Help me choose a Netbook!

[MiniMadMike]

Hi guys,

Currently searching for a Netbook to use for a bit of light internet browsing, taking to work occasionally etc.

Got a budget of around 300 quid, and I have narrowed my search down to:

- Dell Inspiron Mini 10
- Asus EEE PC
- Samsung N110

The specs all seem really similar which is why im stuck. I think i prefer the Dell and Samsung over the Asus, unless anyone has anything good to say about it? Any input greatly appreciated.

Mike.

[Timsta]

Instead of the Asus EEE look at the Acer Aspire One.

[anonymous-user]

samsung will have the best battery life and better build quality.
If you're flying anywhere, worth checking the currys/dixons in duty free, as I picked up a samsung n310 for £285 at Luton a month or so ago

[arej]

I recommend the EeePC 1005HA - 10.5hr battery life (which is actually achievable) and a nice netbook.
I'd also recommend the Samsung NC20 which is a 12" netbook and if that is too big then the NC10 is probably very similar.

[bigandclever]

I can recommend the NC10

[LJTS]

Samsung Netbook!

[sjg]

The specs are (broadly) all the same because if they go over 10" screen, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb HD then they can't get the cheap version of XP that Microsoft offer the manufacturers for "low power PCs". Just about everyone has gone for Intel Atom as it's cheap and offers good performance for the power draw.

I'd take the Samsung NC10 at the moment, although the Dell looks good too and they can do it with a built-in freeview tuner if that's appealing.

New netbook platforms are just around the corner, manufacturers seem to be holding off until Windows 7 drops though. The low-end version of Windows (Starter edition) for netbooks has less hardware restrictive requirements than what MS laid down for XP although lots of manufacturers are apparently planning to offer Home Premium and be able to use whatever hardware they like.

[ahaughton]

Get the Dell Mini-9 and install OSx on it - no blue screens of death, no crappy windoze to constantly install updates/drivers/patches/bugfixes etc.....

[pincher]

Writing this on an Acer Aspire One that I bought for my daughter a couple of weeks ago. It's the 11.6" model though as I thought the 10" was just a bit *too* small.

So far, it'd doing quite well and we are pretty pleased with it.

Only thing I might do is bin XP and whack Ubuntu on it though.

Paid £300 from PC World (the shame!) as I was impatient and could be bothered to go home and look on the net to see if I could save myself some money.

[mrmr96]

How much you wanna spend? I would say if you're looking at the Dell Mini 9 or Mini 10 then don't. Instead get the Dell Inspiron 11z. They are brand new, just came out on Dell's UK website this week.

[TonyToniTone]

ahaughton said:

Get the Dell Mini-9 and install OSx on it - no blue screens of death, no crappy windoze to constantly install updates/drivers/patches/bugfixes etc.....

Which version of OSX has no updates, patches, bugfixes etc

[ahaughton]

TonyToniTone said:

ahaughton said:

Get the Dell Mini-9 and install OSx on it - no blue screens of death, no crappy windoze to constantly install updates/drivers/patches/bugfixes etc.....

Which version of OSX has no updates, patches, bugfixes etc

Ha, the inherent first principle behind OSx is a multi-user O/S unlike Windoze which has no more concept of segregating user access/rights than Amy Winehouse has of a quiet night in beside the fire reading Mills and Boon... UNIX clearly delineates between user/root permissions etc. and as such, coupled with the limited appeal to hack something with 10% uptake compared with windoze 90% (or whatever the figures are according to Gartner reports) means it's clearly going to be less appealing...

Notice I also said "constantly" as a qualifying remark as opposed to "occasionally".

[Nolar Dog]

Currently posting on a new Acer Aspire One.

Great little machine and very portable.
All I've done with mine is get a USB/cordless mousey thing to make clicking a bit easier...

Love it.

[Frederick]

I picked up an Acer Aspire One 8.9" screen, 8GB SSD model (AOA110 iirc) for £130 plus vat, brand new. Ditched the linpus junk and put Ubuntu Netbook Remix on, and it's perfect.

Small enough to be useful, but not too small that you're struggling with it.

I was very tempted by an NC10 about six months ago, but to be honest, I'm glad I waited.

I've upgraded the memory to 1.5gb and it will take any iPod hard drive (as long as it's a zif rather than sata plug), which means I can junk the SSD and swap it out with a 120gb HDD for about £70, if that. Proper bargain basement mobile computing - and it's ace

[TonyToniTone]

ahaughton said:

TonyToniTone said:

ahaughton said:

Get the Dell Mini-9 and install OSx on it - no blue screens of death, no crappy windoze to constantly install updates/drivers/patches/bugfixes etc.....

