In-Flight Entertainment on a Netbook

Pre-Flight Check

Before I do that, though, one bit of advice: Be prepared. Make sure that you have the right gear stowed in your laptop bag--and that you have the best bag for the job. I brought along HP's Pavilion DM3, which runs Windows 7 Home Premium and has a spacious 500GB hard drive--but guts-wise, it's a little on the gimpy side. Point is, I loaded this modest machine up with music, videos, and games and entertained myself for hours in various airports.

Another piece of the pre-flight puzzle: Wireless. Every current laptop has built-in Wi-Fi, but how do you plan to get online Aside from looking up The Wi-Fi-FreeSpot Directory, you could always sign up for a wireless data service. Personally, I've been eyeballing the Novatel MiFi. Through Sprint, it costs $60 a month (for up to 5GB of bandwidth), but it's effectively a portable wireless router.

Small-Screen Video

The jump to Windows 7 has done the Windows Media Center justice. Internet TV streaming is now fully realized. Plenty of current and classic TV shows (I say more MacGuyver!) are easily accessible. And that's saying nothing of all the online video options cropping up (PC World Senior Editor Melissa J. Perenson put together a great feature covering TV on the Web last year) and Netflix is directly streaming into Media Center.