Desktop computers are amazing devices. They allow us to access the internet and all of the information linked up throughout the world, they let us play interactive video games and type up letters to friends and balance our checkbooks. With them we can watch movies or download music or make our own compact disks. They?re becoming less expensive and more powerful every day. However, if you want to check your email over a cup of coffee at your local Starbucks or type up a memo while you?re riding the bus you?re pretty much out of luck. Desktop computers are a lot of things, but with their bulk and masses of cables they?re not very portable.

Fortunately, it?s occurred to computers manufacturers that some of us would like to take our computers with us, and thus emerged the notebook computers. Notebook computers, like their desktop relatives, have also become much cheaper and more powerful in the past few years, and they?ve also gotten a lot smaller. Six or eight years ago, a notebook computer was closer to the size of an encyclopedia than a notebook, and it weighed about as much. Today?s notebook computers, however, are much closer to the size and shape of actual notebooks (though maybe three-subject notebooks; most aren?t to one-subject size quite yet). Leaps and bounds have also been made in the amount of power that manufacturers can pack into notebook computers. A few years ago it simply wasn?t possible to pack the power of a desktop computer into a notebook. Today, high-powered notebook computers are plentiful, though they?ll cost about twice as much as their desktop twins.

So who needs a notebook computer? The most obvious candidates are students and those are constantly on the move when they work; since notebook computers let you get so much more done when you?re on the go. Students usually find themselves studying and writing in libraries, coffee shops, restaurants, and sometimes even at their desks, so having a portable workstation is a huge boon. The same goes for anyone who gets a lot of their work done while away from their desks, or at least anyone who would like to. Notebooks don?t offer any added advantage to people working from home or at their desks. The costs don?t justify any added convenience. For anyone on the move, however, a notebook computer will let you get a lot of work (and play) taken care of while away from your desk and out in the world.