Definitely! Well, it depends on what you consider fast enough, but in general, there is a certain set of applications that the manufacturer targets their products, and those programs will run without a problem, if you have something else in mind, you may run into limitations. To find out what you can do without stressing the little atoms, read on.
Netbooks are small and highly efficient mini notebooks, often built with an Atom processor designed and manufactured by Intel. This little CPU runs x86 software, which means you won’t have a problem with your favorite version of Windows, which often comes pre-installed as well.
Word has spread since netbooks hit the market; Are they fast enough? You have to be the judge on that, because the set of programs you use is unique to you, but as a general rule, almost anything that has to do with browsing online content will work fine. This means browsers, email clients, online chat applications, instant messaging clients, streaming audio and video content, and probably many more that are not listed here. These programs will run fast enough even if you push the limits a bit. A browser with 10-15 tabs open at once won’t bring an Atom-based netbook to its knees, but running YouTube in high definition will probably put an end to experimentation.
If you frequently play old games, you will be happy to know that some classics work well on whatever netbook you come across. Diablo 2 is loved by many, and Starcraft is still played by millions and will be dusted for a few months now that we are waiting for Starcraft 2. Flash-based games can be played on a netbook, just pay attention to screen resolution as Some require a height greater than the 500-odd left after the taskbar, menu, and tab panel take their toll.
Another fairly popular PC game from Blizzard is World of Warcraft. It is one of the most played games today and sadly, it will not work well on any netbook. If you buy one with a dual-core Atom 330 processor and NVidia ION grade graphics core, you might be able to hit 20-30 FPS, something most people would consider fast enough.
Word processing, spreadsheet editing and almost any light office related use is very straightforward, you will not run into obstacles if you want to write a document or arrange some rows in an Excel sheet.
