Fanless netbook a problem or a positive?

[volt01]

I'm thinking about buying a dell mini10 but it's fanless design has me worried. Now that means one less thing to break however won't the netbook just overheat easier?

All I forsee is thermal throttling of my cpu.

Does anyone have any experience with the fanless min10?

 

[DanNeely]

Are these models with an N4xx atom? They're fanless because the combined TDP of cpu+south bridge is only 7W vs the old N2xx atom having 16W between CPU, northbridge, and south bridge.


IIRC the Z5xx atoms had a very low platform TDP; you don't want one of them though even by the low standards of an atom they're slow.

 

[volt01]

Actually the n450 is barely faster than the nzxx series the difference comes in the power consumption of the n450 chipset. The netbooks with the n450 chipset have been getting noticeably better battery lives than the previous nzxx series. Really the only thing that makes it better. Performance wise they are almost identicle.

 

[Teh Lurv]

I own a mini 9, which shares the fanless design of the mini 10. The Atom cpu doesn't emit much heat, the hotspots of my netbook is where the northbridge and the wireless card sits. The N450 on the new mini 10 has an integrated northbridge, but from what reviews I've read, the base can still get warm. At normal room temperatures, I've never had a problem running cpu intensive tasks. The wireless card does get hot streaming hulu for a length of time. The only time I've had my mini 9 throttle on me due to heat was when I watched flash video through wireless during the summer when I had no A/C (90+ degrees ambient room temp. )

A fanless netbook is more sensitive to the ambient temperature of the environment. If you plan on using the netbook in a hot environment, it may not be fore you. That said, I really prefer the fanless design. With an SSD, the mini 9 is dead silent. It's very nice to sit in a quiet room and not have to hear a "whurr" drone. Like you said previously, the lack of a fan does eliminate a point of mechanical failure on the netbook as well.