Your First Notebook PC

Introduction

Ten years ago, notebook PCs were expensive and relatively rare machines, at least outside of the corporate environment. I was using a notebook 10 years ago, but I was also in the corporate world. At that time, many traveling executives and most mobile salespeople had notebooks, but the typical office worker didn’t, neither did the average small businessperson or home computer user. The notebook PCs of that era were thick, heavy things, relatively underpowered and definitely overpriced. You could buy a good desktop PC for $1,500 or so, but the lowest-priced notebooks went for $2,500 or more—and offered far less processing power, memory, and storage capacity.

Today, the world is different. Notebook PCs are still a little higher priced ...