Hardware

An MSI Wind netbook motherboard featuring the Intel Atom processor

Netbooks typically have less powerful hardware than larger laptop computers. Some netbooks do not even have a conventional hard drive.^[44] Such netbooks use solid-state storage devices instead, as these require less power, are faster, lighter, and generally more shock-resistant, but with much less storage capacity (such as 32, 64, or 128 GB compared to the 100 GB to 2 TB mechanical hard drives typical of many notebooks/laptop computers).
All netbooks on the market today support Wi-Fi wireless networking and many can be used on mobile telephone networks with data capability (for example, 3G). Mobile data plans are supplied under contract in the same way as mobile telephones.^[45] Some also include ethernet and/or modem ports, for broadband or dial-up Internet access, respectively.

[edit] Processor architectures

[edit] x86

Most netbooks, such as those from Asus, BenQ, Dell, Toshiba, Acer use the Intel Atom notebook processor (typically the N270 1.6 GHz but also available is the N280 at 1.66 GHz, replaced by the N450 series with graphics and memory controller integrated on the chip in early 2010 and running at 1.66 GHz), but the x86-compatible VIA Technologies C7 processor is also powering netbooks from many different manufacturers like HP^[46] and Samsung.^[47] VIA has also designed the Nano, a new x86-64-compatible architecture targeting lower priced, mobile applications like netbooks. Currently, one netbook uses the Nano; the Samsung NC20. Some very low cost netbooks use a System-on-a-chip Vortex86 processor meant for embedded systems, just to be "Windows compatible", but with very low performance. In 2011, AMD launched Fusion netbook processors which are included in Asus Eee PC 1015T and many others.^[48][49]

[edit] Comparison

By definition netbooks accommodate processors with little processing power. For comparison a common dual-core Core 2 Duo T5600 at 1.83 GHz with 2 MB L2 cache used in low-end laptops has a PassMark score of about 1000 points. The following table shows benchmarks for most common netbook CPUs:^[50]