Their are many advantages to buying a netbook including their compact size, fairly cheap price, and cool features.  Most mainstream netbooks have the all the features you would typically want on a laptop including wireless internet, a web cam, and ability to work on the go.   Netbooks start around $300 which makes them affordable to people who might have never had the opportunity to own a desktop computer or for someone who couldn’t buy a laptop.

So what are some netbook out there to buy?  Which ones are good?  Choosing the right netbook depends on the features that you want, the color you want, and the actual quality you’re willing to pay for.  The screen of the netbook is pretty important when factoring in which one you want.  A smaller screen will make the netbook more portable and usually increases battery life however it makes it less efficient because there is less real estate on the screen itself (lesser resolution).  A netbook with a larger screen will weight more and have less battery life, but it will also make for better entertainment and productivity.  Movies are much better on a large screen.  With that in mind, this list of netbooks below will be organized by quality and price.

Netbooks Around $300

Dell Inspiron iM1012-687OBK Mini 1012 10.1-Inch Obsidian Black Netbook – Up to 8 Hours 8 Minutes of Battery Life

Toshiba Mini 300 Series NB305-N310 10.1-Inch Netbook – Black Onyx

Asus Eee PC 1001P-MU17-BK 10.1-Inch Intel Atom Netbook Computer (Black)

Netbooks Around $400

Toshiba Mini NB205-N310/BN 10.1-Inch Sable Brown Netbook – 9 Hour Battery Life

Samsung N130-13B 10.1-Inch Slate Blue Netbook – Up to 6.2 Hours of Battery Life

Dell Inspiron iM10V-2734JGN Mini 10v 10.1-Inch Netbook (Jade Green)

Netbooks Greater Than $400

Acer AOD250-1584 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook – Up to 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)	ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life	HP Mini 311-1025NR 11.6-Inch Black Netbook – Up to 6.25 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
Lenovo ThinkPad X100E 11.6-Inch Netbook (Black)	Mirus Educational Schoolmate Convertible 8.9″ Tablet Netbook – Silver (TARCT9XP)

Once you’ve chosen your netbook you should think about any optional accessories or software.  It’s always important to think about whether you need anti-virus software, Microsoft Office, or business productivity software.  Most people make the mistake of buying their laptop without buying the software or carrying case or whatever and end up having to go back to the store and getting what they need.  So instead of making that mistake, remember to get everything while you shop.  Here are the most common things people pick up with their netbooks.

Norton Internet Security 2009 Netbooks Download Card	Logitech V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks (Dark Silver)	Targus Sport Clamshell Case Designed for 10.2 Inch Netbooks TNC101US (Black)
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007	Professor Teaches Office & Windows 7

You can buy one of these Acer laptops for $429.99 and it currently comes with free two day shipping. The user reviews on this laptop are spectacular. It has received over 100 reviews from customers that have purchased this computer. The majority of those reviews have a five star rating. Anytime you see this high number of reviews on a product from Amazon you know that you are going to be buying a high-quality product.

The Acer Aspire has many great features that are attractive to potential buyers. It is very thin, lightweight, and comes with a large bright screen. It can hold up to 4 GB of memory and has an excellent battery life. The 250 GB hard drive gives you lots of space to store stuff on this laptop. It runs quiet and does not get hot like other laptops do. As you can see, for only a little bit over $400 you can get a very nice high quality computer that has some good features.

Now if you are like most people, being able to pay for a new laptop can prove to be somewhat difficult. Not everyone has $400 lying around or saved up to be able to buy a laptop with. If you find yourself in this situation then you should consider financing an affordable laptop. There are several good ways to finance a computer.

One of these ways is to buy a laptop with your credit card. Putting it on your credit card can allow you to make affordable monthly payments for your computer. In some cases, you may receive credit card checks in the mail from your credit card company. You can use these and receive special financing on your laptop purchase. Some credit card companies send these out on occasion and they usually have much lower interest rates such as 2.99% APR.

