How to Make the Most of Your Netbook

What a year 2009 was for netbooks. Way back last January, we were still dinging them for being slow, cramped, overpriced, and underpowered. But by December, we'd seen enough improvements to realize that for most trips, a nice, lightweight netbook is just fine, thank you.

Even so, we're always on the lookout for ways to improve the netbook experience. After all, they're still pretty underpowered, and their relatively low-resolution screens can be a hassle.

With that in mind, Gizmodo put together The Definitive Guide to Making the Most of Your Netbook, a solid collection of tweaks, hacks, and suggestions. Here's an example:

If you already own a netbook, the best thing you can do is shell out $30-60 and upgrade the 1GB of RAM to 2GB of RAM. It's a cheap enough upgrade and it provides a significant performance boost. If you're shopping for a netbook, the best advice we can give is to focus on two things: battery life and the physical inputs, like the spacing of the keyboard and arrangement of secondary buttons--physical design is about the only thing distinguishing one netbook from another these days.

Of course, we've produced plenty of our own netbook goodness in recent months. Take a look:

• Six Ways to Make Your Netbook More Like a Notebook
• The Netbook Diaries 2009 (Part 3): Buying Advice
• 10 Great Netbook Upgrades
• $300: Netbook or Notebook?