Netbook Or Laptop? - Comments Page 1

I disagree with some points:

You can install 2 Gig ram in a netbook and
the Atom CPU is more than fast enough for most applications that don't need very high resources like Photoshop, but why would you want to use a 10 inch monitor for that anyway?

the Asus comes with 160 Gig hard drive. That's not small even these days.

The keyboard on the Asus is 92% of a full size keyboard, which makes it quite comfortable to type on.

And finally, Most netbooks come with Windows XP installed.

Other than these, great article.

"Most netbooks run some version of the Linux operating system, shaving at least $100 off a netbook's cost versus using Windows."

Is this true? I believe Windows XP is the most common operating system. Many of the early netbooks were returned due to the Linux OS.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Okay, let's say "many" instead of "most".

I have two HP Mini Netbooks (model 1000) (one with a HD, one with SSD). Oddly, the traditional HD is a faster machine currently. The solid-state drive is so slow as to be unworkable. The other is barely fast enough for even simple browsing.

I did add 1GB of RAM from Crucial to each and had to remove it. There were too many issues even after updating the BIOS, which was recommended by Crucial.

Using ANY CPU or disk intensive application just doesn't work well on this version of a netbook.

Based on this experience, I would apply the $400-$500 spent to a traditional laptop or Mac.

I love my Acer Aspire. I took it to China & Tibet, banged it aroung in my daypack, took it over 17,000 feet, and plugged it into every internet source with no problems to check email, send photos, etc. I downloaded photos every couple of days into it and did quick edits, kept a journal, etc. I would never have taken a "real" laptop on the trip, and would have worried much more about it if I had. Mine has a real hard drive (160 gigs) and runs XP, and cost under $300.

I have an Acer Aspire one and love it. It has a 160g HD which is plenty big enough. It came with Windows XP installed but I have installed Linux on it and use it as a duel boot. Linux is what I use most as it does all the internet things I want to do.

I have both a laptop (a Dell Inspiron) and a netbook (the Asus eee PC). I take the netbook ("Tiny") places I would never take my serious Dell - the beach, work, road trips. They serve very different purposes in my life.

I make a cross country trip every summer to house sit and oversee a home business for friends while they are away on an extended trip. In the past, had problem accessing their computers because they were always in use by staff for business. Last year I took a regular size laptop with me but carrying it along with my carryon luggage and purse was extremely cumbersome.

This year, I bought an Acer Aspire One shortly before my trip. It is small enough and light enough to slip into my purse (with a neoprene sleeve protecting it), and it really saved my back not having to lug around a heavy laptop.

It worked flawlessly with the wifi at their home as well as in the airports. It was perfect for accessing email, browsing the internet and doing some word processing. I had no difficulty at all with adjusting to the somewhat smaller keyboard, and the 9.8 inch screen has a sparkling clear picture that was easy to ready. I love the portability, and found it to be a perfect travel companion. I am thrilled with my decision to get it.

Hi Bob! Greetings to you from Cincinnati. We're in the middle of a hot and extremely muggy spell reminiscent of the mid-Hudson valley.

W/ regard to netbooks, I have an ASUS Eee and am very happy w/ it (although I'm typing on my laptop at the moment). I got it for work - actually had them buy it for me because I travel back and forth between 2 campuses of Cincinnati Christian School and wanted to carry my files w/ me. I maintain a huge multi-sheeted Excel file where I track all the purchases I make for the school (everything from posters to textbooks to smart boards).

Previously, I was trying to view the data on my 4+ yr old large-screened PPC6600 when I was out of my office and away from my desktop PC. It's sooo much easier now on my netbook. The netbook is so light and easy to carry around - it fits easily into several of my larger purses - even w/ the little padded sleeve that comes w/ it.

It's a bit of an adjustment to type on the netbook - even for my hands, which are on the small side, but it's okay once you get used to it. I also miss the brightness & clarity of my laptop, but the ASUS Eee serves its purpose well.

Take care,
Karen

I bought the Aspire One as a net book only to discover that the computing resources it comes with are more than adequate for what I need for work. I love the thing. I run Open Office on it, storing my data on an SD card.

Now I find full sized note books bulky.

I have an Asus EEE netbook that I actually like very well. It is nice and light weight and easily carried on the plane. The only thing I could wish different is that it had a CD/DVD drive on it, but I am considering buying an external one since I use my portable DVD player quite a bit and so would be able to eliminate carrying that with me. The keyboard is a little small, but for what I use it for it works very well.

