The term "notebook" seems to have a certain amount of confusion surrounding it regarding its usage and meaning, with questions about what exactly it refers to. Some believe that "notebook" is just another term for "laptop," while others have several ideas regarding differences between the two kinds of portable PCs. Both terms are often used as synonyms today, but historically they did refer to two different things. Sort of.
The term "notebook" was first used in'89 to describe an emerging line of portable computers that were smaller than the average laptop. These systems were about the size of an A4 paper notebook, and they emerged from the labs of NEC and Compaq, who produced the UltraLite and the LTE lines of notebooks respectively. Not long after they did so, IBM unveiled the ThinkPad to the masses, which popularized the notebooks and expanded the market several times over. Laptops before then (and many since) were usually wider, taller, and thicker than these notebooks. The larger laptops of that age owed their size to the limits of technology, but the larger ones of today exist so we can have larger screens or more powerful hardware inside. Or both, in a lot of cases.
For a while after this initial introduction, the term "notebook" continued to refer to these smaller laptops, which were really popular among businessmen and students who were on the go a lot thanks to their lighter weight and reduced dimensions, making them much easier to carry around and manage. Thanks to this reduced size, however, there was another thing that notebooks became known for.
Notebooks had all the elements of a younger sibling, including somewhat weaker hardware specs. This distinction helped to create a distinct market for notebooks, as they made for great computers to own in addition to a desktop, but they were not so great for a complete desktop replacement depending on what you used your desktop for. More powerful laptops, on the other hand, could easily match any but the most powerful desktop systems available, and this is the case even today. This distinction remains in force today, though not quite as much as it did ten years ago.
This means, of course, that notebooks are now situated between laptops and netbooks in terms of processing power and general usage. Where netbooks are the extreme in portability and low prices, they are also the lowest denominator in regards to processing power and storage space. Unlike netbooks, notebooks are not specifically designed just for office use and surfing the Net - they can perform almost every task that laptops and desktops can.
With notebooks and laptops converging and becoming increasingly similar, it is possible that very soon there will not be any difference between the two at all.
In closing, we would like to mention that there is one distinction between laptops and notebooks that is actually increasing at the present time: touchscreen functionality. At present, the percentage of notebooks with a built in touchscreen is rising quite rapidly. While there are laptops with touchscreen support, the function is, at least for the moment, a notebook thing.
Author Resource:
Matthew Kerridge is an expert in electronic consumables. If you want more information regarding laptops or are looking for notebooks please visit http://www.ebuyer.com
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")