Recommend me a netbook

[Craig]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

[ari6126]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

Dell Mini 10v. With the bigger battery, it gets 6 hours of battery life. I love mine.

[Kmarr]

I've been conflicted with this same question a few months ago, but ended up with a full blown laptop.  When I was considering though,  I did soooo much research on the damn things.  I wish not to bore you with too many details(it would take forever ), so here's the two I considered to be at the top of the list-

Samsung n120
Toshiba nb205/305

Great all around devices, I heard great reviews from both of them.  Hope this helps!

[nuphoria]

I have a Samsung NC10 which at the time I bought it was about the best for battery life and a great quality machine. It's still going strong after about a year and you could probably pick one up cheap now

[Sazabi]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

Instead of Office 2007, have you looked into OpenOffice?  It's free to download and use, so it'd save you ~$100; and if you ditch Microsoft altogether by going with Linux, you could ditch $100ish from the netbook's upfront cost.

[BigFatTon]

Take a look at ASUS.  Their EeePC models are fantastic (typing this on a 1000HE right now).  They are small, lightweight, amazing battery life (they will claim 9 hours but realistically its 6 or 7.  And they're powerful enough to run most programs.  Mine was only 350 and its pretty much replaced my desktop

[Magnus]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

Instead of Office 2007, have you looked into OpenOffice?  It's free to download and use, so it'd save you ~$100; and if you ditch Microsoft altogether by going with Linux, you could ditch $100ish from the netbook's upfront cost.

exactly what I was going to say, not to mention that you will get better battery life with linux being less bloated and resource hungry than wind'ohs.  open office will do everything that M$ office can do and will open 99% of files made in it perfectly, the only ones it has problems with are ones with macros.  Being fair though even ms office for mac can't open those!

[Sazabi]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

Instead of Office 2007, have you looked into OpenOffice?  It's free to download and use, so it'd save you ~$100; and if you ditch Microsoft altogether by going with Linux, you could ditch $100ish from the netbook's upfront cost.

exactly what I was going to say, not to mention that you will get better battery life with linux being less bloated and resource hungry than wind'ohs.  open office will do everything that M$ office can do and will open 99% of files made in it perfectly, the only ones it has problems with are ones with macros.  Being fair though even ms office for mac can't open those!

Stupid question, but if you were to run a VM build of MS Office whatever on a Linux machine, would the VM handle the macros?  Seems to me that it would. *shrugs*

[Chako]

I love my Acer Aspire 1410.

Review.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/09/acer-aspire-1410-review.html

[donvito]

Acer Aspire One AOD150-1577 10 inch model. Bought it almost a year ago and it's still going strong. Use it everyday at work and in college, the battery life (6 cell) is good for 5-6 hours, was better when was new. Highly recommended, might not be top of the line, but at the price a fully loaded model rivals basic models offered by the "big names", Acer is #3 in sales last I checked (been a while).

[andre0407]

Lenovo s10-2 is the one I have... In it's time, it's the only one with an expresscard slot, and if you happen to want to use external modules like some plug in musical instruments, that slot may come in useful. Plus I've got the 6 cell battery, so at the normal setting it lasts me about 8-10 hours. And it's got 3 USB ports, nifty for me.

Hope this and the above comments by the others would help.

[Magnus]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

Instead of Office 2007, have you looked into OpenOffice?  It's free to download and use, so it'd save you ~$100; and if you ditch Microsoft altogether by going with Linux, you could ditch $100ish from the netbook's upfront cost.

exactly what I was going to say, not to mention that you will get better battery life with linux being less bloated and resource hungry than wind'ohs.  open office will do everything that M$ office can do and will open 99% of files made in it perfectly, the only ones it has problems with are ones with macros.  Being fair though even ms office for mac can't open those!

Stupid question, but if you were to run a VM build of MS Office whatever on a Linux machine, would the VM handle the macros?  Seems to me that it would. *shrugs*

yes, although I don't think I could recommend running a VM on on a netbook.  I never understood why anyone would use macro's anyway, and have never seen anyone use them since I was forced to learn VBA at school *shudders* .

[Sazabi]

I'm looking for a second computer for when my wife is using the main one. I want to run Office 2007 and Firefox but I'm not a gamer or anything like that. 

As I've looked into it I've realised how little I know about computers    but I'm guessing that a basic netbook would do the job. Ideally I don't want it to cost too much but I'd rather spend a bit more if it means more reliability.

Anyone got any suggestions,please ? 

Instead of Office 2007, have you looked into OpenOffice?  It's free to download and use, so it'd save you ~$100; and if you ditch Microsoft altogether by going with Linux, you could ditch $100ish from the netbook's upfront cost.

exactly what I was going to say, not to mention that you will get better battery life with linux being less bloated and resource hungry than wind'ohs.  open office will do everything that M$ office can do and will open 99% of files made in it perfectly, the only ones it has problems with are ones with macros.  Being fair though even ms office for mac can't open those!

