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Hey, i was considering getting one of the little netbooks, probably a Samsung NC10 (£290 with my staff discount) or the MSI wind U100 (£265) And i was just wondering if many of you have them and what you think they are like to live with. Mine would be used primarily for school/university and i'll probably put CS3 on there but dont expect it to be very good.

So what are they like to type on and whats the battery life like? (i've read about 5hrs for the MSI and 6hrs for the Samsung) General comments are welcome :)
 
Hi

Netbooks are great for what theyre designed for - surfing the web. I got the Advent one which is a rebadged MSI Wind but was a lot cheaper at £129. I wouldnt think Photoshop would be any good on a netbook as the resolution would be way too low. Having said that, I have managed to use mine with Canons Camera utility program to shoot tethered, this was a struggle because of the resolution (installer wont play ball but you can get round it)

I have open office installed too which works a treat, but the small keyboard is a hassle until you get used to it.

Ste
 
I would agree with Ste. They are not designed for CS3 - anything more than web browsing and Office will seize it up. We have one that my wife uses - an Acer with XP - when the AV scan is on and she tries to sync her iPod the thing crawls along. The keyboards are not full size so you end up mistyping. I have never tried to time it, not sure how long the battery would last for, but certainly nothing like 5 hours.

Chris
 
I was very keen for a netbook but I've had shot of some today in Carphone Warehouse and even the NC10 seems too small, I think I would find it limiting only being able to use it for browsing and maybe music, I think I will just buy a laptop although I may consider a netbook again later as replacement for my iPhone.
 
I have an Aspire One with OSX 10.6.1 which has been upgraded to 1.5GB RAM. I use this to run full Office Suite as well as iTunes and Lightroom 2.3. This is as quick as my works laptop (perhaps because I don't keep anything stored on it) and not much slower than my desktop.

As mentioned the screen resolution can cause an issue but when I am out for a day rallying I will usually transfer all my photos over during service as a backup copy. Also use it on the train and for general work when out and about.

DB
 
the NC10 is definately the one to go for if your feeling flush, nice keyboard, screen and touch pad combined with class leading battery life.
 
Ste Manns said:
Hi

Netbooks are great for what theyre designed for - surfing the web. I got the Advent one which is a rebadged MSI Wind but was a lot cheaper at £129. I wouldnt think Photoshop would be any good on a netbook as the resolution would be way too low. Having said that, I have managed to use mine with Canons Camera utility program to shoot tethered, this was a struggle because of the resolution (installer wont play ball but you can get round it)

I have open office installed too which works a treat, but the small keyboard is a hassle until you get used to it.

Ste
Click to expand...

Can you please tell me how you got round the installer? I am struggling getting this onto my net book for the very same reason.

Your help would greatly appreciated!

Chris
 
Chris - to sort the installer out all you have to do is change the screen resolution setting - in XP just right click the desktop, and then click the settings tab. Click the Advanced button to get the graphics card settings, click the Monitor tab and you will see a check box labelled "hide modes this monitor cannot display". Un check this box. You can now go back to the settings tab and up the screen resolution to a higher setting. The installer will now work. :woot:

I'm posting this on my netbook btw :D
 
for around £250 you can get Lenovo S10e with 6cell batt...I would go for Lenovo then Samsung :) but its only me ;) looks better for me hehe
 
I just bought this one today 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
 
That sounds good, Trev, please let me know how long the battery runs.
 
Fully charged it last night Mike, have just unplugged at 10:10am,
It says on the battery monitor 5:30 hours remaining, but thats with it sitting idle. I'll have to start transfering software to get it to start normal power usage to get a better idea of how long it will last.

We'll soon see !!

From what I have heard the OEM Battery isn't really that powerfull but much bigger version is available for around £40
 
I have an Acer Aspite One (the XP version), which I use as a mobile backup tool and for basic image processing whilst on holiday (camping normally). The standard battery life in real usage is 3 hours, or just over. They do a 6-cell battery from which they claim 8 hours life.

The keyboard is a little fiddly, but you get used to it, and I use a USB mouse for anything requiring precision.
 
Definately agree on the need for a USB mouse, the touchpad is very small.
 
When somebody asked a similar question recently, I uploaded a video onto youtube showing my netbook simulaneously running Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW and photoshop CS3.

Here it is...

[YOUTUBE]SQAZ8Gf4VmM[/YOUTUBE]
 
Are you using an external CD/DVD to install software, or installing over a network?
 
I install everything over a network (it has built in ethernet and WiFi, as I'm sure they all will).

You could use an external USB DVD also.
 
awesome, thanks for all the responses guys. In the video the Aspire seems to be holding up well, slower than my desktop obviously but I dont expect to sit a process hundreds of shots on it, just the odd one here and there.
I guess i just have to pony up the money now and get one and it looks like it will be the samsung since all the reviews suggest it is the best of the bunch.

p.s whats this about installing over a network, can you just map the netbooks drive on your desktop and then point the installer to it? (that sounds too easy lol) ::edit:: googled and got the answer.....that sounds extremely handy :)
 
TrevDR said:
...........

From what I have heard the OEM Battery isn't really that powerfull but much bigger version is available for around £40
Click to expand...

Yes that was what I had heard but your spec said 6 cell so maybe they have upgraded it from the first reviews?

Aldi's just down the road so temptation stirs.
 
Its a nice little machine Mike, but I wont tempt you :nono:
 
Been unable to test the time on this as been in and out all day. I just took out the battery pack and yes Mike it is the new version of the battery pack rated at 4400mAh.
 
