Netbook vs Macbook??

H

hlloyd33

Suspended / Banned
Messages
5
Edit My Images
No
...That's an easy one, I hear you say!!
But here's my dilemma...

ooh, hello everyone - my first post here!

anyway, I'm going cycle-touring for 2-years and want a laptop for updating my website, writing my blog, email, photo storage/sorting/processing (i shoot RAW)/some editing (i.e. most of what I use my macbook pro for currently!). I am travelling alone so will need to have this (and my camera gear) on me almost all the time especially as I shall be camping a lot.
Cost, size and processing power trade-off required.
So should I go for:
1. A netbook: weighs 1-1.3kg, small and cheap (all VERY appealing) but may struggle with post-processing photos. Being a mac-user I have no software so would also need to sort that out.
2. A macbook (white): weighs 2.3kg, bigger and more expensive (about £500 second hand) but more than capable of doing everything I need. I have cs3 suite already so no extra software required.
(if going for mac, would prefer the aluminium body but these are even more expensive and not sure I can justify it - if the laptop doesn't like the constant vibrations and bumps of the road it's a lot of money wasted)

So which should it be - a netbook or a macbook?
And if you think a netbook, which one? (been looking at samsung nc10, msi wind, hp mini 2133/2140, acer aspire one and asus eeepc 1000he)

Thanks, Helen
 
The netbook is going to struggle for the post-processing a bit, but id still go down that route. Im sure your going to be well loaded with other gear anyway never mind a macbook. The samsungs get good reviews so does the dell mini. You could always look at making them a "hackintosh". Where are you cycling for 2 years??? Hope you have got lots of memory cards and backup stuff!
 
Deffo the MacBook. Most Netbooks have insufficient RAM for successful photo processing and their processor will struggle.
 
Netbook for me (Aldi Medion - MSI Wind Rebadged) with OSX on it.

Plenty enough power for basic processing, and good battery life.

My kids run Acer Aspires (again with OSX) and they run well, but not as well as the MSI wind variants as they are not 100% OSX compatible (sleep for example can be a bit dodgy)
 
bigbigblue said:
Deffo the MacBook. Most Netbooks have insufficient RAM for successful photo processing and their processor will struggle.
Click to expand...


Most Netbooks allow 2gb memory, and the 1.6 atom processor is plenty powerful enough for most basic editing. Of course if you want to do more in depth editing then you'll struggle with the screen resolution long before you need a faster processor.
 
Split verdict so far!
Off to Africa... biking from UK to Cape Town.
Going to take one of those small portable harddrives as a backup for my photos and several spare memory cards too.

A colleague has just shown me his acer aspire one (8.9") - it's amazingly small! I am really tempted to make the netbook option work. Although I think a 10" may be worth it.

Not sure my IT skills are up to putting OSX on a netbook, although it's very appealing! Would it be disastrous if I tried and failed?

Re. netbook screen resolution - the HP mini 2133/2140 have a screen resolution of 1280x768 - would this work better than the other 1024x600 netbooks around then?

What would be the best programs for my photo filing / processing / editing workflow on a netbook? I photograph in RAW but could switch to RAW+JPEG if this makes life easier.

So many questions!
 
if you can put up with the smaller screen size then i dont see why you cant get the netbook option to work if youre after the portability. like said above, you should have enough spec for most processing options albeit not lightning fast.
 
Even with OsX installed on it, and with 2 gb of ram, every netbook running the Atom processor is far far far too slow for even basic editing. The screen resolution and the 6 bit panels also make the screen less then acceptable for colour work. I still have my netbook, but I take the Macbook Pro instead for trips these days.

One you might want to consider is a Macbook Air (but make sure it is a second gen). It had the screen res that is just about good enough for editing, and it weighs about the same as a netbook.
 
i used to run CS2 on a 1400 athlon and 512mb, im sure it cant be that bad on a newer gen 1.6 atom..

i think its the physical size of the laptop that the OP is worried about?
 
Merovingian said:
Strange comparison. Like choosing between a Fiat panda and a Bmw 3 series!
Click to expand...

