If you’re curious about the netbook phenomenon and are even considering purchasing one but are wondering if you should because in a few months they will be gone, read on.

What is a fad anyway?

The dictionary defines a fad as a fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time; a craze. One example of a fad I remember vividly is the whole wearing jeans backwards because we were all mesmerized by the teenage Hip Hop group Kris Kross. Remember that? It was in the early 90s! Anyway, within a few months, you looked rather stupid!

Back to netbooks…

To figure out if they’re a fad, you have to see who’s buying them in the first and for what purpose they’re being purchased.

Most netbook buyers I have spoken to are saving money, saving space, reducing weight or simply having a complementary computer. In other words, they’re not buying netbooks for show and letting them sit around and gather dust.

I hear of reports of netbooks being returned in high numbers in Europe. The pessimist pundits use that to say that these mini-laptops are whack and that they’re fads because people buy them and realize that they do not need them or that they break down easily.

I hunted down for that piece of news and it turned out that Linux netbooks see a 4 times higher return rate than netbooks. That makes sense because Linux is not a mainstream operating system and thus if you’re no geek, you will have a hard time figuring it out. In other words, even if you had a normal laptop with Linux and you encountered problems, you would be stuck if you were not familiar with Linux.

So, people who are returning netbooks are those who do not know how to use the operating systems (Why you should not buy netbooks). It does not mean that it’s because they break down or that they do not want them anymore!

We, the shoppers, are not dumb. When we find something cheaper, lighter and smaller that still gets the job done, we will settle for it without a problem (7 Good Reasons to Buy a Netbook over a Laptop Computer). Sure, a few people have no business buying netbooks like I wrote before. But for the average computer user, a netbook is the right computer choice because you can still surf the net, check your emails, listen to your music, watch your movies and even write your assignment using Word.

Netbooks are here to stay (How to buy a netbook notebook). They will not kill laptops like DVD killed VHS. They will live happily together. I even suspect that most people will have a laptop for home or heavy-duty (movie editing or gaming) use and a netbook for when they’re on the move.

Are netbooks a fad? Nope. They are just what consumers want and need in these times of hard economic turmoil and WiFi ubiquity. At the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do with your Blackberry or iPhone. Netbooks will not kill them either. Most people who have a Blackberry or a data loaded iPhone will not see the use of a netbook. But for the majority who do not own these smartphones, netbooks will be the perfect solution. (Ever wonder if netbooks will kill laptops?)

So next time, you read or hear that netbooks are a fad just know that the person may be clueless. You can even throw this very nice stat around:

Users are expected to purchase 11 million netbooks this year (2008), from 182,000 in 2007, according to market researcher IDC as read in Business Week.

    If you have fingers of an ogre, just forget about it!*

It may seem odd that a site that’s totally pro-netbooks would write an article on reasons why to stay away from netbook computers and avoid buying them at all costs. But in the spirit of bi-partisanship with the pro-laptop computer movement, I have to admit that mini-notebooks are not for everyone.

Here is why buying a netbook notebook may not necessarily the best option for you.

A netbook may not be you if you what I would call a power computer user.

If you’re into video production, gaming, music production or any computing tasks that require great processing power, a large and quality display and a full size keyboard and you opt for a netbook purchase, your life will be hell and that’s almost a guarantee.

Although subnotebooks claim to have the same features as laptops but in miniature version, they still will not be useful if you need to edit a video sequence that require a big screen or run music in the background.

Netbooks are not for power hungry computer users. It’s for those of us with basic computer usage such as web browsing, music listening, email messaging and Word document editing.

But if you are a creative computer user, you probably knew this before I even jotted down the first line of this article. But if you’re a novice to computers and a netbook would be your first purchase, beware! For instance, if you are a student and have just enrolled in sound engineering, know that your netbook will be no good to you if you are given an assignment. If you have a desktop at home or a laptop, you will be fine of course but don’t bet on the netbook notebook!

Like I wrote in the article entitled 7 Good Reasons to Buy a Netbook over a Laptop Computer, Business Week said that “The devices tend to feature cheaper processors, graphics chips, and displays, and they use less memory and older software”. If your computing usage requires you to have the most updated technology and software, stay away from netbooks at least from the current generations. I read that manufacturers are stepping up and doing a little bit of upgrades but that also means that the final price will be upgraded to the point where you may as well buy a full size laptop.

If you’re a writer and dream of sitting at the beach and write your novel, you better have a good pair of glasses and small fingers because they will come in handy. It’s one thing to write a 50 words email to a friend from a netbook but it’s a whole other game trying to do the same thing but the goal of writing a 50 000 words novel!

You will make yourself go crazy and those around you so, don’t do it!

In what other situations would I advocate against buying netbooks? Nothing else comes to mind at this moment. Please feel free to chime in by using the comments box below.

So to summarize, if you’re more than a casual computer user stay away from netbooks. If you have the money, you can use your laptop for those serious tasks and the netbook for the moments when you’re mobile and need to do casual stuff such as movie watching or check out what your friends have been up to by checking out their Facebook photos.

*Photo courtesy: Alex Cheek