Best Touchscreen Netbooks

It gets confusing sometimes when looking at computers in general. People use the term netbook when they sometimes actually mean a laptop and there are some differences. 

Netbooks hit the market around 2007 and are usually a lightweight computer that is less expensive than a regular laptop. Except for size, typically smaller, they look very similar. The big difference is that netbooks do not usually have a disk drive, ports and the like. That is one reason they can weigh so much less, no cumbersome extras. 

The iMac by Apple was one of the first netbooks on the market with other manufacturers quickly following behind with their versions of this different way of computing. 

A netbook computer is meant to access the internet for the most part without the need to save much of anything on a hard drive. A few models in today's market will offer the ability to save on a flash drive or a SIMM card. 

With the popularity of tablets taking over, manufacturers are seeing the desire that people have to be able to use the touchscreen technology that we use on our smartphones and tablets. 

We see the term touch screen and sometimes it is referred to as multi touch when it comes to describing a netbook, laptop, PC, tablet or phone. Smartphones and tablets automatically come with this technology. More and more netbooks, laptops and PCs are offering the feature, too.

What does it mean, exactly? The screen has a sensor that can detect the presence of more than one point of contact. Some only recognize one point but most have at least two points of contact and usually three. When the sensor "feels" this contact it allows certain functions to take place. Pinch the fingers together or apart and you get zooming...together makes the screen smaller and apart makes it larger. 

Couldn't I do that with a mouse or touchpad? Yes, but it might take more steps and sometimes the results weren't what we wanted. Using the touch method is faster and well, let's face it...cooler.

Note that in order for Windows 8 to work as designed, you need either a gesture ready multi-touch screen, or a gesture ready multi-touch-pad.