Traumatized

[Grant Lamontagne]

It's finally happened- my trusty old netbook has finally passed on.  I put that poor thing through Hades and back over the last few years and it's always been there asking for more.  Then, a couple of days ago it gave up the ghost.  I took it to my local computer shop to see if there was any way to keep it going, but unfortunately it was toast.

It gave no warning that it was about to die, just refused to turn on and that was the end of it.  So, now I am looking for a replacement for it, and I think I've settled on the Aspire One AOD255- after all, my old one was an Aspire One and it did everything that was expected of it, and kept going.

I've considered a tablet as a replacement, looking more at the Samsung Galaxy Tab than at the iPad (but really considering both of them) but I decided I'm better off with the netbook platform since I use the keyboard a lot.  Yes, I know tablets have on screen keyboards, but after looking at all the units available I've pretty well made up my mind.

Still, I am going to miss my old netbook- it was a good machine, may it's circuits rest in peace.

Def

[Sean]

The Shot Show was too much for it huh? 

[Pacu]

that's a nice netbook

 

[Grant Lamontagne]

The Shot Show was too much for it huh? 

It made it home from SHOT and died shortly afterwards.

that's a nice netbook

 

Coming from you, that's a heck of an endorsement! 

It's the same processor/setup that is in my wife's Toshiba NB305 and she's quite happy with it.  Her machine is pretty sweet, so I'll be getting more or less the same thing but in a different case.  I like the concept of a dual core netbook that supports hyperthreading (virtual quadcore) and gets about 8 hours of battery life.  Plus, Acer doesn't seem to have the same markup as many other brands, like Toshiba, and I'll be picking this one up for around 2/3 of the price she paid for her Toshiba.

The other good news is that her Toshiba and the new Acer (if that's what I end up getting) both take the same type of memory and both are upgradeable to 2g, so I'll probably order a RAM upgrade for both of us at the same time.  My old Acer was one of the early ones that wasn't really designed with upgrading in mind, so I never really considered it an option before now.  My research into new netbooks has shown me that I can do all kinds of neat things with them now that you couldn't do three years ago.  If I get really daring, I may even consider swapping in an SSD for increased speed and convenience.  My wife's machine throws up a warning message all the time saying it's been nudged and locked the HD, something I never got with the SSD in my old one, or even get on my laptop with a standard HD.

Still, that's a ways off yet, and a decent sized SSD will cost almost as much as the machine itself, so I need to get one and get it home before I start making further plans.

Def

[RFOneWatt]

I know you said you are partial to Netbooks (So am I.) but you have seen this guy?

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Tablets/ci.MOTOROLA-XOOM-US-EN.overview

http://phones.verizonwireless.com/xoom/

If you haven't used some of the new on-screen keyboards lately, esp. w/ Android you'll be REALLY surprised.

A month ago I wouldn't even have considered a phone w/o a slideout keyboard but since I've tried the latest Android on screen keyboard....well.. It's at least got me thinking. 

[Neil]

On screen keyboards have come a long way and are now actually quite usable on modern machines with capacitive screens but you really want a physical one if you intend to do much typing.

[Pacu]

with the onslaught of cloud computing a 100gig ssd would be plenty in a netbook. Just gotta find what nook or crannie in the cloud to store your stuff/applications.

i use my microsoft skydrive account when i'm out and about. 25 gigs per account for free. Now ask how many accounts i have

[Grant Lamontagne]

I know you said you are partial to Netbooks (So am I.) but you have seen this guy?

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Tablets/ci.MOTOROLA-XOOM-US-EN.overview

http://phones.verizonwireless.com/xoom/

If you haven't used some of the new on-screen keyboards lately, esp. w/ Android you'll be REALLY surprised.

A month ago I wouldn't even have considered a phone w/o a slideout keyboard but since I've tried the latest Android on screen keyboard....well.. It's at least got me thinking.