Another option is to go to your local bank and apply for a line of credit. These lines of credit usually have lower interest rates than credit cards do. Getting approved for a least $500 should not be very difficult and you can then take the cash and use that to buy your new laptop.

Amazon.com currently offers 90 days financing on purchases made that are larger than $149. If you want to split your payments up this can be an easy way to do so. Depending on what time of year it is you may find other special financing offers available from Amazon.

If none of the above laptop financing options work well for you then the last option to recommend would be to borrow money from a friend or relative. It would not be too difficult to set up a simple one-year loan with a 5% interest rate. You could then make monthly payments to your friend or relative and they could make a small profit from loaning you money. These affordable laptops financing options can help you buy that new laptop you have been wanting.

The laptops Kmart sell go for as low as $300.  They also have a fair selection of mid-range laptops going for $600 up to $1700.  Their laptops are great for all sorts of people including students and business-people looking for a high productivity notebook computer.  If you’re looking for a specific brand of laptop, Kmart carries all the major name brands.  From Lenovo and Toshiba to HP and Acer, they seem to have it all.

The best part about buying from Kmart is the financing that they provide to their customers.  If you need help with financing your laptop, you can choose to get the Sear’s credit card.  With the store credit you’re able to finance your laptop as well as receive features like 0% financing and no payments for 6 months.  If you’re not interested in traditional financing, you can also participate in Kmart’s layaway program.  Laptop layaway is great for people who don’t have the money available right now for a computer and don’t want to worry about trapping themselves in something that can impact their credit score.  Layaway is also great for people who have bad credit.

Kmart is a great store to look if you’re someone needing a new laptop.  With their wide selection of computers (including brands) and quality computers for all types of users, you should definitely check them out.

The ASUS Eee mini-notebooks are among the smallest, lightest laptops on the market. At around 10 inches and weighing less than 4 pounds, they can easily be slipped into any bag, ensuring that your laptop computer is always at hand. This brand is known for their low prices (with most models priced at well under $500) and their long battery life. Though they are small, users will not sacrifice functionality. Their full keyboard makes it easy to write emails or work on the go. As is the case with most small notebook computers, they do offer somewhat less memory than their larger counterparts. While this will not be an issue for most users, serious gamers may find them lacking.

Acer has made a name for itself as a maker of low cost but reliable and durable laptop computers. Their Aspire One 10.1”notebook is a market leader with a purchase price of $350 or less. One of the greatest features of this notebook is that it is available in a number of attractive colors, so users can personalize their computer. The battery life is somewhat shorter than the ASUS model, with 6 hours of use available after each charge. However, at 3 pounds, it is one of the lightest notebooks around, and comes equipped with a Microsoft operating system as well as a webcam and photo sharing capability.

The Samsung NC 10-14GB-10.2”notebook is another high perform laptop in a tiny package. These are also sold in four attractive colors: pink, blue, black and white. The Samsung model is slightly more expensive than most of the other entrants in this category, priced from $400-$500, however, users love the bright, high resolution screen that makes watching movies or surfing the internet fun and easy. Battery life averages about 8 hours per charge, more than enough to get most through the day and the 160 GB of available memory is plenty to store all documents that you will need to access for work or personal use.

Before choosing the best small notebook computers for your family, form an idea of the amount you wish to spend and the manner in which your notebook will be used. This will help you select the model that will fit your needs.

Laptorent.com is one of the largest computer rental companies in the nation. They ship for free in the New York Tri State area, and will ship anywhere overnight for an additional $45. Their laptop rentals include a 15” MacBook Pro, PowerBook Titanium G4, Apple MacBook Pro (17” and 15.4” varieties), Asus Eee PC, HP Envy 15, Dell Inspiron 9300 Pentium, and a Dell Latitude D800. Their website does not give you direct prices per unit, as their specialty is outfitting companies and business teams for corporate environments, tradeshows, and conventions. They have a quote link on their homepage, however, that has straightforward interface, although it can be frustrating not to see actual prices, upfront.

