Back in the summer of 2009, I wrote about my decision to purchase a netbook. Over a year later, my Asus Eee is still going strong and I still love it. I paid around $300 via Newegg and I haven’t had any software or hardware problems with my netbook despite some heavy use. And it’s really, really small and light:
I have pretty big hands but you get the picture: it’s small.
At the time I wrote my 2009 post, I was hemming and hawing between a netbook and a smartphone. I understand many of the reasons that people use and love smartphones, but I’ve since come to believe that at least for my purposes, a netbook is a much better option. Because:
- It forces you to decide when you really need to work on the go. I’m firmly against being always on duty; I work hard while I’m working, and then I shut the computer off and go play. In fact, I think that there’s growing evidence to suggest that people who work in the low 30 hours per week are the most productive. If I owned a smartphone, I know that I would take it with me most of the time: why not use those few minutes while I’m waiting for my daughter at school or standing in line at the supermarket? But, at the risk of sounding like a Luddite, where do those “few minutes” end, and why not engage with the offline world for a few minutes? With a netbook, I only take it with me when I really need it, but because it’s so small, I do take it sometimes. My family recently went on a multi-day bike trip while I was working on a book translation. I was faced with the option to work three or four 12-hour days before we left, or to take the netbook with me and work at night on the trip. I chose the latter, stuck the Eee in my bike bag (no kidding, it fits in a bike pannier!) and felt much less stressed. My Eee also fits in the messenger bag that I use as a purse, so I take it when I get my car’s oil changed or when I know I’ll be stuck waiting somewhere for a long period of time.
- You can do real work on it. My typing accuracy on my Eee is only marginally lower than on my desktop’s keyboard. By contrast, I think that a lot of e-mails that people write from smartphones have a smartphone quality to them; that’s OK if it’s a quick note to a colleague, but I wouldn’t want to respond to a client that way. And if I’m just reading the e-mails for the sake of reading them, why not just wait until I’m in my office? In addition, I think it can be really hard if not impossible to look at attached documents on a smartphone. My netbook has a 10 inch screen which is too small for some tasks (i.e. having multiple documents on the screen at once) but works well for word processing, reading PDFs and browsing the web.
- A netbook can do most of what a laptop can do. Full-size laptops certainly aren’t obsolete; if you need a big screen or a really big hard drive or a lot of processor power, a full-size laptop is probably still your best choice. Netbooks are pretty amazing for their size, but I don’t think that running your speech recognition software on top of your translation memory program on top of your office suite would work very well on one. However, my netbook has completely replaced my full-size laptop for traveling (it has a standard VGA port so can be hooked up to a projector) and I wrote most of the second edition of my book on it using LyX.
Obviously the title of this article is an overstatement; if you work on projects for which you just need to monitor e-mails, I think that a smartphone can be a great choice. And I think that the urge to work too much pulls at all of us freelancers regardless of whether we have a smartphone or not. But I do think that netbooks are worth a look if you’re in needs analysis mode!
I have been using a smartphone on and off pretty much since I started working full time as a translator 8 years ago. I would never do any work on it, but I find it useful for two things: Checking for emails that confirm that a file has been received by the client, when I am out running errands right after I send a job; and responding to urgent availability requests for small translation projects. I find that with a smartphone in most cases I see the file well enough to tell what the subject matter is, and I can roughly estimate the word count.
The advantage of smartphones is that they are always connected, and you don’t have to go find a Wi-Fi access point to be able to read email or send/receive project files. But I agree with you, netbooks are usable work tools, smartphones are not.
I would be very interested to hear more about how you managed to work part time while bike touring. We are planning some bike touring for next year, and it sounds like bringing my netbook along may be an option, but finding power and Internet could be a challenge. Just the other day I was checking that it fit just right in a pannier.
I don’t know what your security concerns are, but in some cities of the world (Santiago, Chile being one of them), something as visible as a netbook is an attractive item for someone to steal. A smartphone can be stolen too, but since it is completely concealed in your pocket (or wherever you chose to store it), it is less of a candidate for theft. Also, since it has a phone incorporated into it, you only need to reach for your smartphone instead of your cell phone *and* your netbook. I personally wouldn’t like to write serious e-mails from anywhere other than my desktop computer seated in my office chair.