Get ye behind me Satan!
 
BigDex said:
I have an Acer Aspite One (the XP version), which I use as a mobile backup tool and for basic image processing whilst on holiday (camping normally). The standard battery life in real usage is 3 hours, or just over. They do a 6-cell battery from which they claim 8 hours life.

The keyboard is a little fiddly, but you get used to it, and I use a USB mouse for anything requiring precision.
Click to expand...

How much storage do you get with that? I thought they were only 16Gb.

I was looking at a netbook for a similar role as backup to the epson P2000 but found another epson on ebay for under £100 and went that way instead.

I think I will probably explore this route again though so I'm interested in what people use.
 
Just reserved a Samsung NC10 at local Argos, will go pick up at lunchtime.

I'm off to Sri Lanka in June and wanted something to store/backup photos while I'm out there, and be a useful little machine when I get back.

I've got a 160GB Freecom Toughdrive that will *also* be backing up to....
 
You can get OSX onto most netbooks with a bit of faffing about. I'd be interested, but from what I read there are numerous 'quirks' that I just can't be bothered with.
 
i got an acer aspire one as well, 160gb hard drive(asda special a little while ago). it is running xp with 1.5gb of ram, setup for shooting tethered(had to use external monitor for installation only as screen limitations mentioned above) and i use it quiet often, the small keyboard is the only really big bugbear with it, and the typing does get irritating, but it will pretty much be the same for all netbooks as there isnt enough space.
it will run corel pspx2 but doing too much will overload it.

i think mine is set to run at half speed as well when no power plugged in to conserve battery usage and i dont use antivirus to keep it moving quicker.
 
mid_gen said:
You can get OSX onto most netbooks with a bit of faffing about. I'd be interested, but from what I read there are numerous 'quirks' that I just can't be bothered with.
Click to expand...

One of the quirks being your breaking Apples EULA :eek:
 
Just got my Samsung NC10......sat on my desk uninstalling all the junkware that comes on it while I'm working :)

Nice looking bit of kit
 
I got the Dell netbook that Vodafone are currently promoting. Apart from being able to surf whilst out and about, the best thing I use it for is for transferring photos from my CF card via my camera. If I am away for a few days it means I can transfer the images to the netbook which at least means I have a secure back up in case anything happens to my card. Plus it means I can make a quick review of the images captured.
 
I worked on a customer's Dell mini yesterday, didn't think it was as nice as the Samsung or the PC World / Advent one (that also has built in 3G).

Hope this doesn't offend, Lemmiwinks, just wanted to give buyers an opinion if they want to make an informed purchase. Just an opinion, and I haven't spent more than a couple of hours with any of them. In its favour the Dell seemed easy to upgrade, but it just seemed bigger & thicker than the Advent 4213.

Stroller.
 
That's the thing with technology, everyone has their own preferences. Having a built in wireless modem helped to swing the deal as I know I'm clumsy and would probably break a dongle on a regular basis! lol
 
We have had the Samsung NC10 since January and it is a great little machine. My fiancee uses it as her everyday computer when sitting on the couch in the lounge and she loves it. It has a great battery life (regularly get 6 hours from it) The keyboard is almost full size (95% I believe) but it does take some time getting used to it as I struggle at first whenever I use it. The main advantage is for when we travel - it is small, light and easily fits into the top of my Lowepro Primus bag. Beats the hell out of lugging my huge 17" laptop everywhere like I used to. Also great to pull out and watch a show or movie while chilling in the airport or on the train.

I did quite a bit of research before buying and went with the Samsung because of the 10" screen over the other 8-9" options out there, the excellent battery life which has lived up to expectations, and the larger HD. I was also interested in the Lenovo but it was just being released at the time and so it wasn't readily available or as well tested as the Samsung.
 
I gave my NC10 a full charge when I got it yesterday, and has been used most of the evening by the other half connecting to the net either via wifi or bluetooth to my HSDPA phone, or through a MBB dongle....still more than half charge.

I got it as a holiday photo management device, which it will no doubt be perfect for. The other half will also use it for geocaching when I drag her out on a photography mission. Great build quality, superb battery life. Top marks from me.

I couldn't justify the £100 premium for a HSDPA equipped model, not a lot of point really as I can just connect via bluetooth and my phone, and I've got a couple of MBB dongles knocking around if that fails (I work for a mobile operator :))

I'll probably bang a 2GB SODIMM in there to give it a bit more headroom when chucking lots of RAW files about.
 
BigDex said:
When somebody asked a similar question recently, I uploaded a video onto youtube showing my netbook simulaneously running Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW and photoshop CS3.

Here it is...

[YOUTUBE]SQAZ8Gf4VmM[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...

i'm doing the same. Bought from asda for £150 a few weeks back. Currently Running Windows Vista/7 and take it to the track to download and PP my pics with either Photoshop, Irfanview or Lightroom.

Whilst its not as quick as my desktop its perfectly adequate for remote work. and a bargain at £150
 
My XP,120gb One has 1gb of RAM and will happily run CS3
 
Where as my Acer One with XP/1Gb/120Gb Hard drive *will* run it, but takes ages to do any processing. I would be interested to know what size files you are processing on these as, if I understand correctly, video memory is taken from RAM.

We may have a difference of opinion of 'happily run CS3'. It runs it, it would rather that it wasn't.

Chris
 
I use an NC10 every so often, CS3 is usable but you would definitely want to up the memory to 2GB and if you can afford an SSD drive then all the better :)
 
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