Rentourlaptops.com has a more attractive website than Laptorent, and a similar variety. They carry various models of Apple, Dell, HP Compaq, IBM, Acer, Sony, and Toshiba, totaling 38 different models. They do generate specific quotes for your business’ needs, but each of their 38 laptops for rent feature a monthly rental fee, as well. You can rent a laptop with Rentourlaptops.com for as low as $175 per month, and as high as $1,825.

Rentfusion.com only rents laptops to companies, and not individuals. Like Laptorent, you must obtain a quote from a form or agent. Obtaining a quote makes more sense for Rentfusion, as they do specialize in more than the simple laptop rental process. If you are looking to rent a laptop with them for a tradeshow, they will even prepare price sheets and programs to make sure that you are working with a fully functional product, rather than a laptop whose systems you must prepare yourself. They have three different locations in the United States—as Vegas, Chicago, and Orlando—making shipping and maintenance more accessible to you, the renter. They feature four PC laptops for rent, two Apples, and one Tablet PC. The only obvious disadvantage to going with Rentfusion is that they do not have nearly as many models at their disposal.

When you are looking to rent a laptop from any of the above sites, you may first want to assess which company best suits your needs, and then obtain quotes. The cost is the obvious decision maker, so find first which company’ services and products best tailor to you.

After a long stretch of lackluster and unimpressive operating system upgrades Microsoft seems to have hit upon success once more with the Windows 7 operating system. The idea was to create a smoother, easier operating system that does all the things you want it to do, without having you jumping through unnecessary hoops to achieve them.

A desktop computer with Windows 7 means the time it takes your computer to boot up or power down will be cut significantly. It is their goal to liken starting your PC up to turning on your television, which would be a remarkable feat. Multitasking and managing several programs at once will also be easier with a new task bar. Basically, if you didn’t like Windows Vista, Microsoft has worked to improve, fix, or extract all the things that frustrated you. If you are still one of the millions of dedicated Windows XP users refusing to upgrade, you may finally have the operating system successor you’ve been waiting for.

For the casual PC user, this operating system aims to streamline everything and allow for a more pleasant and less convoluted experience. This means your online experience as well as your word processing will be smoother. Easier and faster is the goal here.

Compatibility was also an issue when Windows XP begot Windows Vista. Windows 7 aims to avoid conflicts meaning your software, new and old, will “play nice” with your computer. An operating systems stability is pivotal to it’s success and so far Windows 7 has shown itself to be up to the challenge.

Windows 7 is also user friendly in the sense that it tries to stay out of your way whenever possible. Where Windows Vista was constantly trying to offer unwarranted suggestions, Windows 7 lets you decide when you do and don’t get help. This means less stopping and starting in between reading pop up bubble after pop up bubble to do what you already know how to do.

If you’re looking for a reliable computer from a reputable brand, you can get one from a number of different companies. Computers by HP, Compaq, Dell or Acer are selling for around $500. All these brands will give you plenty of speed, memory, hard drive space, and CD/DVD software burning. You can also get a PC for around $200 as well, but these tend to be bottom of the line brands that don’t exactly inspire fiscal confidence. The aforementioned brands tend to shy away from producing low end computers due to their tendency to fail more frequently.

Try to avoid being talked into extravagant extras and add on features. If you didn’t want it in the first place, chances are you don’t need it now – no matter how cool that salesperson makes it sound. Do a little research, bring a friend in the know along with you perhaps, and make a wise, informed decision. For the casual home user you should have more than you need with the brands I suggested, and with Windows 7 running on them, it will be a fast, easy, and reliable experience, which is everything a computer promises to be, but so often falls short of achieving.

Many of the name brand sites have refurbished/used systems on their own web sites, http://www.dell.com, http://www.hp.com and http://www.gateway.com are but a few places online to buy used/refurbs as well as scratch and dent models for very low cost.

Desktops are much easier to buy cheap as they are always less expensive than their laptop counterparts even new, this is usually the case, so cheap desktops abound in such other areas online as http://www.amazon.com, http://www.ebay.com as well as http://www.overstock.com.

