Topic: should I buy a netbook?

[night force cynic]

Any input you folks could offer me?   I'm considering buying one  but I don;'t know

[wraithnine]

i tend to shy away from netbooks as i find their lack of optical drive ,built in graphics and small screen and relatively small amount of RAM and slow processor  very restrictive .

[Tamer]

I have to agree with Jay, I recommend you go to a store where you can get your hands on one for a bit and see it for yourself. The one I was gonna get to replace my awful home laptop was slow, slow, slow and you just didn't have the availability to have too many programs on it. I did like the size of it though.

[narceron]

Depends, my wife loves the netbook.  You can surf the web, do a tiny bit of photo editing, type on word, that sort of thing, email.

But if you have any intenesive programs, like photoshop, the netbook is out.  Not only that, to get the performance we wanted out of a netbook, we had to dump windows and go with linux, which in our case was fine, since we run a box already.

Bottom line, if you just want a super portable internet/email device and can't stand your PDA, the netbook rocks.  but as far as replacing a laptop/desktop, for most users it will not do.

And don't sweat the lack of an optical drive...unless you need to install something from a disk, obviously, we have a sub optical drive, but sparing that, you can also use a networked drive.

I recommend the samsung six cell netbook, works about 6-8 hours of general use, has a cam and net adapter built in and is available in stylish pink(grumble).


With the prices of netbooks/laptops, I just think about what you want to use it as.  Laptops have certainly come down in recent years, so you can normally get one for well under a grand, the laptop we looked at when getting this one was 750 and was pretty much equal to our desktop(minus the graphics card), but we just wanted this for net use and travel(its amazing how light these things are).

[StenHunter]

I have been an avid hardcore gamer, photoshop artist and laptop warrior for a while now.. However, I realized that there was a hole in my life. The desktop was in the bedroom, the laptop was in the kitchen and there were times when all I wanted to do was some light photoshop work, or play an old game, or surf the internet and post on the forums.

I purchased my ASUS EEE PC 1001 about 8 months ago. It has a 9 hour battery life, 10 inch screen and 160 gig hard drive. I purchased a second stick of ram so now there is 2 GIGs. I find that it does all the things I want it to do but on a much smaller scale.

I can have it in the living room while we watch TV. I can share space on the kitchen table while my wife uses the laptop and I can take it to the Starbucks and surf for hours.

As a gamer, I've tried to push this little baby to its limits. (which it does have). The graphics card is the main bottleneck and if you can get over the fact that you'll not be playing WOW or Modern Warfare on it then you'll do just fine.

I installed a DOS emulator and I am reliving all my old games like Xcom, Doom and Janes Fighters.

Not having a CD drive has not had any effect on my at all. I use the network drive, or as everything is now, just download it off the net.

The Netbook has a webcam built in and it has made skypying with my family all the more cooler. I can pick up the netbook and carry it around the house following the kids, or taking it into the kitchen and putting it on the bar. I often talk to my mother while I cook dinner.. Hell she even gives me tips and pointers while I'm there.

I also use the netbook as a mobile camera station. I can quickly offload images from my phone via bluetooth, or from my camera SD card. I can view them on a much larger screen, and do edits to them via Photoshop.

If I'm in range of a hot spot they can go up almost instantly to the web.

To give you an example..  of a good day..
I had to take my car to the shop to get new tires and get a 60k tune up. I dropped the car off and went to breakfast across the street. While I waited for my eggs I used my netbook linked to my phone via bluetooth to connect to the web. I surfed and facebooked and looked up things I normally look up.

Later I went to the starbucks down the street, got some coffee and used their wifi. I played Eve Online (lowest settings) while I looked at the ISY forums.

I played and surfed for a total of about 4 hours while I waited for my car. (breakfast thru coffee) and I still had 3 hours of battery life when I got back to the car repair shop.

I don't think I could have done that with a laptop as easily since my wife would have killed me for taking it for half the day. In the end, I've had several days like this.. were I can just put the netbook in its tiny case, carry it around with me and use it when I need it.

It's been awesome and it only cost me $325 at the time. I would say if you have the need for a small, light and not a heavy workhorse multipurpose laptop then go with a netbook.
 

[narceron]

one thing I do love the netbook for is being super lazy and controlling my HTPC from the couch...sometimes its just too much trouble to find the keyboard, squint to read it on the big display, etc, so yeah, the netbook rocks that,

[Goldleaderone]

It all depends on what you wanna use the netbook for. I have my own netbook but I only use it for when I travel or go to a friends house, the RAM on it isn't so special. I prefer desktops over netbooks/laptops any day.

[StenHunter]

I agree with you, nothing will replace my desktop. It's a workhorse with games, graphics and video editing. It's a lean machine that can play any game out. However, I can't be with my kids in the living room, or take my laptop to the starbucks for 3 hours... The netbook may not be the same kind of workhorse, but she certainly is a work pony.

To give you another great example of how much I love my netbook... Earlier this year I had to travel for work. The first day there we had an all day conference in a tiny meeting room. We ran out of outlets since everyone brought their laptops.. A few guys only got to work for an hour until theirs died, while I was working all day on the battery.

Later that week we flew out of the VC airport. We got there two hours early... our flight wad delayed another 1.5 hours.. My boss got to use his Dell XPS for 70 minutes since we were no where near an outlet.. I played xcom the entire time, then for another 2 hours on the plane on a single charge and still had plenty of battery left.

Hands down I was showing off and loving it when those other laptops just "turned off" and I kept on going.. it's a great feeling =)

[narceron]

I agree with you, nothing will replace my desktop. It's a workhorse with games, graphics and video editing. It's a lean machine that can play any game out. However, I can't be with my kids in the living room, or take my laptop to the starbucks for 3 hours... The netbook may not be the same kind of workhorse, but she certainly is a work pony.

To give you another great example of how much I love my netbook... Earlier this year I had to travel for work. The first day there we had an all day conference in a tiny meeting room. We ran out of outlets since everyone brought their laptops.. A few guys only got to work for an hour until theirs died, while I was working all day on the battery.

Later that week we flew out of the VC airport. We got there two hours early... our flight wad delayed another 1.5 hours.. My boss got to use his Dell XPS for 70 minutes since we were no where near an outlet.. I played xcom the entire time, then for another 2 hours on the plane on a single charge and still had plenty of battery left.

Hands down I was showing off and loving it when those other laptops just "turned off" and I kept on going.. it's a great feeling =)

LOL, I like your style.

I always play  my PDA in airports,

[narceron]

I took the advice of this thread when getting the wife a new laptop.  I was planning on getting a full on desktop replacement, but the comments in here got me thinking about a netbook.

I didn't go full on netbook, but I did get one of those middleweights, a toshiba satellite.

So far, its awesome.