Netbook opinions?

[Road Guardian]

Currently on Kiwibiker with an Asus 1000H myself, excellent net book, I can never say I have really wanted a CD drive, I have a big TV for watching movies, and I download my music (Legally thank you very much). Size is just perfect, and its great for travelling.

And I get a lot of comments about its size, so small, hey its not the size, its how you use it!!!

[mooks]

[QUOTE=pzkpfw;1923408]Thanks for all opinions so far.

magicfairy: how much of that 16Gb is free out-of-the box? (i.e. after XP is put on it). I liked the look of that Dell - but "only" 16GB and the reviews on the keyboard put me off. (The Dell site is now advertising 3G broadband via Vodaphone - but the links are broken.)

fyi - you can nlite an xp install down to less than 2gig for the solid state machines. My 900 had the 4gig ssd as the main drive with the 20 gig ssd. I moved all files etc to the 20gig and kept the os very small - the most it grew to was 2.1gig (including the monster install of a couple of office apps)

Have a look here:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:nlitexp

[RC1]

Vivienne Tam is hot.

if shes hot im the fucken queen

[magicfairy]

[QUOTE=mooks;1923458]

Thanks for all opinions so far.

magicfairy: how much of that 16Gb is free out-of-the box? (i.e. after XP is put on it). I liked the look of that Dell - but "only" 16GB and the reviews on the keyboard put me off. (The Dell site is now advertising 3G broadband via Vodaphone - but the links are broken.)

the whole drive comes compressed (NTFS) and I think when I got it it had about 12-13 gig still free. But I uncompressed the working directories like windows, not sure it made much difference to performance, and didn't make much difference to space either.

They come with an SD card reader and I have heard of some people putting a 16SD card in to increase storage, but I want that free for the camera when on holiday.

Storage isn't an issue for me as we have home computers with heaps of storage so I just connect wirelessly when I want to play movies etc, or copy to a flash drive. In fact it is better as I dont end up duplicating files all over the place.

My main use for it is super portable internet access, email and takes up bugger all space when motorbike touring.

It didn't come with a carry bag, but I got one for $20 off Trade-me, just a neophrene sleeve.
One of the criticisms you will read about is no F11 key for full screen IE. But the latest bios update maps Fn +Z to F11, which works fine. Also fixes some battery life reporting issues.

I picked Dell because I have good experiences with them in the past, like the look of it and it is all we buy at work (100 plus desktops and servers)
I think the service is still better than if I went back to Dick Smith and complained to a pimply 17 year old.

[scracha]

I'm not a fan of Acer aspires or their desktop but their "one" range of netbooks are much better put together than their other stuff. Plus the Acer 3 year warranty is way cheaper than anything else out there (probably cos it doesn't include courier pickup but there you go). They've just brought out a 10" model too if you think the 9" ones are too small. Unless you're a linux hippy I'd stick to the ones with the traditional hard drives and XP.

http://www.notebookcity.co.nz/produc...gb-89-xph-blue

If you don't need grunt then choose the ones with intel atom over the celeron as the battery life is much better.

[imdying]

I've a couple of Aspire Ones... nice enough, do the job etc etc. Gig of RAM and a 160GB HDD, not sure I'd really benefit from much more... lets face it, they're just throwaway toys. Beautifully light... so easy to take anywhere.

[xwhatsit]

I'd buy that, that's cool. Vivienne Tam is hot.

Well, I suppose being an old fart, your sense of what's good looking is slightly warped.

Still, if I could push away the mental image of her looking like my ex's mum, maybe we could get along.

You have to try out all the keyboards before buying something. Being brought up with several IBM Model Ms, I find it hard to adapt, and it's no good if you're mostly using it just to ssh into other boxes if you can't type fast.

[Manxman]

The EeePC has the most appalling keyboard ever. Reminiscent of an old Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

Very useful though, boots in a flash. If you ever need to look something up... just grab it, hit the power button.

And what, might I ask, was wrong with the ZX Spectrum??? One of the best machines ever built, with a keyboard to match.

P/T over.

Actually, my only claim to fame was nearly winning a Porsche car on Gyron... Sooooo close.

[xwhatsit]

And what, might I ask, was wrong with the ZX Spectrum??? One of the best machines ever built, with a keyboard to match.

P/T over.

Actually, my only claim to fame was nearly winning a Porsche car on Gyron... Sooooo close.

Actually I was a C64 lad. Not quite old enough to have a Spectrum, but I played with a mates one.

Now the C64 had a nice keyboard. How about making a netbook out of one of those?

[SPman]

I have a dell inspiron 910 netbook

Is that the same as the Dell mini 9 sold over here in Aus? - for $549.

[Slicksta]

If you can hold off for a bit the new amd neo will be out soonish same with the Nvida ion.. they will make net books much faster both having decent GFX the intel chipset the atom uses is rubbish in comparison

[scracha]

If you can hold off for a bit the new amd neo will be out soonish same with the Nvida ion.. they will make net books much faster both having decent GFX the intel chipset the atom uses is rubbish in comparison

Aye, but the killer apps for the past 15 years have been web browsing and email. My 80286 managed that quite nicely so I'm sure an Intel Atom is enough for the average netbook user.

[magicfairy]

Is that the same as the Dell mini 9 sold over here in Aus? - for $549.

Yep, I think they are all shipped out of Singapore. Mine came within 4 days of ordering online.

[pzkpfw]

From what I've read it's caused confusion. Some place called Tescos in the UK started selling Dell Mini 10's but shipped people Mini 9's instead. Had to do a lot of refunds.

Apparently the 910 model number was part of the confusion.

The Mini 10 isn't out yet. (Not here, anyway...)