For even more places to look for cheap desktops online consider doing a Google search and there you will find desktops aplenty. Be warned though, look out for unsavory characters that will steal your money and give you nothing in return.

Another thing to note about desktops is that they are much easier, and cheaper, to fix/upgrade than their laptop counterparts, so, if you have to get the lowest model out there, it will be easier to fix/upgrade in the future.

Depending on the type of desktop you are looking for, and of course, the lower-end models are always cheaper than the higher-end models, say if you wanted to buy a Celeron processor instead of an Intel or a lower speed processor such as an 800Mhz rather than a 2.0Ghz.

The same is true for any hard drive option, the larger the hard drive, the more the system will cost, get a hard drive that will service your needs and back up frequently and remove unnecessary files from your main hard drive after a full back up is done. A good size to start out with is something like a 60-80G hard drive, of course, you can also get a hard drive in the megabyte range such as a 20, 40, 60M or so as they are even much cheaper than the Gigabyte sizes.

RAM (memory) is also another consideration when it comes to the price of a cheaper desktop computer, get by with no more RAM than you actually need. If you are doing word processing and a few emails, then you can certainly get by with, say, 256M, if you are also going to be surfing the net, then at least 512M will get you there and back, mind you, no open tabs and the like, just one window at a time.

More considerations are the video and sound cards that come installed on most desktop computers, the higher grade the video card, the more the desktop will cost, find a system that runs, perhaps, a 16 million color display as opposed to a 32 million color display. Also, don’t bother with the 3D effects and other such trappings that will simply run up the price of the desktop.

Now, with the sound card, there is no need to have the best one around, just for basic stereo a simple 16-bit will do perfectly fine. Just make sure that they are equipped with a speaker/mic/headset ports as you will need them, at some time or another.

Keyboards/mice can be had at Wal-Mart for $10.00, these are the most basic kinds of input devices. Speakers can also be had really cheap online or off.

Remember when I mentioned backing up, make sure your system has a built-in CD-R burner, so that you can make your backups as you need to, these come fairly inexpensive nowadays in most systems.

Now, the monitor, the item one definitely needs in order to use the “box” part of the computer, monitors can be inexpensive or really expensive, look for a good used one, if possible, either from a local pawn shop or online, the thing you need to know here is, that you need to obtain one that is large enough for you to see with, it you have bad eyes, like I do, look for at least a 17-inch screen, if your eyes are in good shape, even a 15-inch will do.

A few of the more popular providers are listed below:

Bluehippo.com

The Fujitsu M2010 Mini-Notebook is a low-cost, ultra-portable computer suitable for personal use. This notebook comes complete with 10.1-inch display and newly-developed Intel Atom processor. It is super-light weight, providing the perfect platform Internet surfing, email, and other casual uses.

Asking price for this model is $412.63. Monthly payments are determined once you sign up as a member.

My Computer Club

Notebooks such as the Acer Aspire One as low as $21.67 a month! Some may view the Aspire’s as low-end, but many of these ultra-portables hold their ground. And given their portability, their convenience makes them well worth the sacrifice in CPU power. Often times they accomplish everything you would have done with a two- or three-year old laptop anyway.

ComputerFinancing.net

Weighing in at only 4.9 pounds the DELL™ Inspiron 13 will definitely not slow you down. But with a 13.3″ screen and Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200, it is not something to laugh at either. This powerhouse comes complete with DVD burner, Wi-Fi, 2 gigs of RAM, 160 gigs of hard disk space, and Windows Vista…more than enough for the average user!

Starts at $21.11 a month!

Computer Connection

HP 16.0 Intel Pentium T4300 2.1GHz / 3GB RAM / 320GB Hard Drive

This Hewlett-Packard laptop is great for business or personal use, packing features not often seen in other laptops in this price range. With it’s large screen, fast processor, and ample memory/disk space, this machine was designed for personal entertainment and business presentations.

Payments start at a low $59.41 a month!