Netbooks are known for their, low screen resolutions, and relatively underpowered CPUs. I would argue that none of these things actually defines a netbook. Rather, small size and low price are the defining characteristics. If someone put a Core i7 chip in a 10 inch laptop and sold it for $400, I’d be perfectly happy to call it a netbook. That’s just not likely to happen anytime soon.

Anyway, given that netbooks generally do have slow processors, low screen resolutions, and integrated graphics, you might thing that they’re not much good for gaming. And if you only play bleeding edge games, you’re probably right. But it turns out that there are plenty of games that do play well on a typical netbook with an Atom N270 CPU and 1024 x 600 pixel 10 inch display. And I’m not just talking about Bejeweled and Tetris clones.

GamingBolt rounded up 100 popular games and tested them on an MSI Wind netbook as well as a 2-year old Dell laptop and a 9-year old HP desktop. The verdict? You’d be surprised at how many ran smoothly on the netbook. That includes first person shooters like Quake III, Max Payne 2, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, role playing games including Final Fantasy XI Online, Neverwinter Nights, and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind; racing games including Need For SpeedUnderground 2 and NASCAR Racing 4; strategy games including Starcraft and Civilization III; and adventure games including Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Rayman 2.

For the complete list, and more details about gameplay on each game, hit up GamingBolt.

via Netbook Reports

Most netbooks aren’t blessed with the same excess horsepower as current desktops and conventional laptops. In order to keep your system running to its full potential, it’s important to select applications that are easy on resources. You don’t want to needlessly overwork that Atom processor, do you?

One place you can save CPU and RAM usage is your antivirus program. I’ve found three options that are perfectly suited to netbooks, providing an excellent level of protection while keeping the impact on your system to a minimum.

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The Always Innovating Touch Book is a unique little device that blurs the line between a netbook and a tablet-style UMPC. For $299 you get a low power, touchscreen computer with a custom Linux user interface. Another $100 gives you a base station with a built in keyboard that transforms the whole thing into a mini-laptop with an 8.9 inch touchscreen display.

Always Innovating recently posted the first screenshots of the computer’s Linux interface. The company still describes the software as beta, which mean it may still be rough around the edges, even though the TouchBook is already shipping. For the most part, the operating system looks like a typical Linux OS using the GNOME desktop environment. It comes with an array of light weight applications including the Gnumeric spreadsheet app and an MPlayer frontend for playing video files.

As you can see from the screenshot above, there are also a few areas that have been tweaked to make it easier to find and launch programs on a small, touch-friendly screen. For one thing, there’s a custom program launcher and list of running applications. The device also ships with the Fennec web browser instead of Firefox. Fennec is the pre-release codename for an experimental version of Firefox built for mobile devices like cellphones. As such, it’s designed to be more touch-friendly than Firefox, but it still uses the same rendering engine, so web pages that load in the desktop version of the browser should render properly in Fennec as well.

The TouchBook has a low power TI OMAP3530 CPU, 256MB of RAM, and 256MB of flash storage. It comes with an 8GB SD card for additional storage. The netbook comes with Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and 7 USB ports (including a few on the inside of the device for peripherals that will always stay connected).

via NetbookNews.de

Most netbooks have low resolution displays, which means that applications that may look good on desktop or larger laptop computers are difficult to use on a netbook with a 10 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel or or lower resolution display.

One upon a time, most applications were designed for 800 x 600 pixel or lower resolution displays, so of course you could always dig up old programs for your netbook. But a handful of developers are also updating existing applications to optimize them for small screens. Ars Technica has an article on a new version of the Banshee Media Player which has a custom “Cubano” interface designed specifically for netbooks. Banshee was originally designed for Linux, but it also runs on OS X.

Another netbook-friendly Linux app is Anjal, an e-mail application that has a tabbed UI designed for small screens.What are some of the best netbook-friendly Windows, Linux, or OS X apps you run on your netbook? Sound off in the comments.

via Portable Monkey

The folks behind the social media-focused netbook operating system Jolicloud have added a handful of new web-based applications to the desktop operating system. Probably the most surprising is access to Apple’s MobileMe service for synchronizing email, contacts, and calendar events between a Mac, PC, and iPhone.

There are also new applications for Heavy, MindMeister, and Almost.at, which makes it easy to keep track of realtime events through updates from social media sites including Twitter and Flickr.

