Netbook/laptop

[Glamdring]

Does anyone have experience of both? By laptop I mean one with a decent (2.2GHz or great Core 2 Duo) CPU and 2GB+ RAM of around 15.4" and running Windows?

I have a laptop such as this but I need greater portability and greater battery life. How much performance drop could I expect if I bought say, a Samsung NC10?

[lordgrover]

Apples and oranges really. If you want simple browsing and email then any netbook will be fine, especially if you can get one with windows 7 starter edition. If you expect Excel, Powerpoint, PSP, etc to run well you'll be disappointed. They're called netbooks and are comparatively cheap for a reason I'm afraid - they just don't have the grunt of a pukka notebook/laptop.

ETA. Battery life varies a lot though. I like the baby Dells but they have pretty woeful battery life - I just bought a car charger so I can keep it topped up on the move.

[WORKSIMON]

I've got the Samsung NC110. It's running XP really well although I did up the memory to 2GB, the best feature is the battery life which can reach 9 hours. Compared to a decent normal sized laptop it's visibly slower but I guess thats the trade off for the portability. Ideal non obtrusive lappy for daily use, I got rid of two full sized ones and use this for everything now. Only problem I've had is the HDD went tits up so it had to go back to Samsung and have a new one fitted.

[sjdavies47]

Most of the current netbooks run Intel Atom processors. The Atoms are great beacuse they are very low power, which means long battery life and not much heat (i.e. smaller cases). However the trade off for this is performance. As already mentioned Netbooks tend to run Windows XP or a vendor tweaked version of linux (I have seen a version running Win7 basic) because these operating systems require much less processing power.

IMHO netbooks are only really good for email and internet, which to be fair is what they have been designed to do. If you want to do more than this, they are not really suitable. If you need a fully functional small laptop then there are loads about (mostly aimed at road warriors etc). These have 'proper' processors and can do everything that a C2D can do. The downside is to get all of this power is a small package you pay more (usually alot more). If you don't mind the cost then there are some great models from Sony, Toshiba, Asus and Lenovo.

Hope this helps

[BDStevens]

Not alot more to add than to agree with the above. I've got an Acer One with 16gb ssd running Linux Mint and with alot of tweaks it's tolerable.

The One will not play back anything downloaded from iPlayer (due to the DRM) or HD video (due to the poor video processor). My 6 year old Acer 1.7 Centrino / Pentium M (definately single-core!) will play these ok and can be picked up a whole lot cheaper s/h (though you don't get the battery life).

In fact I'm quite shocked at the current price of netbooks. I got the One only June/July last year for £160 but netbooks seems to be double that now which makes a cheap laptop better vfm imo.

[Glamdring]

This is the thing; portability and battery life. The new Atom 1.6 should give reasonable performance. No?

[Chris_in_the_UK]

What about a......... nah, forget it - you'll only abuse me :wink:

[andrewa]

I had a HP laptop and bought a NC10 a while ago, the NC10 is now my main computer and the laptop stays at the office, i think its a great little machine :)

[Glamdring]

What about a......... nah, forget it - you'll only abuse me :wink:

I was waiting for that. I even thought about getting in first but I praise your strength of will. :)

[Chris_in_the_UK]

What about a......... nah, forget it - you'll only abuse me :wink:

I was waiting for that. I even thought about getting in first but I praise your strength of will. :)

:lol: :lol: :lol:

actually.....

[Seamaster73]

What is this, The Antiques Roadshow ?

iPad, FTW. 8)

[Glamdring]

iP*d? The last time I bought those they did make my shoes more comfortable but didn't do much for my computing.

Only the truly [s:atnuff7i]infected[/s:atnuff7i] dedicated Apple fanboy could advocate something they've never seen, won't let me type properly, hasn't been tested in the real world and isn't yet on sale. And will still be more expensive than a netbook with the same battery life.

