Netbooks and Notebooks

I was just surfing over internet looking for Laptops for someone, when I stumbled across something termed as Netbook. I had to explain Netbook to someone so just collected details and then thought why not post it, this might help many others who are in a dilemma of whether to purchase a Notebook or a Netbook.
 I’ll brief you about the technical details; however will have to help you with the generally used terms, so that we are on the same page when we discuss the specifications.


NOTEBOOKS

Very commonly known as LAPTOPS, Notebooks have derived their name as they look like (in appearance) an actual Notebook of papers. The sizes of Laptops have been reduced, and now because of much technical advancement in the field of processor, motherboard, chipset, battery designs etc, the size has reduced considerably. Now-a-days the Notebooks (Laptops, as you call them) are super-thin, and much more powerful than the actual Laptops that we had some decades back. Notebooks are now much lighter and much powerful than they were before. People can even carry them in their school/college bags, and the sturdy body can easily tolerate the jerks and bumps etc.
A Notebook is a mobile computer with a full sized keyboard and a flip up monitor.
These days, it does not have space for built in floppy disk drives but instead provides communication ports so that an external drive can be connected. This allows a Notebook to be much thinner than a Laptop.
There is no official (technical, legal) difference between a "Notebook" and a "Laptop" computer. Most people use the terms interchangeably.



NETBOOKS

Netbooks, as the name suggests, are sleek devices which have almost all features of a Notebook, but their development is more concentrated for providing connectivity to networks like, LAN(Local Area Network) using Ethernet, MAN(Metropolitan Area Network) using Firewire or other such ports, WAN(Wide Area Network, like INTERNET) using either of the above two ways. It also provide wireless facilities like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Infra-Red (Varies from Company-to-Company and Product-to-Product). Such systems are powerful enough to even setup Ad-hoc Networks. And in fact it is quite simple to connect systems via Ad-hoc Networks.

Netbooks are very much similar to Notebook, but one can never call Netbook as a Notebook, reason being. Notebooks are very powerful (when it comes to computation, facilities, resources etc.), where as Netbooks are rather built for lighter applications, generally related to Internet etc.
A Netbook or mini PC is a mobile computer with a keyboard smaller than full size (some are less than half the size) and a flip up monitor. It might not have space for built in storage drives but does provide ports for connecting an external drive. They often have solid state hard drives (but some have "real" hard drives). Solid state hard drives are smaller than real hard drives, use far less power (longer battery life, even with smaller, lighter weight batteries) and they should be far more reliable (but some problems have been reported with some of them) because they have no moving parts. Some Netbooks now have "real" hard drives. Netbooks usually have no optical drive at all (e.g. no CD or DVD drive), and will typically have smaller screens than full size Laptops. They may have slower or lower power CPUs and Video than full size Laptops. The presumption being that one is just using them for E-Mail, Web Surfing and Routine, non-intensive Office applications. Netbook’s expandability is very limited, these are designed to do a few fairly simple task and not designed to do "everything".
Netbooks have Excellent Portability due to small size and light weight. These are good enough for basic computer tasks and are relatively cheaper than Notebooks.


With the evolving technologies, manufacturers have left no room for differences between Laptops, Notebooks and Netbooks, still, there are, some general guidelines we can use. Laptop computers, Notebooks and Netbooks use the same basic form factor -- the main differentiation is size.
There's no universal definition upon which you can rely.