Laptop / netbook
Discussion
I've had a play with some. Very light and portable. Screen resolution is not that good, but OK for casual browsing.
Linux versions OK, performance wise, XP slow, vista a waste of time. Some have usb so you can plug a pendrive or disk in.
Personally, a budget laptop is probably better unless portability is really important.
Linux versions OK, performance wise, XP slow, vista a waste of time. Some have usb so you can plug a pendrive or disk in.
Personally, a budget laptop is probably better unless portability is really important.
I've looked into this and I'd say that whilst some certainly DO have Linux, I don't think I'd say MOST do. There's a decent number of them with Windows.
Also, there seems to be a variety of specifications applied to the term "netbook" along with an associated price differential.
Quite a few different manfs have jumped into the netbook market now. I can see the point of a cheap "Linux browser/email" only machine but I'm waiting for the fully functioning Lenovo "Ideapad" due out in the New Year I believe... because what I've always wanted is just a bloody-tiny laptop with a modern spec and a usefully-sized keyboard. The Toshiba Libretto nearly fitted the bill but wasn't fully-functioning-enough. Some of these top-end new netbooks look like they might be perfect.
Also, there seems to be a variety of specifications applied to the term "netbook" along with an associated price differential.
- Linux OS. Non-Atom CPU. Flash memory. 200 quid
- Linux or Windows. Atom CPU. Flash memory or small HDD. 300 quid
- Windows. Atom CPU. Reasonable HDD. 400 quid or more.
Quite a few different manfs have jumped into the netbook market now. I can see the point of a cheap "Linux browser/email" only machine but I'm waiting for the fully functioning Lenovo "Ideapad" due out in the New Year I believe... because what I've always wanted is just a bloody-tiny laptop with a modern spec and a usefully-sized keyboard. The Toshiba Libretto nearly fitted the bill but wasn't fully-functioning-enough. Some of these top-end new netbooks look like they might be perfect.
I don't know the limitations of the cheap ones, which is mostly why I want one of the fully-functioning ones. I'd hate to have bought something at 200 quid only to find it won't do what I want it to... or even to find that it DOES do what I want it to on day 1 but then I find another requirement for it in the future but it won't play.
I'm on my elonex webbook as we speak.
I like it for the following reasons.
It's small, not the smallest, but about regular webbook size. it is a little thicker but f**k t.
It was free with a USB t'interwebnet dongle. (I'm a little pissed in my local cafe)
but normally its about 200 squids. (Exclusively from the carphone warehouse)
HOWEVER!!
it has a proper actual hard drive, so instead of starting up in 15 seconds, it starts up in 45. The trade off is 80GB storage instead of 8/12/20GB
It has a 10.5" screen, which is impressive in the world of netbooks.
Battery good for 2 hours or so.
I travel a fair bit, so I mainly use it for:
Mobile internet (wifi and g3 dongle)
Media: load a few films/tv episodes/albums on and bob's brother has been slinging up your mum, bam! bam! bam! oohyeah, that's it, now call me "el presidente" yeah, you like it like that don't you?
Looking at documents.
There's no CD drive, I don't think any netbooks have them, so I just bash whatever I need to transfer onto a flashdrive and burn it on my main PC
I like it for the following reasons.
It's small, not the smallest, but about regular webbook size. it is a little thicker but f**k t.
It was free with a USB t'interwebnet dongle. (I'm a little pissed in my local cafe)
but normally its about 200 squids. (Exclusively from the carphone warehouse)
HOWEVER!!
it has a proper actual hard drive, so instead of starting up in 15 seconds, it starts up in 45. The trade off is 80GB storage instead of 8/12/20GB
It has a 10.5" screen, which is impressive in the world of netbooks.
Battery good for 2 hours or so.
I travel a fair bit, so I mainly use it for:
Mobile internet (wifi and g3 dongle)
Media: load a few films/tv episodes/albums on and bob's brother has been slinging up your mum, bam! bam! bam! oohyeah, that's it, now call me "el presidente" yeah, you like it like that don't you?
Looking at documents.
There's no CD drive, I don't think any netbooks have them, so I just bash whatever I need to transfer onto a flashdrive and burn it on my main PC
00161wj said:
Right, one of them 200 quid ones from acer. Can i have limewire and itunes?
All the answers to those questions are here: http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/index.phpI've got one of the 8GB SSD ones with Linux and it is great. 175 quid last time I looked (with an atom processor) - fantastic deal.
Follow some walk throughs on the net to get skype and vlc installed and you are sorted. It will also run azureus or other "sharing" programs...
Glen
GlenMH said:
00161wj said:
Right, one of them 200 quid ones from acer. Can i have limewire and itunes?
All the answers to those questions are here: http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/index.phpI've got one of the 8GB SSD ones with Linux and it is great. 175 quid last time I looked (with an atom processor) - fantastic deal.