Which version of OSX has no updates, patches, bugfixes etc

Ha, the inherent first principle behind OSx is a multi-user O/S unlike Windoze which has no more concept of segregating user access/rights than Amy Winehouse has of a quiet night in beside the fire reading Mills and Boon... UNIX clearly delineates between user/root permissions etc. and as such, coupled with the limited appeal to hack something with 10% uptake compared with windoze 90% (or whatever the figures are according to Gartner reports) means it's clearly going to be less appealing...

Notice I also said "constantly" as a qualifying remark as opposed to "occasionally".

You sound a complete tit calling it windoze, saying there is no user space in window just shows your ignorance.
The last time I fired up Fedora and it needed 50+ updates does that make it inherently crap and how many days was it before OSX 10.6.1 was released because snow leopard upgrade was bricking macs?

I realise windows needs patching as most O/S do.

[cyberface]

Most netbooks have the same specifications, unless you find one with a built in GSM / HSPA card (which can be useful if you don't want to carry a USB dongle about).

Buy on battery life, keyboard / trackpad quality and ergonomics, and screen quality. Keyboards on netbooks in particular can be cramped, and different people find different designs comfortable. Getting 20 GB more hard drive space at the expense of an unusable keyboard for *your* fingers is a bad deal.

The MSI Wind has a decent keyboard but the trackpad is absolutely fking awful. The EEE machines I've tried all had shockingly unusable keyboards.

The Atom based machines mostly have similar reference chipsets... usually just one RAM slot, but since a 2GB so-dimm is around £20, it's better to get a comfortable, usable machine with 1 GB spec (and upgrade) than buy the 2 GB machine if it is uncomfortable to use.

Screen quality varies *wildly* between models as well.

OS shouldn't be a problem - there are plenty of well-tweaked Linux distros that are tailored for the limitations in a netbook (the 'netbook remix' GUIs are pretty nice IMO), and OS X will run on many Atom machines if you swap the Wifi card for one of the Dell Broadcom units (around £10 from a PC breaker). What OS X will *not* do well on a netbook, however, is go to sleep properly - I haven't had one come out of sleep correctly (no EFI, some BIOS related thing) and you have to reboot. Loses one of the best bits about running OS X on laptops, so Linux is usually the better option

[pokethepope]

Samsung have recently brought out new models that are very competitively priced, e.g.:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172831

£250, cheaper than anywhere i've seen the 6-cell NC10, with a claimed battery life of 5 to 7 hours (claims vary across the internet) - Samsungs claims are realistic, I have the N120, with claimed up to 9 hours, and regularly get 7 or 8+ with constant internet usage. Or for a claimed 10 hours, this Samsung is £305:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172835

[ahaughton]

TonyToniTone said:

ahaughton said:

TonyToniTone said:

ahaughton said:

Get the Dell Mini-9 and install OSx on it - no blue screens of death, no crappy windoze to constantly install updates/drivers/patches/bugfixes etc.....

Which version of OSX has no updates, patches, bugfixes etc

Ha, the inherent first principle behind OSx is a multi-user O/S unlike Windoze which has no more concept of segregating user access/rights than Amy Winehouse has of a quiet night in beside the fire reading Mills and Boon... UNIX clearly delineates between user/root permissions etc. and as such, coupled with the limited appeal to hack something with 10% uptake compared with windoze 90% (or whatever the figures are according to Gartner reports) means it's clearly going to be less appealing...

Notice I also said "constantly" as a qualifying remark as opposed to "occasionally".

You sound a complete tit calling it windoze, saying there is no user space in window just shows your ignorance.
The last time I fired up Fedora and it needed 50+ updates does that make it inherently crap and how many days was it before OSX 10.6.1 was released because snow leopard upgrade was bricking macs?

I realise windows needs patching as most O/S do.

'tit' oh how grown up... It's called 'windoze' (play on words) by vast reams of computing professionals who realise what a mess the damn thing is... Indeed the Town planning office where Mr Gates had his nice little house built replaced Windoze with Linux because it simply couldn't cope with the workload. Windoze is never considered seriously for any secure requirement (although I did hear it's being used on Nuclear Subs...), it doesn't scale. The concept of 'user space' in windoze is a joke, it's an after thought (and not a good one at that). UNIX was designed from the bottom up with this in mind (and it shows).

Once again, read my earlier postings, all O/S's need patching - but the number of bugs, security flaws etc. within the so called Microsoft 'Operating System' make it a constant joke.

Oh and don't get me started on 'roaming profiles'!

They're just my thoughts after working with UNIX for 25 years and having to suffer with MS as a desktop solution every now and again.

'tit' signing off.

[zax]

I'm using an Acer Aspire One:

http://www.acer.co.uk/acer/seu30e.do?LanguageISOCt...

Very happy with it, cheap & cheerful. Since they're all much the same I went for this one based on a) price and b) ergonomics. It was the one that felt nicest to use for me keyboard & trackpad wise. Also runs Ubuntu netbook remix nicely if that's your thing.

[collateral]

NC10 + Ubuntu Netbook Remix =