I was reviewing my horde today and have a dual core atom netbook sitting unused. Although it has a double barrelled Atom and 2GB of RAM, it is dog slow with the supplied Win 7 Starter. I bought it as a "portable HDD with a screen" but even that is a bit painful. I have just downloaded Lubuntu and will put it on a bootable stick. Any useful suggestions of any good use I can put it to please?
Harsh but fair! Even funnier, I have been given a surplus 'small laptop' buy a friend tonight - it's a single core Atom Netbook!!! I hope I have 2 doors that need holding in the house. Pookie, most sensible thanks. Would still like suggestions in the 'Reuse' department please
Nick, thanks for that, I did idly wonder about the sense of putting an SSD in, or whether it was a waste of money as they're not that rapid. That's a handy thought too, thanks docodine. I also wonder if it may be a better or worse client for Netflix than the Wii, which seems pretty wobbly at times. Still investigating to see if dual core Netbook is being rogered by Win 7 as the older singe core 1GB Netbook I just received 'feels' quicker and more responsive with XP... Thanks again guys, it's good to have you all out there
I too have an old netbook: single core Atom, upgraded 2GB RAM but the old 3 cell battery limits it to 1 hour at best. Is it even worth the postage? I honestly can't find a single use for it, I have a MBA and smart TVs for all other needs. It's not even wedge shaped for being a door stopper!
With Ubuntu netbook remix or whatever it's called these days and a modest SSD, you've probably got a good little browser/spotifier/whatever, I reckon!
SSD makes night and day difference. Most of those netbooks that had 2.5" hdd have very slow models which really hurt performance. Dual core Atom 1.6gHz or better are not that bad to use for simple tasks. If it can use modern sata 2.5 ssd or msata it's worth to do something with if you have any use for something portable, or very low power basic use like an htpc. Also, I would highly recommend going with 8.1 if you want to use Windows. It's so much snappier, lighter on resources and massively better optimized for low end tablet spec equivalents unlike 7. XP on anything is a terrible idea, unless you are only using it for legacy purposes for software that can't run on newer and will never connect to the internet. The really old netbooks that have those lousy mpci-e pata based ssd are not worth any effort though. Really nothing can be done with those. Even stripped down netbook oriented linux runs crappy on those.
Thanks for your additional info Ivan, much appreciated. I'll now investigate an inexpensive SSD to play with; both Netbooks are 2.5" conventional HDD. I never could see how those tiny 8GB SSD machines could be good for anything... Interested to hear that Win 8.1 is lightweight and nimble; one NB has XP and the other Win 7 Starter. I'm wondering if the Samsung bloatware may be killing the Dual Core NB, and a change of OS as suggested may redeem it - I guess an SSD will do that whatever the choice.
Considering that Windows 8.1 runs at a fairly respectable (and certainly usable as a tablet) pace on a Z2760 with a truly pathetic eMMC (which really holds it back), I'd imagine a SATA (even with a SATA-150 interface) SSD allied to something like a Z520 wouldn't be entirely unusable.
Kinky, your GF's a bit of a masochist I tried taking a netbook (NC10) on my 3 week stay in Japan. Torturous. I bought a 2 year old inspiron for £85 after the first week and it outstripped it completely! Never had a "burner" laptop before, it was quite novel to give it to a randomer at the airport. They probably took it to lost and found knowing the Japanese....
Her uncle will put xubuntu on it stripping off any remainder of windows. I've always found windows to be slow on netbooks all round.
I use mine as an internet browser. Also anything involving typing should have good use of it (novel writing, remote development, Latex document writing, etc). I use mine for development when I'm in the sofa. Everything is remotly compiled on my desktop through my network. An archlinux with openbox should work well if you fancy the try.
Thanks for the offer I was going to play with it first before making any decisions. They seem typically to be offered at £60 to £80 depending on the spec. For my money, I would buy a used Thinkpad X61; they are miles quicker, super tough and only a bit bigger with a 12"screen. I bought one on the bay last year for £65 all up with HDD, battery (now dead...) and charger and added 2GB of DDR2 for £5. Beware, of a lot of them out there that are sold without HDD and caddy and charger. These are easy to get but add to the cost and if it's not a guaranteed runner, you have no comeback. I may well put the SSD in the X61 if the netbooks are still dire. If you want more info PM me; Thinkpads seem to have a keen following and I now understand why.