I've pretty well decided that a netbook is the right form factor for me.  Tablets are nice, but not what I need, and, given how short of fundage I am at the moment thanks to a credit card killing trip to SHOT last week, the netbook is a lot more realistically priced as well.

with the onslaught of cloud computing a 100gig ssd would be plenty in a netbook. Just gotta find what nook or crannie in the cloud to store your stuff/applications.

i use my microsoft skydrive account when i'm out and about. 25 gigs per account for free. Now ask how many accounts i have

My 3g Dropbox account is working well enough for me, and I've never used all 120g in my laptop, so I imagine the 250g in this netbook shoul dbe more than adequate for my needs.  I have about 2tb attached to my desktop where I store most things, and just keep the files I need on my laptop, netbook or flash drive.  Plus I think this machine includes something like 100g on the Acer server, so I should be set there!

Def

[Whoey]

wow, you killed it already? Anything salvageable on it?

[nuphoria]

Aw, sorry to hear about the old one.... but it's exciting shopping for a new one

I've seen something recently which looks like a tablet/netbook hybrid with a screen that flips over. Don't know anything about it yet, just that it's shiny and I probably want one!

There are a couple of things that put me off ipads too, regardless how sexy they are: Storage and lack of "normal" PC behaviour mainly.

[ryan1835]

heh i bought a netbook today, i only really wanted an internet dongle but my girlfriends laptop has borken and is in repair and she needs one for her work, so i figured id get one as a freebie - its a hp mini110 i think seems alright apart from its not a mac im missing my two finger scroll lol!


will be good for me travelling about though as i always do for work

[RFOneWatt]

A thought....Hmm... Best of both worlds?

http://bit.ly/i6VCDC

[Grant Lamontagne]

I got a red one!

It's another Aspire One- I figure the old one held up pretty good, so why not give Acer another shot?  It's a 10.1" screen versus the 8.9" on my old one, this one's running Win7 Starter, while the other one had recently been upgraded to Ubuntu from a small netbook optimized build of Fedora.  It has a dual core processor that supports hyperthreading and shipped with 1g of RAM that I can upgrade to 2g for under $25.

What I didn't know was that it also has an HDMI port and will kick out a full 1080p if I was to hook it up to my TV.  It's a pretty sweet little machine and I have barely begun to tinker with it yet.

Def

[markn951]

Def: How much did it cost you? I've been looking for a netbook if I can get a deal on one.

[Sean]

Great sounds like a good one!
I have the windows 7 starter on my netbook and aside from
not being able to change the background because windows decided
that only qualifies for the full version it seems to be working ok.

[Grant Lamontagne]

It has fairly middle of the road pricing at around $300.  There are some cheaper ones, and there are some more expensive ones.  This one had lots of features and a decent price point which worked for me.

What I needed more than anything was the larger 6 cell battery for extended use away from a plug- otherwise I'd just use my laptop.  This one is rated for 8 hours, which was about what my old one was good for.

Check out the sales- there's not a lot of variation between the models these days- they are pretty well all the same processor and RAM, with just a few different features to differentiate them- things like hard drive size, screen size, etc can really change up the pricing.

Sean- there are numerous options for changing the desktop image- just Google Win7 Starter Desktop Change and you'll find a hundred methods of doing it.

Def

[Sazabi]

I'm quite happy with my Acer Aspire 1410 with 11.6" screen; I don't know the model number exactly, but for a ULV, it's priced quite well.  Sure, it doesn't have a dual core - though they apparently come with them now - it will do HDMI out, and is an excellent stand-alone laptop.  My only complaints are trivial:  I wish for an all-metal (or bamboo ) case, a DVD drive, USB 3.0, and an Apple-styled chicklet keyboard.  Beyond that, I couldn't be happier.

As an aside, my 250GB on board hard drive will be more than I ever need; I have an external, too, and as of right now, I've paired that down to just over fifty GB; I plan on lowering it further rather soon.  My laptop's hard drive has maybe forty GB on it, and that includes the OS (Windows 7 Home Premium), a small number of additional programs, and a small collection of school and personal files.  It's just slow going with going through and deleting unneeded files, as I have so many. 