Stupid question, but if you were to run a VM build of MS Office whatever on a Linux machine, would the VM handle the macros?  Seems to me that it would. *shrugs*

yes, although I don't think I could recommend running a VM on on a netbook.  I never understood why anyone would use macro's anyway, and have never seen anyone use them since I was forced to learn VBA at school *shudders* .

Oh, the VM question was just a hypothetical for any Linux build.  Thanks for the answer, Magnus.

[Mate]

My brother has got an Asus Eepc in black ,its enough powerful to run some office apps (for example:excel and so on ) and the batt.time is great! about 6-7 hours .In my opinion its a pretty good netbook. 

[Whoey]

I've had a few rather unpleasant experiences with the smaller EEE pc netbooks, wouldn't touch one with a barge pole.

Recently had a chance to play around with a Acer Aspire One, and thought it was a rather solid little machine.

The Dell looks promising as well.

I'd probably wait until the iPad is launched, and the iPad clones start flooding the market, there should be some really interesting devices available soon!

[BigFatTon]

I've had a few rather unpleasant experiences with the smaller EEE pc netbooks, wouldn't touch one with a barge pole.

What problems did you have? I've never had a better computer than my EEEpc

[Whoey]

It was one of the original 7inch? models with winXP, that didn't take too well to to anything, including windows... the resolution was ridiculously low, and scrolling was required for bloody near everything, including clicking the dialog boxes.

Add to the fact it was an impulse buy of some friends who have a miserable time with anything computerized and the first thing they wanted me to do was install office and photoshop type stuff as if it was a super powerful machine. It completely went over their head that it had no CD drive.

imho, anything below the 10.1inch models should have never existed.

The new touch screen models might have a bit of redemption in comparison.

[BigFatTon]

Ah yeah, i can see having problems with a screen that small, I have a 10 inch and I couldn't go any smaller

[Chako]

I was one of the first to jump on the Eee PC in my area. I was a proud owner of the Asus 4G. Yep, it only had a 4GB solid state HD. I was so early, they didn't sell them with XP.  You could only get them in Linux. At least, they were nice enough to give you the XP drivers with the netbook in case you wanted to switch over. Yes, scrolling down to see your 800x600 window because it was too large for the 800x480 7" LCD drove me to go to the other extremes, an 18.5 Laptop for my next machine. I decided to get the 11" Acer afterwards as a nice compromise of portability, power, and usability.

[Grant Lamontagne]

My Asus Aspire One netbook is almost two years old and still going well.  The 8.9" screen is small by comparison to many of the newer models, but I like the smaller overall footprint as it's a lot more convenient to carry around than my 15.4" Dell Vostro 1000 laptop, which is also small compared to most of the laptops available nowadays!

I think if I were to buy again I'd probably gravitate towards another Acer model or the Dell which looks really impressive.

Def

[Neil]

I had an Asus 901 and frankly am glad to be rid of it.  The SSD in it was truly awful and you'd often be waiting for the machine to finish writing to the disk before it'd let you do anything else 

Perhaps I'll try another netbook at some point in the future but for now I've decided everything I want to do can wait until I get home and am in front of my desktop

[NutSAK]

How important is portability to you?  If you're not concerned with having something small, light, and portable, you could get more bang for your buck buying a laptop, IMO.

[andre0407]

How important is portability to you?  If you're not concerned with having something small, light, and portable, you could get more bang for your buck buying a laptop, IMO.

If portability and cash isn't an issue...


http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/laptop-alienware-m17x/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-alienware-m17x&s=dhs&cs=19&~ck=mn

Then you got to love this behemoth.

[NutSAK]

How important is portability to you?  If you're not concerned with having something small, light, and portable, you could get more bang for your buck buying a laptop, IMO.

If portability and cash isn't an issue...

Then you got to love this behemoth.

I would love it if I could run it on batteries for at least 3-4 hours.  Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense to me. 

[Grant Lamontagne]

My laptop won't even last an hour on battery, and has been like that since new.  That was the main reason I got a netbook too.

Def

[Multitaskertools]

Acer Aspire 1410
11.6" LED
Intel Core 2 Solo (1.4ghz) not that wimpy Atom
2GB RAM
250GB HD
6-cell Li Ion battery
USD450

i love it

[Magnus]

How important is portability to you?  If you're not concerned with having something small, light, and portable, you could get more bang for your buck buying a laptop, IMO.

If portability and cash isn't an issue...

Then you got to love this behemoth.

I would love it if I could run it on batteries for at least 3-4 hours.  Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense to me. 

try 3-4 minutes with one of those things, and your back will probably give out first. 

[NutSAK]

Exactly.

That's why I stick to my 15" Dell w/Pentium M, circa 2005.  It's undervolted and runs 5-6 hours doing normal business/internet tasks.

[Craig]

Bought a Samsung N130 from Argos. Seems good so far. Thanks for the advice, everyone