Netbook replacement.

Pete Gl

Pete Gl

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After doing some initial "Googling" I know the term Netbook has died off, I think (But only think) what netbooks were designed for have been replaced by tablets.

I've had a Acer Aspire One for a few years and it has been a good little workhorse, used to carry around as I travel about a bit with work, at the end of the day type up a few things on MS Word, trawl the internet, E-Mails, the occasional Skype to home, nothing too demanding. Don't need a big internal drive as I save all my Docs to OneDrive. But it's now struggling, very slow trawling the net, I'm not a fast typist but I can type faster than the text appears on the screen.

So I want to replace it, I still like the idea of a good keyboard and prefer to stay with Windows, so I don't want to go down the tablet route. I suppose I'm just looking for a small neat laptop around the £300 mark.

Can any of you good folk out there make me some good recommendations?

Thanking you in anticipation,

Pete
 
Have the best of both worlds and get a surface pro?

I bought a surface pro 2 second hand for £300 a couple of months ago
 
I've just bought the HP Pavilion with the 10.6" screen. I don't have the exact ID to hand but it was £330 from Curry's. It does have a huge hard drive (well, twice the size of my old Dell desktop) which I need as I don't use cloud storage. It's not a bad screen either, and you can use it either conventionally, folded back to made a 'stand' or folded right back in tablet mode.
 
I have had a few and the best so far is my Acer. It has an 11" screen, 4gig ram and an i3 CPU. I put an SSD inside it and it flies! Stay away from 'Atom' processors. They are slow as heck.
 
Not Windows but I have a full HD Chromebook and find it great. Much prefer it to my iPad and it is much lighter than my main laptop (which I now keep for PS and LR with an additional screen). And the best thing is the battery - lasts around 10-12 hours for normal use.
 
Raincloud said:
I have had a few and the best so far is my Acer. It has an 11" screen, 4gig ram and an i3 CPU. I put an SSD inside it and it flies! Stay away from 'Atom' processors. They are slow as heck.
Click to expand...

agreed but take it to 8gb :-)
 
the modern atoms (are they even called atom any more?) arent that bad, as long as you're not expecting blistering performance. for browsing and documents it should be perfectly fine.
 
neil_g said:
the modern atoms (are they even called atom any more?) arent that bad, as long as you're not expecting blistering performance. for browsing and documents it should be perfectly fine.
Click to expand...

Stay clear of them. They will bog you down. I know as i have seen a couple at Uni and they were terrible!
 
I'll qualify that comment a little..

The Asus X205TA which comes with the Atom Z3735F. Passmark is marginally better than the AMD N40L in my Microserver running Windows Server 2008 and hosting 4 virtual machines.
 
But, all Atom netbooks are pants! Stay clear unless you want a very slow computer!
 
Have to say I use a 1.6GHz Atom in a media PC - I can stream video in HD on it and it works really well with Win7/4GB RAM and an SSD and I can run it completely fanless. Rather depends on the use case.. If just using for web browsing, etc. then there is no problem with an Atom. If hammering it then a better processor will be required...

Si
 
Simon Lund said:
Have to say I use a 1.6GHz Atom in a media PC - I can stream video in HD on it and it works really well with Win7/4GB RAM and an SSD and I can run it completely fanless. Rather depends on the use case.. If just using for web browsing, etc. then there is no problem with an Atom. If hammering it then a better processor will be required...

Si
Click to expand...

Agreed
 
I've had dell at work and used it quite a lot at home as well. Never had any issues with it. However, I've been given a new Toshiba laptop for my new job and again never had problems with it. I bought a Compaq for my other half a couple of years ago and again, no faults on it so far.
 
Many thanks to you all for contributing.

Any thoughts about this one? : -

Acer Aspire E5-471P Core i3 4GB 500GB 14 inch Touchscreen Windows 8.1 Laptop in Black

Pete
 
Pete Gl said:
Many thanks to you all for contributing.

Any thoughts about this one? : -

Acer Aspire E5-471P Core i3 4GB 500GB 14 inch Touchscreen Windows 8.1 Laptop in Black

Pete
Click to expand...

Nice. Now, put an SSD into that and it will fly!
 
Interesting thread. I will soon have to make a similar decision. I'm still using the original netBook, the Psion netBook. I started off twenty years ago with the Psion 3 PDA, the best of the early electronic filofaxes. I moved on to the Psion5. The netBook was effectively the Psion7, upgrading the pocketable palmtops to a small baggable laptop. I'm still updating files I started in the Psion3 twenty years ago.

I no longer use its very ancient Opera browser, which never worked well and probably no longer works. Its lack of internet connectivity has become a virtue. I have no problems with viruses, there's no need to upgrade its excellent basic facilities. and I can safely keep private things in it without fear of hacking. I still do the initial drafts of most of my big writing projects in it. But the supply of good second machines and people who can repair them is dwindling. I've tried a few migrations to more modern possible replacements over the years. It's outlasted them all. Nothing has ever quite matched its package of portable robust bug-free and crash-free simplicity, its excellent keyboard, its long battery life, etc..

I given up looking for something better. I've accepted that I'll just have to move on before the ancient technology finally dies.
 
Don't start on about Psions. We still haven't got back to the portability and simplicity and battery life and the usefulness since Psion gracefully exited the market. Despite all these modern tablets and gizmos.
I used to sit at the bottom of the garden in the 90's, and type away for hours. Knowing the battery would last months.
 
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I've got a Netbook NC-10, which currently is suffering from the famous 'video lead via hinge fault', so I get intermittent display. I've got a replacement cable, its just finding the will to do it. I was mulling over slapping Linux on instead of XP.
I only use it when travelling so use is a bit variable.

I keep looking at the surface pro but the price is rather too rich for me.
 
john-oh said:
I keep looking at the surface pro but the price is rather too rich for me.
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Would love one of those too John, but unfortunately you're right about the price.

Pete
 
john-oh said:
I've got a Netbook NC-10, which currently is suffering from the famous 'video lead via hinge fault', so I get intermittent display. I've got a replacement cable, its just finding the will to do it. I was mulling over slapping Linux on instead of XP.
I only use it when travelling so use is a bit variable.

I keep looking at the surface pro but the price is rather too rich for me.
Click to expand...
Snap! Got an NC-10, XP, lead fault and spare lead sitting on my desk, but as I don't use it much since I got a tablet it's not urgent.

I decided to try Linux on it and it was well worth it, the machine runs quicker and oddly the screen fault isn't as bad. In my case I've gone with Linux Mint, I tried a few others first, it's easy to install from USB stick and you can set up your machine to be dual boot capable.
 
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