Netbook users have shown themselves to be adaptable to usage norms among the host programs resident on the new netbook devices. Pre-installed programs and trial versions are not as fully bloated as much of the desktop replacement, notebook, or portable computing devices average. The "bloatware" cannot be accommodated by the small disc drives (motion or solid stated) on the average netbook. New operable versions of standard programs are available to perform inside the tailored down netbook environment. The AMD Atom processor powers the minute devices yet keeps battery power extended.

Netbook battery life and battery use are a large part of the netbook's appeal. Battery life in the best of standard laptops such as Toshiba, Sony or Hewlett Packard struggled at about or over two hours of full computing performance. But variable uses and strengths of each laptop profile meant limited multitasking, video streaming, movie editing, data management and online security features. The netbook version of the "classic" laptop has much less machine to run, and thus much less power to provide. Accessory batteries can be obtained with surplus power and longer netbook life.

For years, as the weight and price of laptop computers drove downward, critics descried the uses of a smaller laptop. What use could a small device with a tiny screen be? Yet the takeoff of the mobile phone with just such a tiny screen for palmtop or video use inside the tiny cellphone screen window has fishtailed the entire netbook market into life again.

Early hardware manufacturers had to deliver the portability concept with an operating system that could not supply the sophisticated ease of use advanced users wanted. Internet users had not yet developed into surfing-optimum demographics capable of driving manufacturing processes. As the portable notebook computer evolved, ultraportability had a high price tag. Devices by Sony and Toshiba still worked to provide additional media processing programs to build value inside a basic machine.

As successive laptop versions succeeded one another, added options required more hardware bulk and desktop footprint. The added challenge to render the device slimmer and lighter was not practical at the manufacturing price point.  Game users demanded more graphics and processor speed than “mini” computer could handle. Chip makers continued to drive notebook development with their products. These chipsets were the design starting point that computer laptop manufacturers had to work with.

Engineering the components down in size yet retaining operating efficiency became a sizeable challenge to even the biggest name and most readily identifiable brand name laptop manufacturers. So new risk takers in the laptop computing market emerged. Manufacturers not afraid to supply what multiple demographic users said they wanted starting designing simple mini-laptops with less processor power but additional benefit of lighter weight, small architecture to run on and smaller initial cash outlay.  The decreased processor power was made efficient by sophisticated applications poised to run on the new Atom hardware.

 The Psion or other early PC "clone" netbook ran extremely thin but with impressive portability. The earliest portable computers were merely portable in that a crane could lift them. The volume of a Compaq desktop in 1986 ran about the size of a large suitcase, and its companion processing volume had to be carried to boot. The Compaq, Sony and Toshiba models through the turn of the millennium were still several pounds in weight and of commanding size. But by the time the Sony super lightweight model premiered in 2004/2005, the future of laptop computing was here. The netbook is the computer of the present, and the future.