Netbook advice

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nitrobass24

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2009
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Looking to get a netbook in the near future, and wanted to get [H] input.

I have been using a company issued laptop for the last year, but i dont want to take it on vacation with me so i am looking for something to do the basics.

Check [H]
Play movies

The most important things for me in order
  1. Battery Life
  2. Battery Life
  3. Picture Quality
  4. ATT compatible(havent decided if I will get data plan or just tether)
  5. Windows 7 based.

What are some brands i should look at?
What should i steer clear of?
 
I personally would recommend the Asus EEE pc 1005pe / peb.

If all you want to do is listen to music, browse the net and do some word processing you should be good. Take note that while doing all this I was maxing the processor out. In fact having to many tabs open at once in chrome was stressing the pc pretty hard, to the point that wmp would skip. This wasn't a big problem just something that I haven't experienced on a pc in a very long time.

I can say that the pc works with 1GB of ram, however I'm constantly near max with about 4-5 chrome tabs open, a word document up, wmp playing some foreigner, some miscellaneous asus programs running in the back ground and some more uninstalling i was up to around 800-900 MB of ram being used. However I think this is the most you could be doing at once on this netbook because while doing all this the little atom processor was having a heart attack.

After upgrading to 2GB of RAM, I can say I don't notice any real performance benefits due to the fact that this thing is very heavily cpu bottlenecked. I'm yet to see RAM usage above 900MB.

One final note on the keyboard, there is slight flexing when hitting keys towards the middle of the board, however I was only able to notice this by looking down at the keyboard.

Overall I am very pleased with this little guy, infact I typed this on the 1005peb, it only reduced my typing speed slightly and I only made a few more typos than normal. Overall a very usable netbook.

I feel that my biggest hindrance is the trackpad is just too small, however this is easily fixed by buying a wireless mouse

The battery life on 1005peb is excellent, I use it with brightness on the second to lowest setting, browsing the internet and it lasts for hours. I haven't had a chance to time it because I've been using the same charge for over a week.

I guess this could play movies I haven't really tried, it has trouble playing hulu videos and is in general sluggish.

If all you want is a cheap way to always have a pc with you and don't intend on using it for much then a netbook is for you. However, if you want to use the laptop as a computer and watch internet videos, program or play games in any form I'd highly reccomend spending the extra $250 and getting an culv core 2 duo based ultra portable. I'd reccomend the Asus ul20A
 
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Its mostly for watching movies on airplanes.

I would also consider a tablet.

Im just looking for something light and easy to put in my backpack when i travel.

Anything Tegra based? Would love to have portable HD :D
 
Gateway makes really good tablets, my CCNA instructor at college has one, it's a very sweet piece of portable machinery. I don't know what exact model it is, but i figure for your useage scenario and for what you could do outside of taking it on vacation, a tablet is a strong contender to consider.

If you're hung on getting a notebook but you don't really care about price, the Alienware M11x is a decent buy, it can even lap MW2 at decent frame rates and has a good resolution on the screen.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/23/alienware-m11x-review/
 
If you looking for a netbook, I also recommend the Asus 1005 series. I have an older 1005HA-P and I love it, runs Windows 7 Ultimate great with Aero running. Battery life is about 9-10 hours on average. The 1005P would be slightly faster and have better battery life too. I would recommend upgrading to 2gb of memory on a netbook running Windows 7 though.
 
Any thoughts on the Dell Mini 10v?
Found one on CL for $200

Not opposed to spending more money, but if its not going to get me much more then i dont see the point...ya know
 
acascianelli said:
If you looking for a netbook, I also recommend the Asus 1005 series. I have an older 1005HA-P and I love it, runs Windows 7 Ultimate great with Aero running. Battery life is about 9-10 hours on average. The 1005P would be slightly faster and have better battery life too. I would recommend upgrading to 2gb of memory on a netbook running Windows 7 though.
Click to expand...

There are so many versions of the ASUS.

is the 1008 better than a 1005?
 
IIRC, the major difference between the 1005 and 1008 series is that the 1008 have all hidden ports. They're kind of like a poor mans MacBook Air. They're thinner, and have a non-removable battery.
 
nitrobass24 said:
There are so many versions of the ASUS.

is the 1008 better than a 1005?
Click to expand...

I have a 1005PEB and if you want to watch movies on it.... well, there is no DVD drive (might not be a big deal to some, but still) It's a really nice netbook, does everything I need it to do, been really happy with it so far.
 
YOu want the 1001p or 1005pe because it has the new n450 atom processor which yields enhanced battery lfie.
 
volt01 said:
YOu want the 1001p or 1005pe because it has the new n450 atom processor which yields enhanced battery lfie.
Click to expand...

+1

With so many N450 powered netbook available, there really isn't any reason to get a N270/N280 powered netbook anymore, unless you find one at a phenomenal price.
 