I agree to an extent, one is an ultraportable laptop and the other a portable machine.

If you want something really light then go for the netbook, but if you want something that will weigh you down a bit more but be more powerful go for a macbook (I would have suggested a 13" Vista PC as well but as you already use macs I doubt you would want it).

Didn't Apple used to do smaller 12" (or less) laptops? Although I guess spec wise they would be no better than a netbook.

I think it really depends on how much PP you want to do, if you just want to convert from RAW with a little bit of levels/curves then a netbook will do, but if you want a finished article, and can live with the extra weight the go for the macbook.
 
I have just bought a Dell mini 9 and installed OSX on it. Its not difficult. There is a full explanation on mydellmini.com. Apparently a Dell Mini 9 or MSI wind are the best Netbooks to put OSX on as they are the most similar to a mac. Not sure about photo editing on it though although it runs everything else I have just the same as my macbook. The only problem with the Dell Mini 9 for you may be the storage as they only come with 16GB SSD. I did manage to get a 32GB version from the dell outlet but its still not much for storing photos.

Good luck

Andy
 
Merovingian said:
Strange:thinking:, given it's illegal to do so.
Click to expand...

He just means they are the easiest.:p

And illegal, is that technically right? I can't see the police coming round to arrest you, you are breaking the terms for using the software but that's not illegal. Worth that could happen is they sue you for damages, a whole cost of an official copy of OSX...:lol:
 
Amp34 said:
He just means they are the easiest.:p

And illegal, is that technically right? I can't see the police coming round to arrest you, you are breaking the terms for using the software but that's not illegal. Worth that could happen is they sue you for damages, a whole cost of an official copy of OSX...:lol:
Click to expand...


Yeah, from what i understand it is more a case of breaking the EULA of the software by running it on non apple hardware (although that is bening contested by various parties at the moment), and in my case, i have bought two copies of OSX to show that i'm not trying to deprive them of revenue.
 
Amp34 said:
And illegal, is that technically right? I can't see the police coming round to arrest you, you are breaking the terms for using the software but that's not illegal. Worth that could happen is they sue you for damages, a whole cost of an official copy of OSX...:lol:
Click to expand...
I'm not sure about the exact technicalities, but there's a whole lot of debate about it, especially over at OCUK.
I suspect it's on par with file sharing or sharing a single licence.
 
Lets hear from some who has a netbook eh!

I have a Samsung NC10 that I upgraded to 2GB of RAM, its obviously the best for build quality and battery life above all.

Primarily it performs very well editing photos, RAW obviously takes longer than JPEG to load etc, but it does it for me. I'm running both Paint.net (freeware) and a portable version of my copy of Adobe 'Shop CS4. Both run well, there is minor slowdown but I can do some pretty heavy editing, run itunes in the bg at the same time and still zip about.

So would I reccomend it, no. I bought a netbook based on pound for pound performance. At £300 this machine is ace, if I had £600 I would've bought a Mac.

End.

:popcorn:
 
I'm using an acer aspire one AOD150 atm, so far I've tried OSX, Win 7, Eeebuntu and XP, all ran fine. I've only tried processing in XP, with Lightroom and cs3, and it was fine, a little slow, but usable. You would just need to budget a little more time for processing. Also ofc the mac screen is going to be better, a slightly more realistic representation of what it will look like for most people (if posted to web etc). A ram upgrade (circa £20) to 2GB would also be a good idea. Oh and mine does 3G too (via a sim card you put in behind the battery), which could prove to be useful for net on the go.

Overall, if the mac was lighter I would suggest taking the mac, as it is, the netbook is noticeably lighter, so I'll be traveling with a netbook :).

Oh and find an offline version to wikitravel to chuck on too, it's fantastic!.
 
I got this one about 2 month ago from Aldi for £279.99 with 3 year warranty.

10" Mini Notebook Medion® Akoya® E1210

10" Widescreen Display
for optimum usability (1024 × 600 pixels).
Long life 6-cell Li-ion rechargeable battery.
1.6 GHz
Intel® Atom™ processor N270.
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition (incl. Service Pack 3).
160GB SATA hard drive
1GB RAM
Video and Photo Communication
Integrated webcam and microphone.
Bluetooth®
2.0 mini USB adapter.
High Speed Wireless Networking
Wireless LAN 802.11n Draft with up to 300 MBit/s.2 802.11b/g compatible.