Hi,
I’ve an 8″ EeePC on which I’ve installed Ubuntu 9.2. I use it with a mobile broadband dongle but it will always detect if there’s a WiFi access point handy before it switches to the mobile network. I’ve tried all sorts of PDA’s and smartphones, and agree they’re okay for monitoring e-mail. But if I want to do serious work on a train, then I take my EeePC along. As it will actually fit into an anorak pocket I sometimes take it with me on long walks. For longer periods away I take a Samsung NC20 netbook which is actually more powerful than my laptops of some years ago,
Terence
Although I’ve thought about a smart phone a few times, I haven’t been able to bring myself to swallow the poison pill and buy one. The thought of being plagued with e-mail while I’m running errands simply appalls me. My clients have my cell phone number for urgent matters, and I forward my land line if I am concerned about missing a call.
Have I missed the occasional project this way? Of course. Do I care? Not at all. No more than I do if someone sends an urgent project request at 11 pm when I’m up in a raised blind hoping for a boar to show up and stand broadside. I’m available enough during the day and night, and most of what just “can’t wait” really can. Without my down time or some control over the mental interruptions of too-frequent communication I will reach a point where I can no longer deliver what a client probably wants from me. I shut off automatic e-mail polling for the same reason. I check my e-mail when I am ready to read it, not when I am pestered by an electronic cue.
The system works well with my good long-term clients. Most of them are aware of these practices and are patient for some hours until I read mail and reply. If a quick answer is needed, they give me a short call and matters are usually cleared up in seconds. What more could I want?
As for the netbooks, I can understand why you love yours. I have a few issues with the small Shift key on mine, and some application screens are truncates in an irritating way, but it is 90% functional for work and faster than my old laptop. It’s also absolutely unbeatable for writing. I draft at least half my articles with it while riding trains.
I fired my BlackBerry a few years ago and now have a laptop, PC, and yes, a cute pink netbook from Dell. It was only $50 with the purchase of my new laptop, and it seemed like a much better decision than a smartphone. I have only had it for a few months, but I do really like it — even though I haven’t used it enough. I am a bit annoyed that I can’t install my full Outlook on it — that’s going to my PC, and some techie issue I don’t understand prevents e-mail to downloading to both — which means I need to do webmail on my netbook; not my favorite. However, it’s much better than a smartphone/BlackBerry type: you can get actual work done on it. Plus, it fits everywhere and yes, it is super light.
And I completely agree on not working all the time. Now I just need to implement that! 😉 The only downside to my netbook is that it doesn’t have a standard VGA port, so I need to travel with all sorts of cables and plugs to get a projector hooked up…always scary that it won’t work, so I have defaulted to my laptop when I travel to conferences, thus, perhaps, defeating the purpose of having a netbook in the first place.
My phone contract is just about up, and I am now faced with this dilemma. I like the idea of being able to quickly check my email on a smartphone, but I already have so much difficulty unplugging! Do I really want to compound it with constant email access?
Given that dilemma, I am happy to read your thoughts about your Eee netbook. Now that my laptop is almost entirely worn out, I’m seriously considering getting a netbook instead of a smartphone. The phone can always come later if I feel the need for it.
Of course, I’m also considering the latest new alternative: a tablet. (Whether the iPad or a Windows tablet like the Asus Eee Pad, I have no idea.)
I am spoiled: I have both a netbook and a smartphone. I broke down last year and bought a smart phone for the reasons that Marcello stated above. Mainly, to be able to monitor emails in my multi-faceted life (parenting, working, etc.).
I also bought a netbook this summer for a long trip to Europe where I could not stand the thought of lugging around my full sized laptop. It worked great and was not heavy.
I personally do not have trouble unplugging, so that is not a concern. But, when I am working, I like to have options.
Eve
I use my smart phone for a number of things, like texting a friend during a football game, texting a family member when I am about to board an airplane to let them know if the flight is on time, checking the weather, and most of all for security. If I am stranded due to a car problem, I don’t want to have to open a notebook and make a “call”. I want to have the numbers pre-programmed into my phone. One of the main reasons I bought a cell was for safety. I also use it as my alarm clock, and I even have a BAC calculator on it so I know what my blood alcohol is if I am going to drive later, and I am at a bar.
Also, I listen to music when I jog on my smartphone. Try doing that on a notebook !