While I agree with you that the netbooks are a little slower and the screens are smaller, many of the systems now offer hard drives as large (or sometimes larger!) than a traditional laptop. Windows OS is also available for those that don't want to make the Linux leap. My netbook runs anything/everything that my laptop does except for graphics intensive programs. But my favorite reasons for having a netbook are the incredible length of battery life and the light weight. I can carry it to conferences and don't have to worry about finding a power source to recharge during the day (don't have to carry the charger in my bag, either!) or wrecking my back/shoulder from carrying the additional weight of a traditional laptop.

I have an EeePC that had a 1.66Ghz Intel Chip, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB harddrive which isn't all that bad. I use it for my mobile computer. I have a home built quad core powerhouse of a desktop at home for gaming but I find myself grabbing the Netbook just because it's so light and easy to carry around and get quick information out of. The battery last around 7 hours so I can just grab it and go unlike my wifes laptop which requre that she haul all the power cords with her since laptops only seem to have an hour and a half of power at best.

Best gadget I've ever bought.

I have an Eee PC 1000H running Windows XP which I use for traveling, (far lighter than a laptop), as a backup work computer (spreadsheets, word processing), and fun.
No problems playing Shoutcast radio, video and TV programs, (recorded on my MacBook Pro). You can't do it all at once, but music whilst I work, or surf the internet is no problem.
If you have the bandwidth, Skype works fine.

Hi Bob, First, thanks for all the great advice you offer. I own an Acer 1 aspire which came with 1 gig of ram and 160 gig hard disk. True the netbooks don't come with an optic drive but this is easily overcome with an external cd/dvd drive. Though it comes with I think a rather large hard drive considering it's size, it probably doesn't need it with everything become webbed based. I have even used my netbook with Magic Jack and saved $$$ on phone calls. I also upgraded the Ram from the standard 1gig to 1.5 gig. The 1 gig that comes with the unit is divided into 1 512 mg chip and 512 mg incorporated into the mother board. The process of the upgrade is not for the novice because the keyboard has to be removed and the motherboard is facing down so it has to be raised to remove the 512mg to replace it with 1gig. There is a great utube video which shows the procedure. All in all I am very happy with the Acer.
Thanks,
Steve Curling Steve1600@aol.com

Yes - got a reconditioned Aspire One for $220 - and I love it - for travel and mobility around the house.

I might spring the extra bucks for the six cell battery though.

I have an EEE PC 1000 with 40 gigs of ssd storage. It came with a version of Xandros Linux but I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix Linux on it. I'm thinking about getting getting an EEE PC 1000HE for the extra 120 gigabytes of storage and extra hour of battery life. I wish I could get a version with linux preinstalled on it because I don't want microsoft to make money from my purchase because windows is pre-installed on it from the factory. I like my EEE PC 1000 but I can't put movies on it because they are so large in size, and my music collection doesn't fit on it either. Other than that it runs anything that don't use ridiculously high resolutions, a video card or a huge hard drive, at least if you are running Ubuntu Netbook Remix Linux. Ubuntu Easy Peasy does a similar job but I've run into a few bugs with it. I can't vouch for any other operating systems though because I haven't used them.

Thanks to Bob's initial analysis of netbooks, coming magically at a time when my PDA was giving up the ghost and I just couldn't find a new one which did everything I needed, I purchased a Dell Mini Inspiron 9.

I bought it through Vodafone so it came with mobile Internet (and although not cheap, I didn't have the upfront cost of a new PDA and pay a monthly cost (comparable to a mobile phone subscription) for the mobile Internet and the netbook together.

After slimming down the OS and installing a few tools etc. I subscribed to LogMeIn. Now I have access to my desktop PC wherever I am - and that's one hell of a lot of computing power.

The best thing is that now all my information, which used to be split between my desktop and my PDA, is now in one place and never has to be duplicated. Amazing - thanks, Bob!

Bob, what do you think of Novatel's (NVTL) new MiFi?

Great article. You summed it up very well, along w/the ppl this product could be helpful if not essebtial to. Judging from some comments this is a great forum. Many thanks to all contributors-I have some great info now.

I have heard that Santa will be bringing me an Acer Netbook for Christmas. It has Windows 7 Starter. Should I be concerned? I understand that this only allows three programs to run at one time and that includes the virus program. I love it because it is purple, but I could give that up if there is a better OS.