Connections
Memory card reader (SD, MMC, MS)3, 3 × USB 2.0, 1 × VGA out, 1 × network (RJ45), 1 × microphone, 1 × Line out.

Accessories included
Ext. power pack VDE/GS approved, 6-cell Li-ion high performance battery, Mini USB Bluetooth® 2.0 dongle, Windows® XP Home Recovery CD.

Choice of colours
Available in Black or White.

Dimensions and weight
Approx. 260 × 180 × 19/43mm, approx. 1.25kg incl. battery.

Software included
(OEM versions pre-installed and/or on CD/DVD or Recovery CD/DVD)

Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition (incl. Service Pack 3)
Corel® Draw Essentials 3
Corel® MediaOne™
Corel® WordPerfect® Office X3
Cyberlink PowerDVD™ 7
Bullguard Internet Security4
System Recovery powered by Symantec www.symantec.com

Trev
 
TrevDR said:
I got this one about 2 month ago from Aldi for £279.99 with 3 year warranty.

10" Mini Notebook Medion® Akoya® E1210

10" Widescreen Display
for optimum usability (1024 × 600 pixels).
Long life 6-cell Li-ion rechargeable battery.
1.6 GHz
Intel® Atom™ processor N270.
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition (incl. Service Pack 3).
160GB SATA hard drive
1GB RAM
Video and Photo Communication
Integrated webcam and microphone.
Bluetooth®
2.0 mini USB adapter.
High Speed Wireless Networking
Wireless LAN 802.11n Draft with up to 300 MBit/s.2 802.11b/g compatible.

Connections
Memory card reader (SD, MMC, MS)3, 3 × USB 2.0, 1 × VGA out, 1 × network (RJ45), 1 × microphone, 1 × Line out.

Accessories included
Ext. power pack VDE/GS approved, 6-cell Li-ion high performance battery, Mini USB Bluetooth® 2.0 dongle, Windows® XP Home Recovery CD.

Choice of colours
Available in Black or White.

Dimensions and weight
Approx. 260 × 180 × 19/43mm, approx. 1.25kg incl. battery.

Software included
(OEM versions pre-installed and/or on CD/DVD or Recovery CD/DVD)

Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition (incl. Service Pack 3)
Corel® Draw Essentials 3
Corel® MediaOne™
Corel® WordPerfect® Office X3
Cyberlink PowerDVD™ 7
Bullguard Internet Security4
System Recovery powered by Symantec www.symantec.com

Trev
Click to expand...


Basically a rebadged MSI wind, and runs OSX like a dream :D
 
Chillimonster said:
in my case, i have bought two copies of OSX to show that i'm not trying to deprive them of revenue.
Click to expand...
I think Apple's argument against that being sufficient for legal use of OsX is that you have still deprived them of the revenue for the Apple hardware.

It would be so neat if Apple allowed use of OsX on none Apple Hardware, but I can't see them doing that any time soon - after all it is on the hardware that they make most of their profit (or so I understand).
 
Chillimonster said:
Basically a rebadged MSI wind, and runs OSX like a dream :D
Click to expand...

It sure is and does :D

Runs Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Canon software on it. The screen size was a pain to begin with but you get used to that. I mainly use it for Reviewing, Storage, The odd bit of work and Communications when I'm away from home.

Battery life around 6+ hours fully charged.
 
Thanks for all the replies.
General consensus seems to be that I could make do with a netbook. I can cope with slower processing speed. Time is one thing that I will have plenty of in the next 2-years.

Will start looking for a good deal.
Looks like the specs I'll be after will be: 10", 160(ish)Gb HD, 1Gb RAM (to possibly upgrade), 6-cell battery. So that's most netbooks i think!
I have a 3week hol in California before the cycle trip starts so I can use that as a practise run. If I really struggle with processing then I can always sell it and buy a macbook instead I guess (whether I could still cycle up the hills is another matter!)

