Size Does Matter When it Comes to Laptops

A client of mine was complaining about her laptop to me yesterday.

"This thing is just a pain to get trough the airport. It is so difficult to pull it in and out of my case," she said.

She bought the Dell 800 Latitude several years ago and thought she would use it as her home and travel computer, but that didn't work out. Now she is shopping for a new laptop to replace the bulky D 800.

There are a few things to consider when you are purchasing a new laptop. You need to make a list of what you want to use it for just like you would with any computer. Will you just be using it for reading and responding to emails or do you plan on some heavy gaming?

In the case of my customer she just needs her laptop to keep up on her emails, make simple updates to her Excel spreadsheets and use Microsoft word.

I told here that she should look at a netbook. Netbooks are 9 inch wide laptops that have plenty of computing power for most travelers.

I recently checked out the new Asus Eee PC 901 netbook which would be perfect for my client. Netbooks like the Eee PC do not come with a lot of storage capacity to install software. There are only 16 Gigs of on-board storage which is just enough for Windows XP and a few software applications.  The Eee PC also gives you 20 Gigs of offline storage for your documents. My client needs to be able to modify her spreadsheets and do some word processing.

I would just install Word and Excell on this netbook and then look at remote connections to her home office. I would recommend  services such as Go to my PC or LogMeIn.  This way she will be able to access her Word and Excel software and documents that may have not been uploaded to the online storage. The remote connect is mostly for those times when my client forgets something important and she still needs to get to the information when she is on the road.

I told my client that she could easily fit one of these netbooks into a large purse and it will make going through security at the airport a breeze. Using one of these netbooks when you travel will also start to eliminate the pain in your shoulder from lugging around you old laptop.