Andrew Douglas B2B journalist, turned PR man, specializing in new media.

Netbooks offer powerful portability

The desktop is the lumbering, 360-pound offensive lineman. It's strong but overkill for most jobs outside of the most graphic or video-heavy assignments.

The mobile is the 5'10" quarterback trying to break into the NFL. It's agile and compact but just too small to be a realistic workhorse in all situations. It's good for reading tweets and other short blasts of information on the fly but not a good tool for consuming longer updates.

The laptop is the overpaid and aging wide receiver. It's pricey, overweight and doesn't really fit anywhere.

The netbook is the fresh, just-drafted superstar. It could change the franchise for the next 10 years.

Cheap, powerful mobile computing in a tight space -- like between your belly and the steering wheel or on an airplane's meal table -- has arrived. And with some off-the-shelf accessories you can use the same computer for your regular office computer.

Mary's HP netbook

Mary Feldskov is doing some project work for us in the Guelph office of McCormick. Yesterday she parked herself at her desk, pulled her teeny tiny HP computer out of her purse and started to work. It weighs 3 pounds -- about the size and weight of a hardcover book.

At 10 inches the screen is small compared to a desktop or laptop but giant compared to a mobile. Most of the major manufacturers sell a netbook souped up with all the gadgets including webcam, wifi and HD-quality screen. Some have regular-sized keyboards but others are only 90% of a regular keyboard. As Peter Gredig, content manager at Farms.com, pointed out to me the other day, buy a wireless USB stick and for $30 a month you can get the Internet basically anywhere.

They're pretty good under the hood. Here are the stats, as compared to a standard HP laptop on sale at Staples.

Sure some things are missing -- like a CD drive -- and the netbooks don't have the power of a laptop. But most of us don't use the full capability of our computers anyway.

That's my laptop on the left, but it shows how I work off two screens and a normal keyboard and mouse at the office. You could do the same thing with a netbook.

For a few bucks you can buy some cords to work off a large screen, mouse and keyboard when you're back at the office.

I've seen the future and it is good.