If only you could get a BMW 3 series for the price of a fiat panda, which would also shrink in size when it came to parallel parking!

I'll let you know what I go for... And also if I have the guts to load osx!

Cheers, Helen

ps. if anyone's interested, you could check out www.takeonafrica.com - it's about my trip and will eventually have loads of photography on it too. (blatant plug, i know!)
 
hlloyd33 said:
If only you could get a BMW 3 series for the price of a fiat panda
Click to expand...
Make no mistake, making do with a Dell Mini is not the same as choosing a macbook, despite what some feel! But a net book may just be ideal for your purpose.
 
I have an eeePC 10" thingy with the 1.6 atom 2GB RAM. I didn't think it would run CS4 but tried it the other day and it seems to run it just fine...obviously large files aren't that rapid to save or applying complex filters is going to be slow but normal running seems to be ok. As a trial I loaded indesign and illustrator and again, they run fine...truly a little marvel.
 
FranchiseJuan said:
Even with OsX installed on it, and with 2 gb of ram, every netbook running the Atom processor is far far far too slow for even basic editing. The screen resolution and the 6 bit panels also make the screen less then acceptable for colour work. I still have my netbook, but I take the Macbook Pro instead for trips these days.
Click to expand...

rubbish, it runs fine for things like levels, sharpening etc etc
 
walls said:
rubbish, it runs fine for things like levels, sharpening etc etc
Click to expand...

That is strickly your opinion and what I said was mine. Some might feel that waiting 10-15 seconds for any an every single action is fine. The main problem is screen size and resolution. With all the palletes I need showing (or lightroom in compact mode) there is about half of the screen left in which to view the photo, which (for me) is completely unusable for me for editing.

For me to be productive, I need to have my pictures keyworded, sorted, and at least 50-60 selects processed when I get back from a trip to start uploading, but if you only need to use your computer as a image storage device, then I guess a netbook could be ok (though I would still not choose it).
 
but the op wanted it to do some simple raw editing for which it is totally usable and not far far too slow as you put it. Not an opinion, it is fact. In CS4 the pallettes are quite efficiently stored so the 10" although not ideal is usable too. Wish people who give advice on here had actualy experience of using the things they are talking about.
 
Chillimonster said:
Netbook for me (Aldi Medion - MSI Wind Rebadged) with OSX on it.
...
My kids run Acer Aspires (again with OSX) and they run well, but not as well as the MSI wind variants as they are not 100% OSX compatible (sleep for example can be a bit dodgy)
Click to expand...

Does it mean that MSI Wind runs OS X without any mods or additional drivers - wow? I tried to install OS X that I bought for my Mac's discs onto a PC and run into a lot of problems. Apaprently there are a lot of unofficial kernels/drivers that can sort this out but I wanted to make it work from standard Apple installation so it will run perfectly with all the updates.
 
walls said:
but the op wanted it to do some simple raw editing for which it is totally usable and not far far too slow as you put it. Not an opinion, it is fact. In CS4 the pallettes are quite efficiently stored so the 10" although not ideal is usable too. Wish people who give advice on here had actualy experience of using the things they are talking about.
Click to expand...

Yes simple RAW editing which could mean just jpeg conversion, or tweak levels and crop but the fact that it takes 10 seconds to load and process the file could be quite frustrating to some people.

And for your information, I have an Asus EEE PC (windows 7) and an MSI wind (OsX) both with 2 gb of ram, as well as a macbook pro (4gb ram), and I do derive part of my income from travel photography, and spend around two months of the year traveling and shooting in various locations and processing RAW files on location amongst other things, I think I am qualified to answer the question. When was the last time you had to process a day’s worth of shooting (up to 1000 RAW files) and had to sit in a hotel room, or while having dinner somewhere after a long and tiring day and get through the days worth of shots before you could get to sleep?

In the case of when you are tired after a long day of walking or riding a bike, the last thing you really want to do is spend the time waiting for files to be processed, so it is about keeping your workflow and processing time as short as possible so you can actually enjoy the place you are in.

