Thoughts on netbooks...

[Whoey]

So the wife is interested in a netbook. She wants something she can type documents on while she's studying, and that is portable so she can take it to class with her and use it in her breaks. We already own a decent laptop with a 15.6inch screen, but it's hardly what I call portable. Ideally an ultrabook would be amazing, but they are double the price of what we want to spend, plus she has no need for all that extra horsepower as she's not going to use it for gaming or heavy duty excel spreadsheets... A tablet (even the ones with a detachable keyboard) are not exactly practical for her, we did look at a couple at the local electronics superstore and she didn't seem impressed, and the new windows tablets... well they're priced nearly at ultrabook prices...

We think that an Acer Aspire One (722/725/756 models) with the 11.6inch screen and the 4 or 6 cell batteries is probably our best option. They seem to have 6h+ battery life and go for about 300euros. Obviously we're looking at the lower end (2gb/320gb) model as the extra ram and harddrive (4gb/500gb) space is just wasted on her uses... better to save that money for a case she says.

[dks]

I am a big believer in netbooks, though I assumed that they had now gone out of fashion.
 
I have the original, 9 inch aspire one (3, 4 years old?) and it still works fine. The battery is still 90% there, though I got a bigger one too as I was just getting 2 hours tops with the original, 3 cell I think one, for use on airplanes etc.  fits nicely on small lecture room pop-out tables too.

I had to re-format the whole thing a few months back. The Aspire software for recovering the original settings did not work.

It is possible to do work on the 9 inch one so the bigger one should be fine.

11 inches was a good size for a laptop a few years back. Also mine has a VGA output that supports higher resolution screens too.

I think ZED had a similar thread/discussion a few months ago that might help you decide.

Mine has also been drop tested from a height of 1m!

You already have abig PC anyway, so they are a good compromise between portability and ability.

[Whoey]

We actually have quite a few machines... we each have our own desktops in addition to the laptop. I have an old android tablet, and we have small shuttle PC hooked up to the tv (see the media pc thread) not to mention my PC graveyard of parts...

Portability is the key, and I have been looking at specs a little closer now. Long battery life is not really a requirement but we do feel the 11.6inch screen is much better than the 10...

[Steinar]

I have a netbook, but I hardly ever use it. Though, if I was in your wife's situation, I think I would prefer a netbook over a laptop as well. I have one with a 10.1" screen ( http://www.genesi-tech.com/products/smartbook ), and though the keyboard is serviceable, I find the keyboard on 12" laptops more comfortable. (I have small hands.) If I'm visiting family, going on a vacation or something, and want to bring something I can type on, I go for the netbook, not a laptop.

I'm a bit sad the 12.1" screens have all but died out for laptops, though I guess 11.6" wide will be pretty much the same thing.

[Whoey]

the major differences between the 10 and 11.6 seems to be indeed that the screen resolution is better, and there is a bit of spacing between keys which on the 10 inch models is virtually nonexistant.

Personally if I was replacing the laptop we have I would be looking at a 13.3 ultrabook.

[bmot]

I used a netbook for school, for a year. A Packerd Bell, I believe. Given that my current school does have enough plugs, I use my 15 inch laptop now, but before, it didn't nearly lasts long enough.

I did have to get used to the smaller keyboard, but after that, I think it was ideal, indeed, for small lecture room tables and the like. And the battery lasted about 4 to 6 hours, which was enough for a day at school, when charging during lunch .

[enki_ck]

I have an asus eeepc, 10in version, for about 4 years now and love it. This summer a friend spilled wine all over it and short circuted the keyboard. Everything started jumping around as if someone was pressing key combinatins all the time. I found a replacement keyboard on ebay for it and that fixed the problem, but I was looking for a new laptop just in case. And kept going back to netbooks. they are light, strong enough for most of the stuff you do away from home and the battery lasts for ever. 6+ hours hooked up to a projetor no problem.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I am on my second Aspire One as you know and I love it. Its a bit underpowered, but it's not a machine designed for power use.  Kim has a Toshiba model that she likes.  I'll give you the same advice I gave her when she wanted to buy one- go to a store that has a bunch of models on display and find one with a comfortable keyboard.  Since the rest of the specs are very similar across most of the lines of netbooks concentrate on what's going to be the most comfortable to use.

They are good little machines and I love mine.  The battery life is excellent  which in my opinion is the most important part of a truly portable machine.

Def

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

[Landrew]

My other addiction, besides multitools is computers.  I tried a few netbooks, but let most of them go, except for my HP 2133 Mininote, which I think was probably one of the best netbooks ever made. I'm holding on to it as a potential collectible.

