit itself has not been reduced either. Whilst screen sizes are obviously smaller; they are not ridiculously small. Screens are most often touchscreen affairs too, whilst the keyboards are very near to a full sized standard laptop keyboard. With a many connectivity options too; certain peripherals can be added if necessary.

But there have been some downsides of course. These have tended to be based around the Operating System that was offered as standard. Though very good, the Linux OS was just not familiar to most users.

Most of these problems have been resolved one way or another however, and earlier purchasers of netbooks have remained loyal to the tech. Windows fans that have stayed the course look set to be rewarded too. Windows 7 was released recently of course; and this new platform, (slimmed down in itself), is being re-released with a new version specifically for netbooks.

Matthew Kerridge is an expert in computer consumables. If you want more information about netbooks or are looking for a trusted laptop online retailer please visit http://www.ebuyer.com