Best netbook for my needs?

andy1000

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Hi,

Perhaps I'm being a bit presumptuous, but I'm very soon hoping to be able to afford a netbook and was wondering what opinions are on the following models? Before that, I'll list my major considerations when I've been doing my research:

1) my max budget is £275, ideally inc. postage.

2) I'm swaying towards Win XP as I'm used to the operating system and want to be able to store some music (obviously depending on hard drive size) and sync with my iPod which I use as my main music library now. The more I read about the different Linux OS's too slightly scare me! :rolleyes:

3) I want 1Gb RAM

4) Battery life isn't hugely important to me, as the same for size/portability, as I'm planning on my netbook replacing my knackered laptop for home use (surfing and occasional office apps). I expect I'll need it on battery power for no more than 10% of it's usage time.

The choices I've been looking at are:

Advent 4211
- seems like a good size hard-drive.
- gets some good reviews online.

Acer One A150 (1Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD, Win XP)
- A great sized hard drive for storing music, even with XP as OS
- seems you either love it or hate it based on reviews
- I'm slightly put off by the trackpad size and button configuration

Asus Eee PC 901 (WinXP)
- Great battery life
- Relatively small SSD with XP as OS
- Small(er) keyboard
- possibly still above my price range

Asus Eee PC 900 (Win XP)
- Relatively small SSD with XP as OS
- Small(er) keyboard
- I've read about problems with the SSD on the Linus 16Gb version, plus it's reported as being quite slow in use
- possibly a 'bit old' compared to the other 3 netbooks?

So....the only one of the above I've seen in person (locked under a plastic case in Dixon's no less) has been the Acer One, and it did look nice, but as mentioned above I'm a little dubious of the trackpad with my large(ish) fingers.

It seems the prices for the Advent, Acer One and Asus 901 are all similar on XP, but which would people recommend?

Should I wait a while and see if the prices come down too, or just bite the bullet and get the Asus 900 or the Acer with Linux. I'm going away at the end of November for a week, so will definitely want it by then, with preferably a bit of lead-up time to get used to it. :)

Thanks for reading and any advice given!

Andy
 
Well I have the Acer and i mjust say its fantastic, i would probably recommened that you get to your local pc world store and if there working try them out side by side with the EEE PC.
I did and found the looks etc of the ASUS was a little adolescent and child like and I didnt care much for the black surround border round the screen,
The Acer looks more upmarket and performs really well for the size and the linux based OS is good for what it does.
The touchpad gets a bit of getting used to but you get the hang of it after a few days. The casing and designs very sleek and is a pleasure to look at and use as well as the keyboard being a bit bigger than the eee pc i fnd it relatively easy to type letters and calender notes on.
Acer gets the thumbs up from me, although i must admit i have not used the Advent but have used the HP version and still like the Acer over them both.

M
 
Thanks for the reply.

My initial choice was the Acer I have to admit, and the larger keyboard's good as I do type quite a lot on forums. I'm currently using an old(ish) Advent laptop which has the mouse keys either side of the trackpad, so I know that I could get used to their position, but the small pad itself makes me wonder slightly.

On the other hand, I would feel more comfortable with Windows in the long-run as I'm a lot more used to it than Linus. I seem to spend enough time faffing around with computer software without the additional hair-pulling caused by a Linux GUI. Unfortunately the current £299+ price tag of the Acer XP machine is just out of my price range. Plus, like I say I want to be able to use iTunes so the larger hard-drive of the Acer Linux machine isn't that much help on that front!

As I seem to have now somehow melted the AC adaptor socket to the laptop power socket on this Advent, plus it's loose so the AC power is a little intermittent (and as my previous Acer laptop has gone the way of a broken power socket) I'm really looking for something which will last on this front. The longer battery life of the Asus 901 does seem possibly a good compromise as I could run on battery for longer and just charge it up when I have to. I don't know if this is advisable or if either the Acer or the Advent have any problems reported yet on this front?

I am narrowing my choices down to the Acer One or the Asus 901 (at the moment), but I'm sure the Advent 4211 may sneak back in there soon!

I could go to PCWorld, but it's the other side of town plus from a lot of comparisons or reviews I've read online it seems quite difficult to find all the different machines in stock!

Sorry for the rambling post here. Just trying to clarify my thoughts!

Andy
 
Many poeple are using XP on the Acer now check out the Acer One User forums lots of helpful advice on there, only id go with the 1gb Ram and 120gb HDD if your going to put XP on once you have it, not many people have experienced any problems loading it and using it.
Just something to think about!.
 
Excellent find Bigbaz - thanks!

And thanks Mike - I'll check out that forum too!

Andy
 
I was able to use my existing Win XP CD with my Acer and also had a 32GB SDHC card from my previous netbook (Eee PC 701) - bringing the storage up to 152GB for £230.

As people have already said, the keyboard's an excellent size and it's nice that the hard drive can be upgraded for the future.

I need to upgrade my Acer to at least 1GB RAM because videos are really choppy with the 512MB RAM.
 
Hi,

Well after several weeks of deliberation over various brands of netbooks and whether to go Linux or XP, I can finally comment on my shiny new Aspire One under XP (1Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD).

I really love it already
icon_e_biggrin.gif


I've found typing to be no harder than on my old full size laptop (certainly I don't seem to be making any more mistakes than usual
icon_lol.gif
) and the screen size & clarity is really very good.

Build quaslity too is very sturdy, yet it's amazing how light this machine is. I won't have any qualms about putting this in my bag if I'm going away anywhere, especially if it's inside the slipcase that came in the box. The fan makes a very small hum and only seems to kick in when necessary, which is great after my old laptop which used to sound like it was taking off most of the time!