I really whish people would actually have had to do the things they say in the real world before they get ripping into others who have come to their conclusions after 4 years of experience on the road.
 
dalex_257 said:
Does it mean that MSI Wind runs OS X without any mods or additional drivers - wow? I tried to install OS X that I bought for my Mac's discs onto a PC and run into a lot of problems. Apaprently there are a lot of unofficial kernels/drivers that can sort this out but I wanted to make it work from standard Apple installation so it will run perfectly with all the updates.
Click to expand...

I install from the retail discs, but if you're going to do that that you'll need to install an EFI boot loader.

Loads of details can be found at www.insanelymac.com on how to do a full retail install.
 
dalex_257 said:
Does it mean that MSI Wind runs OS X without any mods or additional drivers - wow? I tried to install OS X that I bought for my Mac's discs onto a PC and run into a lot of problems. Apaprently there are a lot of unofficial kernels/drivers that can sort this out but I wanted to make it work from standard Apple installation so it will run perfectly with all the updates.
Click to expand...

For the MSI wind, you can install OsX by getting a disk image (Look here) that installs everything except for the screen resolution, which is just one program, and the wireless Land driver, which can be opbtained from the manufacturer of the Lan card. The problems come when you try to update to 10.5.6 or 10.5.7. I am still having problems with my Lan card after 10.5.7 and getting my mic and camera working again.
 
FranchiseJuan said:
Yes simple RAW editing which could mean just jpeg conversion, or tweak levels and crop but the fact that it takes 10 seconds to load and process the file could be quite frustrating to some people.

And for your information, I have an Asus EEE PC (windows 7) and an MSI wind (OsX) both with 2 gb of ram, as well as a macbook pro (4gb ram), and I do derive part of my income from travel photography, and spend around two months of the year traveling and shooting in various locations and processing RAW files on location amongst other things, I think I am qualified to answer the question. When was the last time you had to process a day’s worth of shooting (up to 1000 RAW files) and had to sit in a hotel room, or while having dinner somewhere after a long and tiring day and get through the days worth of shots before you could get to sleep?

In the case of when you are tired after a long day of walking or riding a bike, the last thing you really want to do is spend the time waiting for files to be processed, so it is about keeping your workflow and processing time as short as possible so you can actually enjoy the place you are in.

I really whish people would actually have had to do the things they say in the real world before they get ripping into others who have come to their conclusions after 4 years of experience on the road.
Click to expand...

It takes a second or two to open a 5D raw file in Adobe raw then around 4-6 seconds to open the image into cs4. USM is almost instant, saving to jpeg perhaps a couple of seconds not massively different to my desktop. Try it...you don't need to do it 1000 times a day, just once is enough to know it's quick enough. Canon's DPP is even quicker at editing. Its batch convert and save is slow but it is even on a quick computer but that's why you batch process.

The trade off of a couple of seconds loading time over the weight saving, increased battery life etc etc added to the fact that if you drop it you're not massively out of pocket, means it's perfect for the op and your eeepc is faulty :D . Perhaps you should plan your journeys better, you seem a little impatient to me.

ps your website is disfuntional on 1024x600 unless viewed at full screen - just some helpful advice ;)
 
walls said:
you seem a little impatient to me.
Click to expand...

If you only processing a few photos a night then the difference between 2 seconds and 6 might seem like not a lot, but multiply that out to a few hundred photos then it becomes a big deal. Not to mention the fact that every time you add a curves adjustment or dodge or burn in it thinks for a couple of seconds before refreshing. This may not be an issue if you only going to do light editing, but to be on the road for 2 years? I would not want to start out with a netbook.

In the end the original poster (Helen) has said that she does everything now on a macbook pro and to switch to a netbook with a different operating system (lets face it maintaining OsX with updates on a netbook is not for the average mac user) is not something I would want to deal with on top of all the planning for a cycling trip.
 
Only 1 person has mentioned a macbook air, I think that'd be the perfect solution to this.
I'd be very tempted to go for one with a solid state hard drive (I don't know if that's an option for a netbook).
Still, I think the air was made for this job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top