What is the difference between a laptop and a notebook.?

What is the difference between a laptop, notebook and netbook?

• I am in the process of buying my daughter a laptop but some of them have notebook on them can someone please explain the difference. Tesco are selling an Acer Aspire at the moment which says it has a dvd writer in it and it is a notebook I thought that a notebook did not have a place for a dvd/cd.

• Answer:

  notebook and laptop are the same thing and are used interchangably. they can range in price from a couple of grand to a couple of hundered. typically, the more expensive they are, the better they will be at 3D rendering (eg. playing games), but these days there isn't much difference between cheap and expensive processors... at least in terms of doing everyday computer stuff like browsing the net and playing music, etc. if you daughter wants to play games (such as Sims 3), you might want to get a laptop without integrated graphics - ie a dedicated graphics card. most laptops have optical (dvd) drives. netbooks are lower powered, cheaper, and usually have better battery life. they're typically built around the Intel Atom processor, which does give a marked reduction in speed compared to most laptop/notebook processors, even when doing simple stuff. the small screens also usually have lower resolutions, which (combined with the lower power processor) can make web browsing a bit trying. and you can forget about playing games on them. most netbooks don't have optical drives. most people i know use netbooks as a second laptop for when they're out & about travelling, due to their lightness and that they often come with GPRS for mobile internet.