Netbooks by Operating System: Compare Linux, Windows XP and Vista OS

Windows XP Netbooks

Quite a few netbooks come with Windows XP installed now. It adds a little bit to the cost of a netbook (compared to Linux - which is generally free) but you have the bonus of being able to install any Windows XP compatible software you may have lying around. It also benefits from being familiar to most people so you can navigate about and find and launch programs with ease and no learning curve.

Windows 7 Netbooks

Finally a fast, light operating system from Microsoft that'll run perfectly on netbooks allowing you to port all your old Windows XP programs over to.

Windows Vista Netbooks

Windows Vista is a fairly substantial Operation System that requires a lot of memory to run. You won't find many netbooks that come with Vista installed as you need about 2Gb of RAM to run it efficiently (most netbooks come with 1Gb of RAM installed). Vista is being superseded by Windows 7 very soon.

Linux Netbooks

Linux powered laptops are usually the cheapest ones out there. You can do all the usually things on a Linux laptop like write documents (even do Excel), email and surf the web - but if you want to do more than that - Linux can have a steep learning curve.