Follow some walk throughs on the net to get skype and vlc installed and you are sorted. It will also run azureus or other "sharing" programs...
Glen
Mars said:
- Windows. Atom CPU. Reasonable HDD. 400 quid or more.
I like the concept of netbook's and if you travel a lot with a computer and only use email and a little word processing etc I can see the benefit.
At home the low end stuff makes sense for those who want a basic machine on the cheap, but the high end stuff to me doesn't offer any benefit over a basic laptop when used outside the travel environment.
I bought a Samsung NC10 a couple of months ago. At the time, it was £299 but now, due to demand, most places have put the price UP to around £325
In contrast to some of what has already been posted, it does not have a mediocre hard drive capacity (169Gig), it does not have poor battery performance (6-7 hours real usage!) and it will more than cope with surfing the web, whilst downloading torrents, whilst listening to music.
It comes with 1GB of Ram but is easily upgraded to 2GB if you are worried about performance.
It has wireless and bluetooth as standard, 10 inch display and is the current leader in Netbook world in a lot of peoples eyes - nothing revolutionary, just done better than most.
If you want Linux, I have made mine dual boot so now have Ubuntu on it if I want. There is a wealth of knowledge available at www.sammynetbook.com and I would thoroughly recommend one.
As for some of the others, what is the point of having a really light, portable machine when the battery runs out after 2 hours???
Cheers,
Steven
In contrast to some of what has already been posted, it does not have a mediocre hard drive capacity (169Gig), it does not have poor battery performance (6-7 hours real usage!) and it will more than cope with surfing the web, whilst downloading torrents, whilst listening to music.
It comes with 1GB of Ram but is easily upgraded to 2GB if you are worried about performance.
It has wireless and bluetooth as standard, 10 inch display and is the current leader in Netbook world in a lot of peoples eyes - nothing revolutionary, just done better than most.
If you want Linux, I have made mine dual boot so now have Ubuntu on it if I want. There is a wealth of knowledge available at www.sammynetbook.com and I would thoroughly recommend one.
As for some of the others, what is the point of having a really light, portable machine when the battery runs out after 2 hours???
Cheers,
Steven
I have an Aspire One with 120GB hard drive.
Bought the Linux version for around £225, but had a spare, legal, copy of XP Pro kicking around at home, so wiped the Linux install and put XP Pro on it using an external hard drive.
Can't fault it, other than the battery life - but this'll be fixed with a 50 quid battery from China.
That should give me up to 10 hours of use on the road.
Bought the Linux version for around £225, but had a spare, legal, copy of XP Pro kicking around at home, so wiped the Linux install and put XP Pro on it using an external hard drive.
Can't fault it, other than the battery life - but this'll be fixed with a 50 quid battery from China.
That should give me up to 10 hours of use on the road.
I have an Aspire One too - cracking little machines. Mine is the 120GB-Linux version, paid £229 for it when they first came out and have since upgraded to 1GB ram and loaded up XP and Office. Works very very well for note-taking and light office/web usage.
For the OP needs it would probably do the trick, but the speakers are appalling and you might like me find the screen a little small for iTunes.
For the OP needs it would probably do the trick, but the speakers are appalling and you might like me find the screen a little small for iTunes.
Alfa_75_Steve said:
Can't fault it, other than the battery life - but this'll be fixed with a 50 quid battery from China.
That should give me up to 10 hours of use on the road.
Are those extended batteries any good? I'm tempted to get one but I've heard lots of horror stories about non-branded batteries..That should give me up to 10 hours of use on the road.
Edited by J400uk on Sunday 21st December 23:48
J400uk said:
I have an Aspire One too - cracking little machines. Mine is the 120GB-Linux version, paid £229 for it when they first came out and have since upgraded to 1GB ram and loaded up XP and Office. Works very very well for note-taking and light office/web usage.
For the OP needs it would probably do the trick, but the speakers are appalling and you might like me find the screen a little small for iTunes.
The screen is OK for iTunes, IMHO. The lack of drag/scrolling on the trackpad and the silly placement of the mouse buttons frustrates me at times. (I used a MacBook usually)For the OP needs it would probably do the trick, but the speakers are appalling and you might like me find the screen a little small for iTunes.
Isn't it really hard to do the memory upgrade? - I keep thinking about doing mine, but can't be bothered if it's not a simple job.
Alfa_75_Steve said:
Isn't it really hard to do the memory upgrade? - I keep thinking about doing mine, but can't be bothered if it's not a simple job.
Its certainly not a simple job by any stretch of the imagination lol. Had to take the thing to pieces, and remove the whole motherboard to plug in the extra memory stick. It also invalidates your warranty apparently. I thought it was worth it though as I was finding 512MB frustratingly slow for XP. There some good tutorials on youtube.
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