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A good laptop is these days pretty much essential for any university student, but netbooks might provide much of the same features for a little less money.

They’re ideal for taking notes during a lecture or in the library, or crunching numbers on a field trip or in the students’ union café. We’ve rounded up five options for this year’s freshers to consider.

Samsung N130-JA01 (from £229.00)

Samsung’s computers have come on leaps and bounds in the last two years or so, and this 10.1 inch netbook is a pretty good effort.

Mainly an upgrade on the NC10, the Samsung N130 comes with a large keyboard (very useful for people with bigger hands) and an anti-glare screen, which will come in handy in the harsh light of the library.

The battery’s a 6-cell one (upgrade to 9-cell possible) and will last you at least five hours with medium-intense use. There’s 160Gb of hard drive storage and Wi-Fi, Ethernet and Bluetooth connectivity as well.

Toshiba NB250-107 (from £177.60)

This netbook is definitely on the lightweight side and very reasonably priced too.

1.12Kg is put-in-your-handbag kind of light, and its glossy lid lends it a certain air of sophistication. The NB250’s keyboard and touchpad are very user-friendly (read: responsive and reliable), and 250Gb is definitely above average for netbooks this size.

If you can get past the unimpressive battery life and screen quality (watching videos isn’t a very enriching experience witht this netbook), you’ve got a very wallet-friendly piece of work equipment on your hands.

Acer Aspire One (from £202.90)

This neat-looking baby comes with a power-saving feature and and LED-backlit screen. The speakers are excellent (in case you want to share audio or video clips with your fellow students), and there are plenty of port options as well as a multi-card reader.

At just over £200 this is probably one of the most universally popular options.

Samsung NF110 (from £229.00)

This is probably the most well-designed netbook of the lot – the colour coordination (black, with a white casing for the keyboard and a subtle red lining around it) is subtle but stylish.

The keys are great for quick typing, which makes the NF110 a great companion for lengthy lectures, and the 250Gb will provide plenty of storage for your notes and documents.

The slight curve in the base is a lovely touch, too.

ASUS Eee 1008p (from £254.99)

One for the design-conscious amongst you guys – the chassis is covered in a pink, studded cover, created by the designer Karim Rashid.

It even shimmers when light shines on it! As far as technical specs go, it’s pretty standard, but at 1.1Kg it’s so light that it stands out in terms of portability as well as visual appeal.

Image credit: Ed Yourdon

In a major step in the fight against piracy, Adobe has started to rent its software out to users on a monthly basis.

Adobe’s creative software packs are among the most popular and widely used in the world – e.g. Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver – but also among the most expensive. The full version of Photoshop CS5, for example, sets users back around £650.

To combat the rise in pirate versions being traded on the net, Adobe is now offering users a different option: renting the software on a monthly basis. Users will be able to pay monthly fees of $129 (around £78) for Adobe software, with a five-day-window after nonpayment until the software is blocked.

Photoshop will be available on the iPad after Adobe released a version of the software this week. At Adobe’s Photoshop World conference, tech fans were presented with a full version the Adobe Photoshop software. The Photoshop Express App had previously allowed some basic photo manipulation.

By the looks of it, the new Photoshop version will support multi-touch operation and a layer animation feature.

A release date wasn’t given, however, indicating that Photoshop for the iPad is still in development.