EEEPC 1005 series, get it with 2GB of RAM and XP instead, also get the 6-cell battery.

Why? Because Win7 Starter (aka cripple edition) is stripped down garbage....just get an OEM version of Win7 Ultimate to throw on it, my 1005HA with 1GB ram loves it.

Why get it with 2GB out of the box? because it costs the same....it has 1 DIMM slot, so I need to buy a 2GB DIMM to upgrade, then find a place to hock off a 1GB DDR2 533 DIMM. It's worth the time to not deal with it.

Battery life is great, multimedia capabilitiy is OK, the newer 1005 model is much more powerful and just as efficient (uses a more efficient chipset, the 1005HA still uses a regular notebook chipset, which eats more power than it's CPU). I still get an average of 3.5-4hours on a 3-cell battery though (display down, using either bluetooth or 802.11 but not both at once).

Either way, the Asus is still king of battery life. Dell has the toughest netbook (Latitiude 2100), and Alienware has a gaming lappy small enough to look like a netbook which gets decent battery life by throttling the hell out of itself when needed(M11X). Choice is yours.
 
Everyone has been throwing out Asus, but I'm going to step out of the box and throw out..

..Gateway! I returned my Asus 1005HAB because it was a POS. horrible keyboard, horrible screen, horrible touchpad, horrible lid. I hated it. It took WAY to much to click the touchpad buttons down. It was not a good laptop... at all.

I picked up a Gateway lt2104u and I love it. It's spectacular.

I currently have firefox open with 9 tabs. Foobar2000 playing some Breaking Benjamin. Putty screen'd into my linux server, dropbox syncing, and I'm watching House on VLC. No stuttering at all.

it's got the following specs (minus the 2gb of ram.. i added it myself)
:
* Intel Atom n450 @ 1.66ghz
* 2GB DDR2 667
* 250GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
* 10.1in 1024×600
* Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 256MB shared video memory
* Integrated webcam and digital microphone
* 5-in-1 Media Card reader
* Built-in wireless LAN (802.11b/g/n)
* Weighs 2.8 lbs. and measures just 1″ thin
* 6 Cell battery for ~8hour batter life
* Windows 7 Starter Edition

I love it. Utterly love it. here is a review i wrote for it. check it out. I would deff. consider it.

http://johnspalding4.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/gateway-lt2104u-review/

Bestbuy for $330
 
Understand this in regards tord the Gateway LT2104u Netbook:
The PC only comes with 1GB DDR2 667 chipset.. So I do not see why the poster above stated the system has the specs of 2GB DDR2 667..
(However 2GB's is supported as an upgrade)

HOWEVER:
I will state this that the LT2104u is great in my book..
The reasons why are as follows:
1) Customer service: Its much better then what they used to by (its about damn time)
2) Performance: I will agree that with VLC, Firefox and what not I have yet to have slowdown or any spit/sputter issues via videos (however I will admit that if the vids are in HD then there is slow down - this is just how it is with netbooks)
3) Hard Drive: 250GB drive has the enough space that will truly ever be needed for a portable device
4) Screen: By far one of the best screens in regards toward no glare issues (due to back lighting) while still having great viewing angles - Plus the color is (to me at least) superior to any ASUS netbooks I have seen.
(Compared ASUS-Gateway-HP side by side at BestBuy)
5) Windows 7 Starter: Im rather surprised with it as it runs smooth (even on just 1GB RAM).. All apps any even some small (10-50Mbs) video conversions I run with in W7S with Format Factory ran rather quick with only a max of 726mbs RAM used!..
(For peak performance however I would suggest to downgrade to XPSP3 as W7 uses about 50Mbs more RAM-However I have had no issues as of yet with W7S)
6) Battery Life: Had a max of 10.3Hrs with this netbook.. Lowest time I have ever had with none stop use was 7.7Hrs (thats while using FireFox as well as video conversions most of the time..
(Plus the way they have the battery installed is a great future as the bulk of the battery is used as a lift for the labtop so it does not rest flat - Thus when on a table it will have max cooling from the fan)
7) Keyboard: The keyboard it self is perfect to me.. The shift key is where it needs to be as well as having the FN key to use other factors with in the keyboard is great as well.. Plus its Multitouc witch is always a great thing..
Only issue is the keyboard buttons are flat as I would have liked them to be a bit beveled inwards so your fingers could rest on them other then gliding above them.. However this is not a noticable issue after using the netbook for a few mins
8) Looks: one of the better netbooks in terms of how stylish netbooks are now days.. Its sleek-LED's are not bother-sum at night (however are very functional witch is a great thing)..
Sure in hell doesnt feel as much as a toy as some of the Dells & ASUS netbooks I have seen

In short I would go with the Gateway LT2104u just for the screen/Battery Life/Keyboard layout & Looks in general!..
Plus being a bit over $300 the price is the cheapest for what you get in comparison to the rest..

Later,
Civic/Scootin
 
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