Set-up took the usual hour or two as I've come to expect of Windows - I immediately uninstalled the trial version of McAfee and put on ZoneAlarms and AVG. I had to fiddle about with Firefox 3 once I'd downloaded it in order to maximise the screen space, but thanks to a few tips over on the AspireOne forum this was no hardship :)

The wireless picked up my network immediately and seems fast and excellent connectivity wise too. Even iTunes 8 downloaded in less than 5 mins (I know, I know, I really should use something other than iTunes, but it'll sync easily with my iPod and play the few DRM albums I've bought!
icon_redface.gif
)

I upgraded to the newest BIOS (v.3304) in order to avoid some black-screen & bricking problems some users have experienced under the old one (v.3114) but even this wasn't a massive or complicated task - simply enable my USB to be bootable and run a few simple commands in DOS at start-up, and all updated.

My only gripe so far is with the trackpad. Not because of the size or button layout, but because firstly there was a slight 'hump' of plastic on it which I kept on catching my finger on, and secondly because the pad seems slightly 'rough' to the touch and not as smooth as my old Acer or my daughter's Advent laptop. I'm sure I'll get used to it over time though.

All in all, full thumbs up to the AA1!
icon_e_biggrin.gif


Andy
 
Why not just pick up a £5.00 usb mouse from argos or wherever if you don't like the trackpad?
 
Well done on getting there Andy, picking a netbook is really hard. Im still struggling, should it be the asus netbook or perhaps the msi. Im looking forward to getting away from Windows as it cuts the price as well, but im kindof curious if there are going to be any more netbook suprises on the run up to christmas and should I just wait for the January Sales?
 
Well done on getting there Andy, picking a netbook is really hard. Im still struggling, should it be the asus netbook or perhaps the msi. Im looking forward to getting away from Windows as it cuts the price as well, but im kindof curious if there are going to be any more netbook suprises on the run up to christmas and should I just wait for the January Sales?

If your going with the msi donn't forget that the advent 4211 is basically the same machine with a handy £50 or so off!
 
nice review there, does the loss of an optical drive bother you at all??
I work in a pc shop and i need to decide on a netbook for home use, i was going to go for the acer one but now ive got the samsung into my mind
 
Hi Folks, I'm looking at getting a netbook and have found your posts interesting, this may be a silly question but with no optical drives how would I install my required software (Photoshop, MS Office etc.)? Would I also need to buy an external USB optical drive? Are there any other options as these seem to cost around £50?


Thanks for any help.
 
I've just bought a netbook for my son to use at school as he has a disability (poor fine motor control) which means he really struggles with handwriting.

We looked at a lot of netbooks - my requirements were

Win XP - (I would Linux myself but it was important that my son uses the same software that they use at school)

Battery Life - Can't have power leads draped across the classroom. Has to last a school\exam day without charge.

Weight - He has to lug it around

Rugedness - going to school everday

Trouble is I soon found that these requirements conflict each other, particularly battery life vs weight.

XP can be shoe-horned into small disks but in my opinion he needs a large fast disk - which currently is not SSD.

I really like the Advent 4211. It's nice and neat (a bit bland), light, well built and has every function we need (I thought). It's also the same as the MSI Wind (but cheaper) so there is plenty of support.

But after reading some reading some reviews I found that the 4211 has a low capacity battery which realistically lasts less than 2 hours. The original design was meant to come with a large battery (triple the capacity) but was cut (presumably for weight and cost grounds).

So I decided on the Asus eeePC 1000H in the end.

It's a very nice piece of kit. The downside is the weight (and for the OP, the price) - £320. The upside is a very usuable 6.5 hour battery life.

I know you said that weight isn't important but I do suggest you check it. Every store I visited had the netbooks on display without the battery fitted. I didn't spot this so when I was weighing them up they all felt pretty similar. But I think that with the batteries added the difference in weight becomes much more apparent.

I'm happy with what I bought as the best compromise. I wish it could have been lighter but I couldn't sacrifice on battery life.

If the OP really has a hard and fast budget it may be worth knowing that the Asus machines come with a case\slip, I'm not sure about the Acer but the Advent doesn't so that would be an additional spend.

Have you looked at the Asus 904H in PC World. They are £270, WinXP and 80GB HDD.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Hi, I guess you could either get a USB external optical drive or load the install files of MS Office etc onto an external USB SSD (Solid State Drive) or download openoffice from the net. You can pick up a really cheap external USB for around 30 quid but yes I think the 50 quid saving could easily be swallowed up. And to confuse matters even more I read an interview yesterday from ASUS about them bringing a touch screen laptop ouut in Q1 2009, not sure how that would work from an ergonomic point of view.
 
Thanks for the advice - I have an external USB back up drive, I didn't realise that if I copy the files from my Office install disk I would be able to install from the USB device - just to be sure would that work i.e copy install CD contents to my storage device and then install the software to my new machine just using the stotrage device?


Again, thanks for the advice
 
For anybody looking at the EePC 900 there is a design fault with this model that results in battery drain when it is not plugged in to the charger.

Typically if you have a fully charged battery and then don't use the PC for about a week, the battery will be used up by about 50-60%. I believe it takes about 2 weeks to fully self discharge.

I had one of these and can confirm that this was an issue with no fix available - it is well documented here EeeUser ASUS Eee PC Forum / Power supply drains when eee 900 switched off?

I believe they fixed the issue for the 901

I now have the 1000 and this does not have the issue either
 

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