Netbook VS Laptop

My girlfriend's laptop is nearing death. Or to be more accurate, needs a
good reformat and sort out, but nobody can be bothered as the battery isn't
great, and it's massive, and therefore inconvenient to use.

Anyway, it's a 1.5GHz Celeron with 512MB of RAM. Would I be right in
thinking that even the most basic netbook is going to be quicker than this?
The other issue I can see is that the cheapest netbooks come with Linux,
which I've meddled with a fair bit - has the productivity software improved
much? I expect the main task the thing will be used for is writing CVs and
job applications, and Star Office was a bit frustrating for someone used to
MS Word...

 

Aye, but they're massive. If someone made a laptop with a 12 inch screen in
a fairly compact form at a decent price, it'd be ace. But those who do such
things tend to charge a bomb for them.

 

Yes.

Alternatively, the entry-level "proper" laptops (like Dell Vostros) are
not that much more than a netbook - and worth it, imho, for "main" use.
Netbooks are fine as a secondary machine.

Open Office has improved a lot in the last couple of years - whilst MS
have gone the other way... It's not _nearly_ as frustrating as Office
2007... SWMBO's spent a couple of evenings this week fighting Word 2k7
over a job app form - Word .doc, but locked up so you can only type in
the fields. A _major_ pain in the arse. In OpenOffice 3, though, it was
smooth as butter...

 

Females seem to like the Samsung NC-10. They look good, work well and
battery life is decent. Connect to external monitors at good resolutions if
you want it so. The touchpad isn't so clever and a mouse is useful.

I prefer the Eee myself which has great battery life.

Both run XP well enough with 1gb ram.

 

Used IBM/Lenovo X-series then. The above is a pretty good description of
one of those...

 

PC1000H

 

You might find this useful
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/28/netbooks-sales

 

They're a compromise really, I've got an aspire one with 120GB HD, and
i've upgraded it from 512Mb to 1.5GB ram which was a full dismantle
and reassemble job. I run (Ubuntu netbook Remix 9.04) linux on it,
which is about as quick and full featured as I'll ever need, I've
tried XP too, which was ok. It's perfectly usable for most things at
that spec, but I prefer a full size laptop for writing large documents
on, or the like.

 

Can I be the first to say? Macbook (Air)? Granted, they are expensive, but
barely noticable in a backpack. Took mine on a recent 2000 km roundtrip and
no back-pain, whereas the normal Macbook I had previous gave me pain in 250
km....

 

I've got a Samsung NC-10 and my wife is very happy with it.
XP runs decently (or so SWMBO says, I've installed Linux on "my" partition).

F

 

Co-worker (highly mobile non-technical project manager) is doing fine with
an HP netbook. But when on her desk it is connected to a 19" LCD and the
corporate network, where everything is. On the go/at home, Citrix.

She *NEEDED* a new handbag that matched her loooovely new netbook

 

Try OpenOffice 3. Quite natural for "MS Worded" users.

 

The Medion netbook sold by Media Markt (available in the uk?) make an
excellent Hackintosh at just 300 euros ;-)

 

I noticed this morning that they're selling those at our local Aldi.
Dunno if they have them in the UK as well. Are they any good?

 

Does that mean you can hack the E1210 to run MacOS, or is there another
model? Ah! http://www.gumtree.com/london/14/38195214.html
and

If that's the rebadged MSI Wind with a 1.6 GHz Atom and 1 GB RAM,
I've had one for more that 6 months. Runs XP but I also have SDHC cards
set up so it can boot Ubunto Notebook Remix and Moblin 2.0 beta. The 8.10
Ubuntu didn't recognise the wireless adapter, but the 9.10 Remix does.
Moblin is a pile of poo -- doesn't recognise the touchpad, doesn't cope
with my WPA wireless password... Can't fault the XP but you really only
want to have one window open at a time, fullscreen (1024x600) so it's
not very good for programming large C++ projects. The Remix displays full-
screen windows by default.

I use it for meetings and videoconferences. I bought a 9-cell
battery on FleaBay that gives >5 hours battery life when I turn off the
seti@home crunching, more than enough for a whole day's intermittent
usage in meetings at CERN (tho' they've started making AC power more
available in the auditoria now). I've also used it on-shift as an adjunct
to the control PCs and their displays.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

<snip geeky techno-whooshery>

Is that a yes or a no?

 

Yes.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

And blokes too, I got mine Friday. At the high end price wise I guess
(299 is notebook territory) but it has 1gbm RAM, 10.1" screen, wifi (of
course), ethernet port, several USBs, built in webcam, bluetooth (so now
paired with nokia for internet access out and about), good keyboard (yes
the trackpad is fiddly but am getting used to it). XP Home preinstalled
but added MS OFfice 2007, seems quite able to handle a few Firefox tabs
and Outlook running simultaneously. Haven't stress tested it yet but so
far so good.

 

Not wishing to pick a fight with a northerner, but what do you mean by
"not great connectivity"? Mine has ethernet, wifi, bluetooth. And do you
consider 160gb small for a disk? I think you might be generalising a bit
too much, the range of specifcations of netbooks is huge (and I do
appreciate that price-wise they are overlapping considerably with
laptops).

 

If taking it on the road, netbook and stick to easy menu option.
If using at home etc, laptop.


I've just taken my Asus eeePC 6500 miles across europe, bouncing around in
the back of the top box whenever it shook free of its straps on goles with
roads in them in ex-easter block countries.

No moving parts... still works a treat. Very useful with all the free wifi
across europe (I even bought a McDonalds coffee I was so impressed with
the free service).