[Grant Lamontagne]

If you are an Aspire One user, you need to check out this website:

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/

I've been using their forum for help and updates for the last few years.  If you have a problem or just want ideas on what you can do with your machine, it's a great site to look at.

Def

[Sean]

Thanks, I'll check out the advice on background change.  When I bought my
netbook there wasn't much out there yet on it.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Here's on on Instructables:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Windows-7-Starter-Easy-way-to-change-wallpaper/

Def

[SlackOne]

Little late to this one, but I can't help but sing the praises of my Acer Aspire One 521.  It is one of the newer breed of machines running an AMD Athlon II Neo, and it fairly blows the doors off of the Atom-based ones, though battery life suffers at only around 4-5 hours under use.  1080p out, and it will do 4GB of RAM once you get gimped-up Win Starter off of it...64 bit as well, if you want to go that route.  It is more or less a $350 subcompact more than a strict netbook.  I also love that this generation of Aspire Ones have flush-fit six-cell batteries...so much less hacked-together looking.

It is going to be supplanted soon by the 522, which should be a dual core AMD Fusion chipset, which will be crazy for netbook performance.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Glad to see more netbook enthusiasts out there!

My D255 has been performing quite well, and it's been upgraded to 2g.  I'm a little annoyed as I'd ordered the DDR3 version and somehow got the DDR2 version- something I'd only discovered when I was trying to upgrade it, after I'd gotten a new stick of DDR3 from Tiger Direct.  So, I had to go and buy a new stick locally, as there's no sense in sending the wrong stick back (paying shipping for a second time), only to order the same thing in DDR2 and pay shipping a third time.

Anyway, it may not have the character of the old one, but it certainly is no slouch, and the battery life is as good as the last one.

Def

[Nikos]

I've had an EeePC 1005HA for a bit more than a year and it was great for my mobile needs. The last couple of months it's been dying on me though, in the form of sudden poweroffs without any obvious reason. I've already ruled out software bugs, bad ram or hdd, overheating, static, etc. and I'm now almost sure it's some sort of short circuit around the power button. I need to get down and dirty and have some close encounters of the third type with it some day (as it's no longer under warranty). The only thing missing is free time...

[Grant Lamontagne]

Fortunately when mine died it dies all at once, so I didn't have that option.  While it would be nice to potentially have had it repaired, it's probably better to make a clean break and move on.

Def

[SlackOne]

While I would love to eventually get a tablet (Android Honeycomb =  ), I'm finding netbooks to be a good fit for my needs.  Real keyboards are good, being able to sit it on a table without some gimmicky stand is pretty fantastic, and having all the Windows and Linux software available beats having to hit up an "app store". 



On my 521 I'm dual-booting Win Starter and Jolicloud.  Jolicloud is outright awesome, and once their hardware support improves it'll be killer.    Right now I can't use it as my full-time system though as it doesn't recognize my 521's battery (a shortcoming in it's underlying Ubuntu release) and it won't do Netflix, which is a prereq.  The Starter will be leaving soon for 64 bit Win 7 Pro so I can actually use all 4 gigs of RAM...just waiting for a friend to get me the DVD for it, as I already have a legit reg code from another computer that's not running 7 anymore.


Yesterday I received a Google CR-48 Chrome OS test netbook.  This should be interesting...it's a wimp compared to the 521, but how much horsepower do you need to run a web browser?

[Singh]

I have an EEE PC and like it.

[Nikos]

I need to get down and dirty and have some close encounters of the third type with it some day (as it's no longer under warranty). The only thing missing is free time...

Still no free time but got there anyway. However, nothing looked wrong from what I could see without any instruments around. I got it to start and stay on for a couple of hours and a couple of reboot cycles, but then off it goes again. Oh well...

Gratuitous shots (click for larger versions):


Tools used: Vic Explorer plus, LM bits + extender, Vic ratchet, lots of patience...

[Grant Lamontagne]

Patience is in short supply around here.  I have too many smashy tools, like the Ontario SPAX and Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete to be patient!   

Def