Who's jumped on the netbook bandwagon?

[sbebenelli]

Has anyone else jumped on the netbook bandwagon? I already have a desktop and laptop. Certainly didn't need it. The smaller size & weight will be nice while RVing. Just recently got an aircard so this will be a nice addition to it. I'm an internet junkie and this will allow me to be more connected.

Did some research and settled on the Samsung NC10. Bought the blue one for me & the pink one for the wife. She'll use hers for some college courses she is taking.

Won't have them till Thursday. Going camping this weekend so it then.

 

[sygyzy]

You make it sound so negative - bandwagon? I certainly have jumped and immediately sold my regular sized laptop. I have the MSI Wind and get way more usage out of it. You should only buy it if you understand it's purpose and limitations.

My friend asked me for a netbook recommendation for his sister to use at school. My advice - don't.

 

[brucec]

I have a Sony VAIO P that I use in airports and cafes. My wife has an Asus eeePC 1008HA that she uses when she travels. Netbooks are great for traveling light or just to have something around town. However, I never use them at home because my iMac is so much faster and more comfortable to use. I don't use netbooks for work either because I have to use my company issued IBM laptop. They would be too slow anyway.

 

[762x51]

I have an Asus eeePC 1000HE that I bought for traveling. It's perfect for what I bought it for.....Wifi internet browsing from a hotel room when I'm away from home. I also use it to clear off my CF and SD flash cards for my digital cameras after a day of shooting and to view the images I have shot that day.

I won't leave home without it.

 

[Sgt. LED]

I need to replace my laptop before long, what are the limitations of the netbook?

All I use this for is CPF Via Wi-Fi sent out from my neighbor!

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

We've got about 8 ideapads. Perfect for what we need. Includes processor throttling, etc. plus camera, mic, usb, expresspc, ethernet. No opticaL drive is the only bad part.

 

[sygyzy]

I need to replace my laptop before long, what are the limitations of the netbook?

All I use this for is CPF Via Wi-Fi sent out from my neighbor!

Smaller screen, slower processor, integrated graphics, no optical drive, smaller keyboard, shorter battery life.

 

[sbebenelli]

shorter battery life.

Not sure where that is coming from. Samsung is getting 6-9 hours depending on model.

 

[mwaldron]

I'm on my 2nd one (no fault of the first), both were Acer Aspire Ones. I had the 8.9" blue one and loved it, so when an extremely good deal appeared (even up trade) for the newer 10" in red I jumped on it.

Here's the thing though, and you really need to understand this in order to appreciate a net book. It's not a replacement for owning a "real" computer, yes some people they can use it just fine I am aware of that but the vast majority who see a $250 price and say "Wow, that's cheap and small and I can replace my XXXXX with it" are setting themselves up for disappointment.

The only reason these machines even exist is because hardware moved so much faster than software over the last 5 years that 5-10 year old hardware is still "Good enough" for most tasks.

The current generation of (non-ion based) netbooks have severe deficiencies in video and to a lesser extent processor power. They often stutter playing back flash video, and you have little hope of playing back a 720p video stream. If you play web-based flash games, that's not a big drawback but if you do anything more video intensive than that you will be hurting.

Speaking of web-based flash games, the standard netbook resolution on 8.9 and 10.1" displays is 1024x600. Many web-based flash games do not adjust well to a screen smaller than Nx768, and you may run into issues.

Intel Atom (netbook) processors are single core chips designed for low power consumption. They are remarkable for their performance/watt for x86 processor but they are nonetheless "weak sauce" compared to even the cheapest current generation desktop/laptop processors. They are not dual core, they are however hyper-threaded. They have limited pipeline and small amounts of cache. They run at low bus speeds. They are limited to 2GB of ram. They are limited to old technology chipsets.

All that is a lot of negative, and the sad part is I'm not trying to talk anyone out of one! I'm just trying to keep perspectives in check.

I LOVE my Netbook! I use it EVERY day. It sees way more use than my workstation at home.

Just keep in mind what it's good for. They're awesome for surfing the web, blog posting, forums reading, flashlight sniping on CPFMP and eBay, and there are some really fun "old" games (Re-Volt is a great RC-Car racer with 'real' physics that was abandoned to public domain and works great on netbooks, Google it you won't be sorry.)

They're low power consumption, my Aspire One draws less than 1A at 12VDC through an inverter, and a great companion for my Amateur Radio hobby. The fact that it runs WinXP is great as most of the software for Amateur Radio is just finally now being updated to work with XP. They're great to take with you out into the field, the availability of 6, 9, and 12(!!) cell batteries means you can run them for well over a full day with no outside power whatsoever.

Combine one with a usb cellular card or a bluetooth/usb teather to your cellphone and you have an extremely powerful portable Internet station.

My AspireOne 10.1 has a really nice display (the 8.9 was not nearly as nice) bright enough that I usually run it several steps below it's max brightness.

The device itself is small enough that it fits in the bag I carry to work daily, and it also easily fits in most of my other grab bags for different tasks.

Anyway, I think that netbooks are great, and I hope they don't disappear. I'm looking forward to the new tablet (totally keyboardless) versions that are supposed to be coming out before the end of this year.

