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Netbook advice
jase380 - 23/10/11 at 01:23 PM

One for all you computer experts, im looking for a netbook mainly to use when on holiday or away from home.
Would like something quick ( have read some are now dual core ), good size hard disc, the lighter the better, a battery that will last a four hour flight.
Open to any advice on the model to go for or any good deals about as im going bog eyed looking !!
Want to spend about 250 quid, cheaper would be good !

Thanks in advance, Jase

P.s tried a tab but its not my cup of tea.

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 01:44 PM

Bought my missus a Dell Mini about 18 months ago and she loves it; battery life is fantastic.

If you buy a Windows-based one, make sure you budget to upgrade the memory to *at least* 2GB

S

[Edited on 23/10/11 by stevebubs]

jase380 - 23/10/11 at 01:48 PM

Been looking at the dell mini steve, also samsung n310 and asus eee 1015, cant make my mind up though !!

britishtrident - 23/10/11 at 01:55 PM

I have used an entry level £200 e-Machines with a 10." screen for just over a year, battery charge life is much longer if you switch off the Wifi when not in use. With the standard 3 cell battery battery I get about 2.5 hours but 6 cell, or 9 cell or 12 cell batteries are available very cheaply off eBay. Battery life between charges falls off a bit age.

I dual boot it on Windows or Mint Linux. I use Linux most of the time except when using it for car diagnostic and LPG stuff.

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 02:02 PM

They appear to have cancelled the Mini line.

However there are some Duos (netbook with touchscreen) that will fit your budget in the UK Dell Outlet...

Realise you may not like the tabs so much, but have you tried the Transformer?

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 02:03 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jase380
Been looking at the dell mini steve, also samsung n310 and asus eee 1015, cant make my mind up though !!


In which case, I would spend 5 minutes taking a look at the reviews and if nothing stands out, just roll a dice.

I doubt there will be much to choose between the 3.

samjc - 23/10/11 at 02:46 PM

Argos sell an msi wind its great not so well heard off but lad who sorts mine says its a great piece of kit and beat everything twice as expensive it costs 179.99 last time I checked.

JoelP - 23/10/11 at 03:23 PM

i use a hp pavillion dm1, which im happy with.

britishtrident - 23/10/11 at 03:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by stevebubs
quote:
Originally posted by jase380
Been looking at the dell mini steve, also samsung n310 and asus eee 1015, cant make my mind up though !!


In which case, I would spend 5 minutes taking a look at the reviews and if nothing stands out, just roll a dice.

I doubt there will be much to choose between the 3.


Most of them are made from standardised bought in Atom processor mother boards ---- Asus, Acer & eMachine have only tiny differences pure badge engineering BMC Morris Oxford - Austin Cambridge style.
Often price point is down to number of cells in the battery, HD size and Memory Not sure how much memory is required for Windows 7 as mine runs Xp/Linux but on Xp or linux 1gb works fine --- particularly on Linux

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 06:20 PM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
quote:
Originally posted by stevebubs
quote:
Originally posted by jase380
Been looking at the dell mini steve, also samsung n310 and asus eee 1015, cant make my mind up though !!


In which case, I would spend 5 minutes taking a look at the reviews and if nothing stands out, just roll a dice.

I doubt there will be much to choose between the 3.


Most of them are made from standardised bought in Atom processor mother boards ---- Asus, Acer & eMachine have only tiny differences pure badge engineering BMC Morris Oxford - Austin Cambridge style.
Often price point is down to number of cells in the battery, HD size and Memory Not sure how much memory is required for Windows 7 as mine runs Xp/Linux but on Xp or linux 1gb works fine --- particularly on Linux


Agreed (and what I was alluding to) but will be unusual to find a new one with XP installed nowadays....

For Win7, including starter edition you really do need 2GB as the graphics would take up a high proportion of 1 GB stick

[Edited on 23/10/11 by stevebubs]

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 06:23 PM

quote:
Originally posted by samjc
Argos sell an msi wind its great not so well heard off but lad who sorts mine says its a great piece of kit and beat everything twice as expensive it costs 179.99 last time I checked.


Sorry but this "beat everything twice as expensive" is, I'm afraid, hairy pollox. For twice as much you can get a pretty darned good laptop with i3 processor that will knock the socks off an Atom-based device.

The trouble with Argos devices is they will typically be a generation or so behind the current kit direct from the likes of Dell.

Dusty - 23/10/11 at 06:52 PM

So can you remove windows 7 and replace it with XP on a netbook or do you get all sorts of problems with finding drivers?

jase380 - 23/10/11 at 07:51 PM

Thanks for the replies fellas, must admit britishtrident you lost me with " dual boot " and mint linux .... will that be near mint aero in asda ?, seems that what you are all telling me is most reputable brands are pretty much the same under the cover, just go for the best reviews / deal ?

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 11:04 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jase380
Thanks for the replies fellas, must admit britishtrident you lost me with " dual boot " and mint linux .... will that be near mint aero in asda ?, seems that what you are all telling me is most reputable brands are pretty much the same under the cover, just go for the best reviews / deal ?


