Netbooks

[Morphius]

Now I know I'm probably on the wrong sort of forum to be asking about a laptop which has no game playing capabilities but I'm looking to be going travelling fairly soon and I want something I can regularly write a blog on, download photos to etc and ofcourse, surf the web!

I've looked at the Eee PC and the Samsung NC10 but I'm not sure which to get, I think it has to be one of the 10" versions!

Any advice?

 

[soze]

I have not used either of the 2 you mentioned but a friend uses Lenovo IdeaPad S10E and he really likes it. Lenovo have a fairly good failure rate they are not a bad brand now no fuss just solid hardware. but the usual Netbook rules apply its not really any good for extended use and the battery is not huge, but for quick blog type stuff they are good. I have a Acer One and really like it but it only has a 8.9 screen.

 

[GReaper]

Some advice...

Get a hard disk version unless you're keen on optimising your system for a solid state drive. Most of the SSD versions tend to be sold with rather cheap SSD and operating systems as well as applications aren't tweaked that well for it. If you want a more quiet system which is more durable then SSD might be a better choice, but otherwise you still might be better off with a hard drive model.

Make sure you get a model with a decent battery. Yet again some of the models come with batteries which are just about acceptable (2-3 hours). You may find that rather weak, if so go for a model with a battery capable of 5-6 hours.

You get what you pay for, I went for a £200 Aspire One with 8GB SSD ages ago. It's quite sluggish, but it's sufficient for my needs. However after using it I think I'd go for a higher end model next time.

 

[DaGaffer]

I've had my eye on the HP Mini 1000. It seems a little more robust than some of the others, and that's a consideration if you're going to be backpacking. I took a Samsung Q30 when I went, which was about the nearest thing to an affordable netbook at the time, but it had one big advantage; it came with a spare battery, and I'd definitely recommend carrying a spare when you're away. If you can afford it, invest in a decent laptop wallet for inside your pack as well (I dropped mine on a dock in Thailand and spent the rest of the year teasing the "on" switch because I'd crushed it). I'd also agree about getting a hard disk rather than solid state version; apart from anything else, you'll probably need the memory capacity for photos etc. (I stored mine on the laptop and my iPod - its all very well talking about online backup, but bandwidth is flaky and often expensive when you're travelling).

 

[soze]

All the HP ones i have tried so far have only had 1.2 processors not the 1.6 which is the standard Netbook spec most of them have the same atom so its Memory and Harddisk. The HP is probably the best looking Netbook i have used but they pre load it with Vista which is a joke with XP on it its much better.

 

[DaGaffer]

All the HP ones i have tried so far have only had 1.2 processors not the 1.6 which is the standard Netbook spec most of them have the same atom so its Memory and Harddisk. The HP is probably the best looking Netbook i have used but they pre load it with Vista which is a joke with XP on it its much better.

Nah, you can get an XP version now.

 

[TdC]

I have an HP 2130 mininote, and imo it's a smashing bit of kit for what it's meant to do. it's slightly hampered by the fact it has a business vista on it, and imo I'd dearly love it to have an atom cpu, but besides that it's great for casual browsing of the web, storing pics off my camera, music for my listening pleasure, etc. equipping it with the 6 cell battery gives it enough juice to last something like 5 hours (!) so that's great too. Best of all, it is TINY, or about the size of a big book, so you can take it anywhere! Just don't try anything compute intensive on it because it's ickle 1.2Ghz Via cpu will stick on 100% load for aaaaaages

 

[Morphius]

thanks for all the comments, I'm actually thinking about looking at the 8.9in screens because after all, this thing is meant to be small, and not like a full size laptop so I think for the purpose I want an 8.9 may be better.
Buy the Acer One A150AB Blue Internet browsing on the move online from PC World.

That's the Acer one I've been looking at, I have no idea what is what when I look at the specs for these things. There seems to be around an 80-100 pounds difference in price by adding an extra inch to the screen size, not sure that's really worth it.

 

[dysfunction]

That Acer One is superb! I got one as a wedding gift and it works a treat!
Really pleased with it!

Its fast, connects wirelessly in an instant and just works the way you want it to!