Net Books

[mr ailsbury]

I was going go get a laptop for doing paperwork, maybe playing a few games (Grim Fandango and World of Warcraft), surfing the net watching HD video (from Vimeo, stuff I film on my 7D) and quickly checking photographs/video when i'm out with my camera, but after putting my mates laptop in my camera bag and carrying it round for a while I quickly decided its going to be wayyy to heavy for a day to day thing. So it came to netbooks.

I've borrowed my dads which he got from work (Samsung NC10) and its ok... only really browsed the net on it and used word once but its ok. bit slow but I don't really know what to expect speed-wise from them yet. What I basically want to know is

Am I expecting too much for a netbook to handle all of this?

Who on here has a netbook? (especially photographers, designers, film makers) and whats your opinion on how useful they are

What brands/models should I be looking for? Don't really want to spend more than £300 ideally.

cheers

[Tony Harrison]

PM Al_fel on here - he had the same one as me for sale dirt cheap - not sure if he still has it.

I bought the 8.9" screen Acer Aspire One (HD version) and then added 1Gb of extra RAM and bought a 7hr battery, oh and installed Windows XP. Since then it's been to over 20 countries, down drains and mines, up towers, mountains, etc, etc. I run Photoshop CS4 on it for when I need to edit photos whilst I'm away, and it does it fine, even before the RAM upgrade. It's a tough little b'stard, and it's also handy if you want to watch a film of your own on a coach/bus, type something up, etc.

Mine was £200 new, plus more for the RAM and battery. My bro bought a 10" screen MSI for £180 new the other day - also very good. And if you're buying new, you may aswell go for 10" screen (or 11.6"?).

[Tomm]

I wouldn't get a netbook for what you want. For photo editing and particularly HD video you mentioned, no netbook is really powerful enough. I find them horrible to use, too - rubbish keyboard, rubbish, cheap, trackpad and small screen. They are cheap and lovely and small, though. So it's up to you. I had a brief look at them a few weeks ago and concluded that the Samsungs were probably the most solid-looking and had the best keyboards. But still rubbish IMO.

I want a Macbook Air... Best of every world (quality, tiny size but useable screen and keyboard, actually pretty quick). Shame about the price!

[Al_Fel]

I'll post some pics of the one I've got a bit later if you're interested.

[Captain Scarlet]

HD Video is definately out of the question.

Paperwork and things, really can't fault them. I use mine to take notes in lectures, even if I don't use it, it fits comfortably in my bag due to its size so I don't have to lug an extra laptop bag around with me.

[JT!]

My wife recently got an 11.6" dell, the very basic model. Certainly doesn't play HD things, probably wouldn't run photoshop unless you got a better spec but the keyboard size and screen size are really good.

[MadManMike]

My wife recently got an 11.6" dell, the very basic model. Certainly doesn't play HD things, probably wouldn't run photoshop unless you got a better spec but the keyboard size and screen size are really good.

Depends what you mean by really good - 11.6 is tiny and I'd never class it as really good, however I am looking at getting a netbook for work, purely because they're easy to carry around and can handle basic tasks pretty well.

There seems to be a few of reasonable spec on eBay for about £200. Search eBay for Netbook, filter by pricing and look around the £200 mark, then find the best you can for the money.

Any less and they seem to be beaten up second hand ones or terrible spec.

[Joe Aston]

Iv got a HP Mini110 and i love it, i took it traveling with me and used it for all my photographic needs, when in photoshop CS2 it was a little bit sluggish but since iv been back iv upgraded the ram to 2gb for only £20 and its much nicer now. The screen is useable but not idea for photoshop i only get a screen res of 1024 by 600 so some aplications wont run. But no im home i just hook it up to a monitor and wirless keyboard and mouse and its all i use pritty much.

I got mine back in january but i think the specs will have got better and no doubt the price would have come down. So my advice would be that for what your wanting from it i would recomened getting one.

Also a lot of them can be made into hackingtosh machines if you like OSX.

[Fish-Finger-er]

HD Video is definately out of the question.

Paperwork and things, really can't fault them. I use mine to take notes in lectures, even if I don't use it, it fits comfortably in my bag due to its size so I don't have to lug an extra laptop bag around with me.

ive got a compaq mini 311c 11.6" netbook and it does 1080p fine, or does 720p and web browsing fine.

[JT!]

Depends what you mean by really good - 11.6 is tiny and I'd never class it as really good, however I am looking at getting a netbook for work, purely because they're easy to carry around and can handle basic tasks pretty well.

Well she was looking for something between 10.1" and 13.3". So the 11.6 worked out perfectly.

What I'm saying is it's an extra inch and a half on the mini's makes it the best of both words. Small enough for it to be carried around easily and big enough to be used comfortably compared to a 10" screen which is a little too far.