Being connected while mobile is a given for professionals. Staying in touch with Head Office (or Home Office), having access to vital customer data and sales numbers and marketing material, is the lifeblood of business. The question is how to do this in the most efficient and comprehensive way.

For most of us this has meant some flavour of laptop computer. Yet I have long held that laptops are much like infants. Small in and of themselves, but by the time you gather up all the stuff you need to tote around with them they can be a burden. True, current generation laptops pack a punch that desktops of only a while back could only dream of, but unless you have a top of the line model you still have a device with more physical heft and capability than you likely need. When I hit the road I need to get email, connect to my office, deliver presentations and do basic word processing and spreadsheet operations. That is the case for most of us. And that friends, is the central case for the Netbook, and why they will grow in adoption over the coming years.

The common Netbook configuration today is a smallish and thin notebook styled device with a roughly 10 inch screen, 1GB RAM and 160GB hard drive. Decent models can be bought for under $400 loaded with some flavour of Windows 7. That is more than sufficient to run standard office software and a few specialty programs for graphics editing and some casual entertainment stuff. I have a hard time recalling when I ever really needed anything else on the road. As the whole selling point of a Netbook is size and weight advantage, they generally use accessories that are as stripped down as possible. With battery power finally reaching realistic capacities (keep in mind that WiFi is a killer) having access to AC is less of an issue than ever. The fact that they take up less desk (or lap) space is an obvious plus.

The aforementioned observation came home to me recently at a retail assignment I enjoyed. I was using a decent laptop on a fairly small desk and was constantly having to shift it around to manipulate documents and product brochures. Frankly, it was a pain in the you know where. Another chap had a Netbook that did everything I had to do and it left him virtually unencumbered. Sure, the screen was smaller, but one gets used to this very quickly. He had been a mobile sales rep for some years prior and he saw the benefits of portability and convenience. To me, the advantage was undeniable.

I travel a lot, often on aircraft for short periods of time. I can get by with a very small kit of clothing and personal effects. The difference between a laptop and a Netbook is often the difference between one or two pieces of carry on luggage, not an insignificant consideration in these days of security related restrictions. Anything I can do do the smooth my way through check in, security and egress at my destination is a bonus. A few pounds and smaller footprint is a huge advantage, especially if I have to tote around my stuff as I do my business calls. A Netbook can mean all the difference between a burden and a simple necessity.

No doubt standard laptops will continue to get thinner and lighter, at some cost. Yet for now a Netbook is the perfect solution for mobile computing for most business people (and students) who want to have sufficient computing capacity and maximum convenience for day to day operations.

You owe it to yourselves to give this option a good hard look.