In-Flight Entertainment on a Netbook

PC World - Last week, while I was jet-setting off to Dell HQ to get a gander at the Adamo XPS (you did read our exclusive look at prototype laptops that'll never make it to market, right?) I found myself with a lot of free time at the airport. I could have been productive and done some writing--but that was prime time to marry my love of laptops with my love of goofing off. This week, I'm telling you how to make the most of a low-powered PC, be it a netbook or humbly equipped business machine.

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.

But you aren't always going to be online. When you touch down and drop your bags, set aside a few minutes to set up your PC while you clean off the travel funk.

First, plug in a USB tuner. My go-to choice for the time being is the AverMedia AverTVHD Volar MAX ($70). I wanted something that doesn't require me to install proprietary software or a driver disk or any extraneous BS--Windows has enough of that already! Plug it in and Windows 7 Media Center recognizes it as ClearQAM tuner (with Dolby Digital decoding, no less). So long as you get signal at your hotel, you're seeing quality HD (up to 1080i).