Can I use a netbook as my everyday work machine? Part II

Netbooks are everywhere - but can they replace your work laptop? silicon.com's Bethan Jones put one to the test.

Last week I set myself a challenge: ditch my current laptop and see if I could use a netbook for my everyday work tasks.

The netbook I chose for the experiment is the Samsung N110.

As with regular laptops, the size of screen and keyboard vary on netbooks - ranging from as small as seven-inch screens, up to just over 10 inches. To give the netbook a fighting chance, I opted to use a machine that fell into the 10.1-inch class, meaning the screen and keyboard are as near to full size as you're going to get with this type of machine.

The N110 weighs in at a slimline 1.26kg – about half what my current 14.1-inch Toshiba work laptop weighs.

So how did it work out? Here's my rundown from opening the box to final shutdown.

Good looks
Though usually not much of a gadget freak, I have to admit I was excited when I started to unpack the dinky machine from its dinky box. It was, in a word, cute.

After much oooing and ahhing from around the silicon.com newsdesk, I tried to start it up.

I then spent a rather ridiculous amount of time searching for the power-on button before eventually locating it on the end of the hinge. After this hiccup I set about downloading Firefox, setting up my favourites tabs, and generally getting acquainted with my new little friend.

That evening, once satisfied I had everything set up as I wanted it, I left my old machine in the office and took the netbook home for the night, ready to start my first full day on the mini replacement in the morning.

Working from home
Logging on at 8am I managed to get my workspace looking like my usual setup quickly. It was easy to connect to the VPN and I managed to get into our online publishing tool swiftly.

When working from home in the mornings I usually have five or six Firefox browser tabs open, one or two Internet Explorer windows for access to our VPN and content management system (CMS), and a word processing application.

The netbook coped admirably with running all these apps. So far so good.

The netbook's touchpad took some getting used to, however. Our CMS has many sections, requiring lots of pointing and clicking. The touchpad caused me some grief here. Owing to the smaller keyboard, the touchpad is inevitably smaller than I'm used to, and the edges were less defined. As a result, entering information into the CMS was extremely fiddly.

The commute
After working from home for an hour or so, I shut down the netbook and headed into the office for 9am. Usually I require a rucksack to carry my laptop to and from work - it's an extra burden that is both a pain on the Tube and not particularly becoming in the fashion stakes.

It was a different story with the netbook - I stashed it away in its neat little felt envelope, fitted it comfortably into my handbag and off I went. Although the Samsung N110 isn't as light as some of the smaller netbooks out there - the Asus Eee PC 900 for example weighs in at a skinny 1kg - but for the screen size it's more than admirable. It felt like I was carrying a hardback book around with me; a welcome change from the bag of bricks I usually lug around.

The office
When I'm in the office usually I plug my Toshiba laptop into a 15-inch monitor and keyboard. So in order to make this a fair test, I plugged the netbook into the same setup. Other than a narrow black bar at the top and bottom of the monitor where the mini screen didn't quite fill the bigger shoes, I didn't notice the difference.

So far, the netbook was doing a fair job, but where it really comes into its own - where it shines above the rest and makes me wonder why everyone doesn't run straight out and buy one of these machines - is battery life...