Yup. Just look at the processor/memory/chipset; if they're all the same then they're likely pretty much on a par..

www.tomshardware.com is a good source of information.

[Edited on 23/10/11 by stevebubs]

stevebubs - 23/10/11 at 11:05 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Dusty
So can you remove windows 7 and replace it with XP on a netbook or do you get all sorts of problems with finding drivers?


Yes you can but yes you will...

Agriv8 - 24/10/11 at 07:23 AM

I run Win 7 starter on a Lenovo s10-3 and found it ok Windows 7 is not too bad once you get used to its perculiars.

I was going to go with Dell but the lenovo came in at the right price.

Regards

Agriv8

britishtrident - 24/10/11 at 08:26 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Dusty
So can you remove windows 7 and replace it with XP on a netbook or do you get all sorts of problems with finding drivers?


Mine was one the very last of them that came with Xp from the factory Win 7 had been out for some time but with Microsoft products I am always very cautious and wait at least a year after launch, I managed toskip Vista altogether. Vista on a Netbook would be treacle.

To get Xp I suspect you would need the specific version of Xp.

After setting up mine and making the re-install discs I immediately cloned the HD using Partition and then once everything was installed properly booted from an external DVD and installed Mint Linux as dual boot on its own partition.

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

[Edited on 24/10/11 by britishtrident]

jase380 - 26/10/11 at 07:19 PM

Well, thanks for all the advice, got myself one of these http://www.gogodigital.co.uk/computing/netbooks/acer-aspire-one-d255e-n55dqkk-10-1-black-netbook-dual-core-1gb-250gb.html and im well chuffed with it, had the ram upgraded to 2gb for an extra 20 quid and it even does that dual boot gubbins britishtrident mentioned, boots with android then you can switch to windows if needed.

As for a good service award i cannot fault gogodigital, i ordered the netbook at 10am on tuesday and it was in my hands by 9.30 on weds, delivered foc !!

[Edited on 26/10/11 by jase380]

britishtrident - 26/10/11 at 08:12 PM

First job connect a USB CD/DVD writer and make recovery discs.

Agriv8 - 27/10/11 at 05:16 PM

just been email about this from PC word but you are already commited.

lenovo lappy - pc word

enjoy agriv8

stevebubs - 27/10/11 at 06:17 PM

Hint: don't install any extra applications on it unless necessary.

Out netbook is over a year old and still pretty snappy. My dad's bought at the same time (we bought 2) is slow and almost unusable.

The difference? He has let the kids install all sorts of applications on his whereas ours is still near-virgin.

jase380 - 29/10/11 at 03:55 PM

quote:
Originally posted by stevebubs
Hint: don't install any extra applications on it unless necessary.

Out netbook is over a year old and still pretty snappy. My dad's bought at the same time (we bought 2) is slow and almost unusable.

The difference? He has let the kids install all sorts of applications on his whereas ours is still near-virgin.


I know exactly what you mean steve, Just took my parents laptop into the local computer shop for wiping back to a fresh install, my nephew had put so much crap on it, it had become almost unusable..

matt_gsxr - 29/10/11 at 04:12 PM

I bought an ASUS EEE 1008HA running Win7 Starter a couple of years back to replace a crap toshiba tablet PC that died on me with a write-off motherboard fault. Really it was an experiment as I needed something to do e-mail as I was on a trip the next day.

Turned out to be awesome. Runs all the Office stuff fine. Good for travelling (5hours battery typically), and best of all, perfect for running TunerStudio.

It cost £200 to buy and when I dropped my helmet onto the screen a new screen only cost £50.

Its only got 1GB, but that doesn't seem to cause problems. The only issue that I had was that it ran out of puff when I tried to run a virtual machine on it. Upgrading the RAM on these is possible (supposedly) but it voids the warrantee.

Matt

britishtrident - 29/10/11 at 05:36 PM

One of the big advantages of Linux is unlike it doesn't seem to slow down the longer it is installed and it boots and is up and is ready to use long before a Windows Pc even reaches the Logon screen.

bj928 - 29/10/11 at 07:05 PM

i would always buy a computer from america if you get the chance, if you know anyone traveling to or from, they are much cheaper and most brands have a world warrenty, the only difference is the @ and " are in different places on the keyboard, the cheapest asus at bestbuy and i will in general only have an asus because of the quality and warrenty if needed, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Eee+PC+1001PXD-MU17-WT+10.1%22+LED+Netbook+-+Intel+Atom+N455+1.66+GHz+-+White/3274494.p?id=1218390945371&skuId= 3274494

or if you want something slightly bigger

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Factory-Refurbished+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Pentium%26%23174%3B+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+500GB +Hard+Drive+-+Dark+Brown/2344086.p?id=1218321951290&skuId=2344086

don't forget you get 1.6 $ to 1 £ making these computers very cheap