In the last year the popularity of mini-sized computers, known as netbooks, has skyrocketed. With screens as small as seven inches and weighing in at less than three pounds, this genre of computers has filled a niche with people who are tired of lugging around six pounds of hardware in their backpacks or side bags. I am one of those people who found normal laptops too much to carry and opted for a netbook and I would like to share my experiences with you.

A few years ago standard laptop computers were thick and weighed around six and one half pounds. They were portable but if you carried around other equipment then the load was sometimes intolerable. I even injured my back by placing one of those monsters in my backpack and then traveling around as if it were nothing.

After that experience I was eagerly waiting to upgrade my computer to a newer model in hopes of gaining more portability. Well, I goofed when I got a standard 15 inch screen model which was only slightly lighter than my Toshiba Satellite of 2004 and again injured myself when trying to hustle through a busy terminal trying to catch a bus connection. I vowed to go small and looked around for a new netbook.

I am a rapid touch typist and opted for an Acer Aspire One because it has a keyboard that is only slighter smaller than a standard size keyboard. This size keyboard enables me to do touch typing and once I got used to it, I did not lose any speed. So, my first bit of advice is to consider your typing style, and if you are a touch typist, then choose a netbook with a keyboard that is large enough for you.

Closely related to keyboard size is screen size. Can you really work on a tiny screen? Of course a big screen is nice, but I find that even on an 8.9 inch screen there is enough space to work. When I browse the Internet I just opt for larger fonts, and in MS Word I view the documents at 150% size. It works. A seven inch screen might be too small and a ten inch screen would be heaven!

Another feature that you have to consider is the amount of storage space and indeed, the kind of storage media that your netbook uses. Some netbooks do not have hard disks. They use solid state drives. This gives them a weight advantage and perhaps a durability advantage, because solid state drives have no moving parts and may be less prone to breakage. However, the sold drives of some of the earlier netbooks were only two to eight gigabytes. This seems like very little when compared to the standard hard drives of most laptops and desktops, but if supplemented by additional memory, such as SD storage cards or plug in USB memory, they could be adequate for some users.

I was wary about too little storage and when I saw netbooks, such as Acer's Aspire, with a 120 mb hard drive, I jumped for it, and indeed it is certainly large enough to contain all of my data.

Perhaps the biggest determinant of whether a netbook is for you is whether it will be powerful enough to do your work. My netbook has an Intel Atom chip and runs windows XP. With one gig of RAM it is powerful enough to run photo editing software, word processing software and even web editing tools. I found that I could get everything done with this kind of power. Perhaps if you have extra heavy needs then a netbook wouldn't work for you but it has been estimated that at least 50% of users do not need more than what a netbook provides.

There is one last point to make: you don't get a cd drive with most netbooks. However, in this age of memory sticks and SD cards they are not really needed. You can install software through downloads or by hooking up to a portable CD drive at home or at a friend's home. Most of the time you can cruise around lightly without a CD drive.

That's the picture. Netbooks are for real. They look like cute little toys but they pack the punch of a full sized computer at half the price and half the weight.