What’s The Right Mini Notebook Screen Size For You?
So you’ve decided you want a mini notebook and you are seeing all kinds of different choices. Many with a 9-inch screen and others with the slightly larger 10-inch. Here is a quick comparison between the two to help you decide.
9-inch Mini Notebook Pro’s
- Smaller – Making it much easier to throw in your bag and carry around. 1-inch doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s 1-inch bigger, which gives a larger footprint and more weight to carry around. If you are looking for the smallest possible netbook, then the 9-inch is for you.
- Cheaper – Since the introduction of so many new 10-inch netbooks the price in the 9 inch ones has dropped.
9-inch Mini Notebook Con’s
- Keyboard Size – The keyboard on the 9-inch mini notebooks is very hard to type on. I purchased a 9-inch when they first came out and learned to deal with the very small keyboard. It wasn’t until I typed on a 10-inch that I really say how nice it was.
- Screen Size – The resolution is the same on both the 9 and 10-inch mini notebook computers, but the extra inch really is nice when viewing things on the 10-inch. For those of you who are curious about resolution here is a quick visual. Both screen sizes have a 1024×600 resolution, but the 10-inch has the extra inch to show the same exact size, which means everything will be larger in size and easier to read.
10-inch Mini Notebook Pro’s
- Keyboard – Most 10-inch netbooks now have a 92% keyboard. That means it’s only slightly smaller that your average laptop. I want to say the 9-inch that I have has a 83% keyboard and it’s horrible to type on. For reference I’m 5’7” and 150lbs so I’m not a big guy and the keyboard is cramped even for me.
- Screen Size – After owning and using both the 9 and 10-inch I can honestly say that the extra 1-inch really does make a difference in the screen size.
10-inch Mini Notebook Con’s
- Price – There isn’t much getting around it, you are going to pay more for the 10-inch. If money is really tight this is a place to save some.
- A Little Larger – While still being extremely portable, the 10-inch is a little bigger and doesn’t quite fit in those amazingly small spaces like the 9-inch can.
Hopefully this gave you some good insight into the key differences between the 9 and 10-inch netbook. It really comes down to preference and mine ended up being the 10-inch. Mainly because of how much easier I could type on the keyboard. All of the mini laptops have positives and negatives you have to personally weigh out.
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