I'm also holding on to the Toshiba Libretto II for similar reasons, which I find is a pretty solid disappointment with regard to usability, but the original Libretto was a much-sought after classic collectible, so who knows?

[Lynn LeFey]

I have a friend with a Eeepc, and if typing a lot is something your wife wants to do, she really does need to try these out first. touch typing is difficult for most normalsize adults. My friend has avariety of congenital dwarfism, so she's full grown but only 4'6" tall, and weighs 65b lbs. She finds that netbooks are the perfect size for her.

If your wife is a bad, two-finger typist, she might not be put off by using a tablet. I can type reasonably fast with two thumbs these days.

[Landrew]

I have a friend with a Eeepc, and if typing a lot is something your wife wants to do, she really does need to try these out first. touch typing is difficult for most normalsize adults. My friend has avariety of congenital dwarfism, so she's full grown but only 4'6" tall, and weighs 65b lbs. She finds that netbooks are the perfect size for her.

If your wife is a bad, two-finger typist, she might not be put off by using a tablet. I can type reasonably fast with two thumbs these days.

A bit like an average person lugging a 17" notebook around:

[charlie fox]

I have an ASUS and use it for travel when I don't feel like lugging my laptop (I know; First World problem ).

Pros: Small, light, easy to carry and use, programs the same as home computer, built-in webcam (for Skype)

Cons: Small screen, small buttons, a bit slower than "real" computers, limited internal memory, battery life can be an issue

In general netbooks are being overshadowed by tablets. I see the two as completely separate tools - the netbook allows the use of "real" computer software, while the tablet is better for portable email and web browsing. Oh, and netbooks can be had for a song now

[nuphoria]

I had a Samsung NC10 which I really liked - changed up to a  bigger Samsung laptop instead eventually, but highly rate their products

[Whoey]

We did see a Samsung we liked in the past, but not seen any lately as stock of nearly everything is pretty low until after Reyes (3 Kings Day, Jan 6th) and then the super sales (boxing day style) start... We did get a look at several of the 10 inch Acer Aspire Ones and Asus EEEpcs in the shop, and even the Aspire One 725 we're thinking of.

I know netbooks are not trendy anymore. A tablet is not practical for her, she has small hands so it doesn't need to be a big keyboard. She's not planning on typing out a dissertation on it, just some notes while she's studying and probably while on the couch... or between teaching classes hence the need for portability. At home she has the desktop at her desk, and the laptop if she wants to work on the dining table in the other room.

[sir_mike]

I personally never cared for "netbooks" as they are too small and very low powered as in not enough cpu, ram and storage space.  They cost more than they should for what you get too!

When they came out and became popular I did get a HP one with a 10 inch screen but found it weak and slow.  I also tried a Dell one which I found to be worse than the HP.

I wouldnt get anything smaller than the 11.6 inch screen as they have some that at that screen size do have good cpu's and I believe I have seen them with 4gigs of ram and like 250g storage.  This size will also give you a keyboard that is useable and easy to touch type on!

I dont think they weight much less than my 12.5 in Elitebook which has a i5 and 8gigs with battery life close to 7 hours.  It even has a dvd burner, which I can take out to make even lighter.

I have looked any many netbooks but it has been years ago so maybe they have been updated with better specs.

I have always been one to say, why spend "x" amount on one with that limited specs when for alittle more money you can get a much better and more versatile unit.

I am sure I am in a minority here snd not trying to start a flame war but just my opionion from past experiences.

[Breezy12]

slight thread hijack...

I bought my wife an HP mini 110 netbook a little over 3 years ago.  She loved it for the first couple years, then WinXP died and it was unusable.  HP was less than helpful since it was no longer under warranty, but I was able to get WinXP install image loaded on a USB drive to restore it.  however, that didn't last long, and it died again within a couple months.  I've been trying to get Chromium installed on there for her, but haven't had any luck, even after trying several different builds.  I think the wireless adapter is causing problems.    anyone else tried this with any success?

[jzmtl]

I have a 11" HP, the 10" are just way too small, not screen but keyboard. I have larger than average hands and I can't type anything on it.

Performance wise it's just a underpowered laptop, good for document processing and web browsing and that's about it. Manufacturers tend to skimp on RAM too, mine's win 7 and came with I think 2 GB of ram, I upped it to 5 and it doesn't choke as much now.

If I had to do it again, I'll probably go with a keyboard dockable tablet or a small ultrabook, there's no advantage in having windows in a machine like this, the most common tasks I do on it have equivalent software on android anyway.