 

[sygyzy]

Not sure where that is coming from. Samsung is getting 6-9 hours depending on model.

My mistake, you are just now "jumping on the bandwagon." When I bought my netbook, the battery life average was around 3 hours.

 

[RyanA]

I post from my ipod on occasion.

 

[Greta]

I bought an Acer Aspire a few weeks ago for an upcoming trip to Bonaire. I leave on the 2nd and have two online classes start on the 4th. I don't have to worry about streaming audio or video as those are not part of the class. I was able to install Office 2007 on the netbook as well as all of the programs that I need for CPF. I installed my Palm software so I can sync my phone (Palm Centro) and download pics taken with the phone. I can charge my iPod with the netbook. I can keep up with email. And as 762x51 stated, it will be great for downloading the cameras. I also bought a portable external hard drive for it so I don't have to worry about jamming up the storage space with pictures. I LOVE my netbook and can't wait to give it a real world workout next week!!

 

[kwkarth]

I bought a Lenovo Netbook last year and it's not bad for a Windows machine. I really liked the portability of it. It was on the slow side, and I eventually grew tired of all of XP's problems again and bought a MacBook Air. I am now a happy camper. It is very fast, very small, very powerful, bigger screen, great battery life (5 hours), no hard drive crashing to worry about (128GB SSD), and most importantly, no Windoze to worry about, no defragging to worry about, no viri and spyware to worry about, no registry corruption to worry about, etc.

 

[Tony Hanna]

Netbooks could be really versatile little machines (even more than they already are) if Micro$oft didn't regulate them to death.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/22/microsoft-publishes-maximum-windows-7-netbooks-specs/
The single core processor limit is thanks to MS. Intel has a very capable dual core Atom (330) with around 8W power consumption.
The 1GB memory limit, crummy graphics (DX9 or less), and small HDD size (160GB or less) are also thanks to MS. The incentive for netbook makers to stay within the limits set by MS comes in the form of reduced price for OS licenses ($15 per license for XP). That's less than 1/3 the price of a Vista license for a full size laptop. The restrictions are relaxed some for Windows 7 but the single core processor limitation remains.

It's a shame really, as the technology exists to produce reasonably priced netbooks that are capable enough (by plugging in an external monitor, ODD, keyboard, and mouse) to be used by most people as a main computer.

 

[kwkarth]

When I bought the Lenovo Netbook, the first thing I did was to increase the RAM to 2GB, which is table stakes for WinXP. It had a 160GB HD, which is more than adequate for a Netbook portable, and I reformatted it NTFS from the default FAT32, so that defragging is more effective and can run in the background. I installed about 4 different Browsers, PCT Spyware w/ AV, PCT registry editor, Diskeeper defrag, MS Office 2007, Sun Open Office, iTunes, a bunch of minor audio processing and waveform generators, some picture editing software, and it handled all of the above with no real problems.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I also got this Acer Aspire from NewEgg. Didn't want to deal with Vista.

• First thing to do is uninstall all the crapware either from Add/Remove programs, or using this "PC DeCrapifier" utility. This is crucial, as it runs like a one legged duck otherwise.

• Next step, order this $30 2GB stick of RAM and replace your old stick. Easy, makes a huge difference...starts up faster, plays video better. I'm fully up and all programs loaded in WinXP in 59 seconds....including MS Office, AV, Skype, Z

• Update drivers here.

• Up to you if you want an external CD/DVD Player Burner. This one works fine. I did it because I use Ghost to make a series of image clones to have quick restores if anything goes wrong...as well as play some DVD's.

 

[EV_007]

I have the Asus 1005HA-P with the 10.5 hour battery life. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi with the stereo array mics and webcam built in. Well I actually get 8 hours in real world usage, but still awesome compared to my barely 3 hours I get from my new Dell laptop.

Not a huge fan of the glossy screen, which seems to be the latest trend.

Running with 2GB RAM and N280 Processor isn't too bad.

Loaded with XP but want to try Win 7 one of these days. Although my Del Studio XPS qualifies for the Win 7 upgrade. Wonder if I can use it on my netbook? Probably not I bet since it is the upgrade for the Dell.

 

[eggoo]

I use Media Player Classic with K-Lite Codec, have no issue on playing 720p video on my netbook.

 

[sygyzy]

I bought a Lenovo Netbook last year and it's not bad for a Windows machine. I really liked the portability of it. It was on the slow side, and I eventually grew tired of all of XP's problems again and bought a MacBook Air. I am now a happy camper. It is very fast, very small, very powerful, bigger screen, great battery life (5 hours), no hard drive crashing to worry about (128GB SSD), and most importantly, no Windoze to worry about, no defragging to worry about, no viri and spyware to worry about, no registry corruption to worry about, etc.

Only 13 posts before a Mac fanboy decides to chime in. This thread is about netbooks, not Macbook Airs that cost 3x as much. I hope you can tell the difference.

Back on topic - I would advise everyone with a netbook to try Windows 7. It's amazing, specifically on a netbook.

 

[Greta]

sygyzy... and 6 more posts before someone took the bait. WE all let it go... you should too... :ironic: