| ad_section_start --> | | | | you're doing, it's also very difficult to make the |
| For some people, laptops just aren't small enough. | | | | components that small without the computers |
| Your average laptop weighs 2-3 kilos, and has a fast | | | | becoming really expensive. The speed of most |
| processor that eats up battery time and produces | | | | subnotebooks is about where laptops were about five |
| enough heat to burn your legs if you're not careful. It | | | | years ago - an absolute lifetime in computing terms. To |
| can be a real effort to work with laptops sometime - | | | | get that small, they have to use Pentium M processors, |
| they're hardly the dream of portable computing, | | | | which barely scrape over 1GHz, which is a huge |
| especially when you have to carry them down the | | | | disadvantage when it comes to running a modern |
| street. They're just too big. | | | | operating system like Windows XP. |
| Because of this, there's a growing market for even | | | | However, that's not to say that ultraportables are |
| smaller machines, often called subnotebooks, | | | | useless - they're just not well suited for every task. If |
| ultraportables or occasionally 'kneetops'. They have | | | | you're doing graphics work, for example, or playing |
| screens about the size of the average laptop | | | | games, or generally doing anything that is heavy on |
| keyboard, about 10 inches diagonal, and can weight | | | | processor power and requires a large screen, then |
| less than one kilo. | | | | you'll probably find these tiny computers to be more |
| So where's the downside? Well, apart from the fact | | | | frustrating than anything else. |
| that the small screen makes it a little hard to see what | | | | |