[Vampire]

I bought a Samsung N130 to use on the road when I'm working (surveying). The compact size is superb, but it's shockingly slow to use when you have a couple of big Word documents open and are trying to cut and paste anything.

In fact, it's reduced me to a rage a couple of times this week, so I ordered an upgrade of the RAM from 1Gb to 2Gb to see if that helps at all. It arrived about 10 minutes ago and I haven't had chance to fit it yet.

Certainly the cheaper Netbooks are really all about portability, and ok for email and web browsing. Anything more really needs something more meaty.

[Glamdring]

I'd be interested to know how much difference the extra RAM makes. Sometimes it can be chalk and cheese.
You do have all of the current Windows updates for it? I read it can make quite a difference if you don't.

[thenikjones]

I've used an ASUS eee901 for the last year with 512MB RAM and the 12GB solid state HDD. Do all my home web surfing on it and light MS Office [2003 version]. It runs Windows XP. I use the Chrome browser as I find it quicker than IE, and Firefox never seems to run well for me.

Takes about 30 seconds to boot and battery is a good 6 hours. I use it on business trips, slower to type on than my desktop but so much more convenient to carry than a proper laptop. Fine for video Skype with the wife [which an iPad won't do until Version 2, if ever]

I wouldn't want one as my only computer, but for travelling and basic "typing up meeting notes" in hotels it is fantastic. For ~£200 it has been very good value for me. It is a 9" screen, most netbooks now are 10".

[NJH]

I/we have an Acer netbook, a MacBook normal size(13"ish) for Apple and another Acer but full size laptop with 15"ish screen. TBH only the first 2 are really portable but the MacBook is still pretty heavy for me and only just fits in my flight bag, I have travelled around with it a lot and size wise it just about works fine but I wish it was lighter. I can only echo what has been said above about netbooks, I find it a complete PITA to do anything other then web browsing. Mrs NJH uses it to go on facebook etc. as that is really all its good for. TBH I am going off laptops full stop, after looking at the size and clarity of desktop screens you can get now for doing stuff like photo editing I think I need to go back to a proper computer.

There must be some decent quality PC laptops with 13" ish screens and decent battery life, or does everyone who wants this sort of thing buy a MacBook :lol:

[Vampire]

I'd be interested to know how much difference the extra RAM makes. Sometimes it can be chalk and cheese.
You do have all of the current Windows updates for it? I read it can make quite a difference if you don't.

Yes fully updated, I'm a bit anal about that. :)

Ok RAM is in, and it does seem to be noticeably faster than before, for example launching MS Word. I did also change the graphics settings so it's optimised for performance now, rather than looking nice. I'll have to see how much better it is when I start doing work on it next week.

[GOAT]

Got an NC10- very pleased
stepson upgraded it to 2gb memory for about £25- seems a great little tool for about £250 all-in
vodaphone dongle is pretty good too, for when you're out and about.
Goat

[chaplad]

anyone know if one of these netbooks with a dongle would be anygood for playing poker online? ta

[ingenioren]

Gotta' agree with Simon, bought a Samsung NC10 for the Mrs., and it has long battery life - and works very well, fast and with very good resolution.
Bought myself a Macbook pro and am still struggling to get used to it after 15 years with PC !!! (missing the Outlook features in particular, despite installing software claiming emulate !)
Peter

(p.s. re other post, must check the actual 'first past the post' issue :wink: )

[Seamaster73]

Bought myself a Macbook pro and am still struggling to get used to it after 15 years with PC !!! (missing the Outlook features in particular, despite installing software claiming emulate !)

Have you installed Office for Mac? There's hardly any difference between Entourage and Outlook.

[Glamdring]

Interesting; thanks for that. I have read of them but had forgotten about them. They are of course substantially more expensive than a netbook.

[NJH]

How abut those ULPC, e.g. Asus UL30 ?

Now that does look good, really good.

[lordgrover]

Celeron processor. Will be pants. Likely Atom performance with multi-core power consumption.