Thoughts on Netbooks

AndyWest

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Netbooks were the 'In thing' a few years ago and I'm thinking of getting one as an alternative to the Eee pad and ipad. Having windows would be SO much more useful than a tablet. I only have a couple hundred quid to spend so what would be a good one to go for? It will be used mostly just to surf the net but I will probably play music from it and play the odd movie when away. I have a normal PC in my office so this will be used while not watching TV in the lounge.

Thanks
 
Absolutely. Just surfing, playing music etc while being reasonably sociable with the family.
 
That looks like exactly what i need, many thanks.
 
If you can, look for one with an 11.6" screen. The higher resolution makes them much more versatile

Agreed - the 10" Samsung n210 my wife uses has an annoying issue with the screen resolution, as does most oher 10" net books - it is 1024x600.

When dialogue boxes pop up on screen, such as the print box in adobe reader and internet explorer - the OK and CANCEL buttons are off the bottom of the screen - even setting the task bar to auto hide doesn't give enough screen to show the buttons! You have to work out the number of presses of the tab button needed to highlight the ok button before hitting enter :bonk:

Most infuriating.

Battery life is great though at around 6-8 hours of surfing and the atom processors manage with general surfing, word and excel quite ok.
 
Cheap, slow, low resolution, everything that is wrong with some parts of the laptop world...

On a more serious note that is basically the reason they were overtaken by tablets when the technology was there.

I'd personally see if I can find a very cheap i* 11" macbook if you really need nothing larger than 11". Sorry but that's my truthful opinion, even if it isn't very useful to you. :(
 
Cheap, slow, low resolution, everything that is wrong with some parts of the laptop world...

On a more serious note that is basically the reason they were overtaken by tablets when the technology was there.

I'd personally see if I can find a very cheap i* 11" macbook if you really need nothing larger than 11". Sorry but that's my truthful opinion, even if it isn't very useful to you. :(

Fully agree...I have a Dell Mini 9 laying about somewhere, each time try for another project, but nah keyboards too small, overall form factor to big because of the too small keyboard making it big, screen size and resolution is too low. Can't even read a full page of A4 on it....I'd rather spend the money on say a Nexus 7 if you want to play music, browse and be with others....
 
Agreed - the 10" Samsung n210 my wife uses has an annoying issue with the screen resolution, as does most oher 10" net books - it is 1024x600.

When dialogue boxes pop up on screen, such as the print box in adobe reader and internet explorer - the OK and CANCEL buttons are off the bottom of the screen - even setting the task bar to auto hide doesn't give enough screen to show the buttons! You have to work out the number of presses of the tab button needed to highlight the ok button before hitting enter :bonk:

Most infuriating.

Battery life is great though at around 6-8 hours of surfing and the atom processors manage with general surfing, word and excel quite ok.

Thats why I prefer the 11.6" sub note books that arrived at the end of the network boom, for around £250 you get a 1366x768 screen, 320gb hard drive or better, AMD dual core processor, better graphics chip and decent battery (It gets 8 hours without a problem), though I notice some of the clearance stock comes with 5 hour battery.
 
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We have both in the house, an Acer netbook and an ipad. To be honest I far prefer the netbook. ipad is fine for facebook and surfing around you tube etc but for anything else it's the netbook that gets grabbed.
 
I use my Acer to take away with me and back up my raw files off the CF card reader, mine's nearly 2yrs old now and just handy for that reason alone, if they do free wifi then it's a bonus in the late evenings :)
 
I agree with Graham, I bought my Acer Aspire One simply for saving my piccies when I was away for a few days. It's horses for courses, I paid £199 for it two ish years ago, anything else it does for that price is a bonus. I wouldn't expect a 200 quid piece of kit to do what a full blown laptop does, for that price I think my netbook is a gem.

Pete
 
Thanks for all suggestions. I'll deff look for 11.5" if I go the netbook route but still looking at the iPad. Netbooks do seem much better value though.
 
I agree with the others about the screen size. I have an aspire one with 10" screen and it is a apin to use when surfing the net. I wish it had a bigger screen.

My ASUS Nexus 7 is a lot better and quicker.

For surfing and watching online, it has replaced the the netbook. It also is more versatile because I can use it to play games and use it to read books while I'm lying down.
 
Wait for the windows tablets, it won't be long till cheaper tablets with larger hard disks appear
 
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