Project Lore

Misconceptions Cleared Up It seems that there was a bit of confusion in the WoW On A Netbook post from last week.  Enough, in my opinion, to warrant an entire response post, rather than a rebuttal comment.  So here we are, returning to the topic to clear the air, set things straight and sprinkle in a few additional points. Judging by the comments there are a few issues to tackle including the definition of a netbook, why the hell I would try to run WoW on such a piece of hardware and why it may matter to you, our loving readers.  First and foremost, a netbook is a laptop that is primarily designed for web-browsing and e-mailing, with no maximum requirements on how that can be done.  Rather the tertiary concern is that of battery consumption, leading the hardware engineers to nerf and throttle the buzzwords of computing, GHz, GB (RAM) and GB (HDD space), to save power.  In the end, the netbook and laptop (aka notebook) discussion turns into the "a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square" discussion.  Simply put, a Netbook is a subset of the laptop sector.  It also happens to be the fastest growing computer market, more on that later. Being an IT professional by design, design being my college degree, I tend to stay up on the latest trends in computing.  I get asked my opinion on the topic all the time, so if I fall behind I feel that I am doing a disservice to friends and colleagues.  Unfortunately, my three plus year old laptop continues to stand toe-to-toe with every single netbook currently available.  Once I took purchase of upcoming events for this summer, E3, BlizzCon and Penny Arcade Expo to name a few, I broke down and added the conservatively priced Asus EEE PC 1000HE to my line-up of machines.  It enters as my third active WoW-capable machine.  Third is the key word.  I have plenty of other machines that can play WoW, but this baby was purchased to make travelling easy.  Playing WoW on it is a bonus, a huge one, that I made a requirement during my netbook research.  I do not want to play on a netbook, I am just forced to when traveling.  Of course, that doesn't stop me from wanting more powerful netbooks. I understand that many people may not find discussions on the latest computing trends to be incredibly interesting, but they should at least be informative.  If you, or your parents, haven't already purchased a shiny new machine for the upcoming school, business, or gaming, year then you'll likely to begin your research sometime soon.  Desktop machines your cup of tea?  Then move on to something more directly WoW related.  A Mac user till death?  Allow me to point you elsewhere.  However if space, portability, money or power consumption (go green!) are your concern then netbooks should be at the top of your list.  For those in this boat, hopefully the end of the summer will bring an ION-based machine, or a sexier, cheaper ASUS N10J. Do you see a netbook in your future, or do you prefer lugging around a machine that can double as a murder weapon (Alienware) in crucial situations? P.S. Just kidding Apple fans!  I have a Powerbook sitting at home too!

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