Jolicloud is still only available to a limited number of private alpha testers, but the team plans to send out a new batch of invitiations soon. You can get your name on the waiting list by signing up for an invitation on the registration page.

via Portable Monkey

ThinkFree isn’t the only company promising that it’s suite of office tools will play well with netbooks. Corel, a company that’s probably best known for its WordPerfect and Paint Shop applications, has introduced a new version of Home Office, which the company says is “netbook-ready.”

Of course, netbooks are really just little laptops, so the netbook ready label seems a bit silly. After all, you can run Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, or any number of other office applications on Windows or Linux powered netbooks without much difficulty. But Corel claims the latest version of Home Office can be customized to maximize screen real estate, which is a nice setting (although the product page does claim that the minimum screen resolution is 1024 x 768, which is 168 more vertical pixels than most netbooks have). The software suite is also available on a USB stick, which makes installation easier on netbooks that lack an optical disc drive.

Corel Home Office includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application. All three are compatible with Microosft Office documents,, but Corel Home Office costs $69.99, while Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition will set you back around $300.

Corel Home Office is available for $69.99 from Amazon. Or you can download OpenOffice.org for free.

ThinkFree launched a trial version of its mobile office suite for netbooks back in October. Now ThinkFree Mobile for netbooks is available for purchase. The software suite runs $39.95, but for a limited time you can pick it up for $24.95 by using the coupon code THINKFREE during checkout. That code will also net you an extra 1GB of online storage space, bringing the total to 2GB.

ThinkFree Mobile includes a Microsoft Office-compatible word processor, spreadsheet app, and presentation app. And the program is designed to play nice with computers that have low resolution, 1024 x 600 pixel displays.

The software is available for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Eeebuntu 1.1

While the earliest Asus Eee PC netbooks were equipped with Linux, today Asus sells far more Eee PCs running Windows XP than Linux. But that doesn’t mean the mini-laptops aren’t still extremely popular with Linux and open source enthusiasts. The folks at Datamation have put together a list of 24 open source applications available for Eee PC netbooks.

The list includes popular Linux distributions designed especially for the Eee PC including Eeebuntu, CrunchEee and Easy Peasy. There are also apps that let you customize Eee PC settings, replicate the look of the Eee PC Easy Mode on Windows XP, or play games on your netbook.

While not all of the programs are designed exclusively for the Eee PC, you won’t find no-brainers like Firefox or OpenOffice.org. For the most part, this is a list of apps that you may not be aware of, but which can improve your netbook experience. Some of these applications will also work on non-Asus netbooks.

Flickr: mattjb

Most mini-laptops that come with Linux include special program launchers designed to make it easy to find the apps and utilities you’re looking for even if you’re not familiar with Linux. They also happen to make it easy to find programs if you just don’t like fiddling around with a small screen and keyboard. And that’s something that might appeal to some Windows users as well.

Flickr user mattjb has uploaded an image showing a customized Windows environment he created that looks a lot like the “easy mode” interfaces you find on netbooks running Xandros, Ubuntu, or Linpus Linux Lite. He used Stardock Fences, Enhanced Write Filter from Windows XP Embedded, and a handful of other programs including the Launchy keyboard application launcher, and the Google Chrome web browser to create desktop shortcuts to web applications.

For more details, check out mattjb’s Flickr page or Lifehacker. You can also watch a screencast of the setup in action.

LogMeIn is a remote desktop utility that lets you access your home or work computer when you’re away from the house or office. The company offers a free client that you can install on a Mac or PC that lets you login from almost any web browser. Or you can pay for software that provides additional features like file transfers or lets you login from a desktop app, an iPhone, or other device.

CNet reports that the folks behind LogMeIn are hoping to work out deals with netbook makers and wireless providers to preload the LogMeIn Ignition client on mini-laptops. The idea would be to introduce more users to the software while providing netbook users, many of whom will not be using their netbooks as their primary computers, with a way to access their documents and settings on their other computers.

LogMeIn Ignition is a desktop application that lets users access any computer with LogMeIn installed without launching a web browser. The program usually costs $39.95 per year or $7.95 per month. But I’m guessing that if LogMeIn manages to strike any deals with computer makers you’ll probably be able to use the service for free for some period of time before you have to kick in any cash.