Blogs The perfect netbook

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/03/14/the-perfect-netbook/

 

I can only speak for myself, of course, but my ideal netbook/notebook would be light, same size keyboard that's on my 15" MBP (so certainly not a 10" screen; probably 12-13"), and awesome battery life. Pretty much a slimmed down version of the old 12" powerbooks with a better screen. Doesn't really classify as a traditional netbook at that point I guess, but I just can't justify shelling out ANY money on something with a mini keyboard. I have small hands and I still find it very difficult to type on the things.

 

I think the Asus 1000H is pretty close to what I would consider buying, it has a 10" screen and is pretty powerful considering it's only a netbook

 

The Samsung photo looks more like X360, not NC20... And NC20's keyboard doesn't look much bigger on photos I've found... But it's good if it is - I hit 'right click menu' instead of 'alt gr' sometimes

 

I have THE best netbook of all times. Well, not really a netbook, more of a subnotebook. It's a VAIO T17GP, in Europe known as VGN-T2XP. 10.6" 1280x768 screen, Pentium M 733 ULV (1.1Ghz, 2MB L2, over four times faster than Atom and with a 5W TDP), never struggled with any Flash, easily breaks 7 hours of battery life, build quality is way better than netbooks - it's made of magnesium alloy, very hard to damage. And, despite being just 1.13 kg (with battery) it has an integrated DVD-RW.

You can't buy it in a shop anymore (T-series was replaced by TZ/TT, and the T17GP was replaced by TZ21)but you can grab one on e-bay (in a perfect condition) for the price of an average netbook, while current models (TZ/TT series) are way more expensive (above the 1000+ pounds mark) despite not being much faster or better (they differ mostly in the move to C2D which are actually slower than Pentium M, integrated HSDPA and some minor changes, not worth such a price imo). I like this Vaio so much i actually bought it, despite my strict no-Intel policy. The only downside I found is the inability to use Linux on it; while it runs fine, Sony uses some proprietary power and function key controllers so you can't toggle devices (wifi, bluetooth etc.) on/off, change display brightness, volume and so on, while the Windows Vaio Power Control gives the options to disable even the Firewire controller and DVD-RW which give around a quarter or battery life.

All in all, it's good not to narrow the search for a good small notebook to only the current netbooks. With some effort you can find an older subnotebook which is in every way better for about the same price.

 

10'' screen is fine, only problem is the resolution, which isn't bad, but it would be a hell of a lot better if it was 1360 x 768. I own a 1000H and I quite like the keyboard, only problem is the right shift key but thats not an issue after you get used to it

 

I find that desktop tower defense is a very effective way of bringing almost any sub-3GHz processor to it's knees. When you start juggling on the higher levels and there's over 100 baddies in the picture, things slow down.
It scales all the way up from my girlfriends old P4 laptop to my lappy's 2GHz AMD turion to my work laptop with an intel T-whatever, to my gaming rig complete with Q6600 at 3,4GHz.
Maybe it's a good candidate for your testsuites?

That said, i thought i was in the market for a netbook too, but was ultimately put off by the low specs of the things. For 24/7 use i now have an HP TX2550 12,1" touchscreen, and i must say i'm still very very impressed and happy with it. In short:, i can watch 4hours of video on one battery, or play a full 2,5 hours of Mass Effect on the train! Screw DTD !

Once the seasons change and the weather picks up, i'll be cycling a lot again, and then i'll feel the need for a really light machine for web, navigation and music, but in all probability that STILL won't be a netbook... `this is what MIDs are for. IMHO, netbooks perfectly combine the disadvantages of MIDs, with the disadvantages of subnotebooks, while adopting far too little of the advantages.

Anyone selling a decent MID in the next two to three months?

 

Atom > Via C7-M, Atom is by no means a power house CPU but its the bare minimum for a decent performing netbook IMO.

I have a 1000H myself that I use mostly for school, I've found it perfectly adequate for my needs, and can even run some 3D games. Jedi Outcast, Freelancer, Audiosurf and Half Life run great, as well as 2D stuff of course. I like to watch shows and movies on it as well, the screen is great for its size.

 

my friend has been extensively researching these so I've learned a bit as well .. I disagree that 'netbooks' should be 12" .. I think the very nature of them being small and cheap means 10" or smaller screens .. if you want 12" screens, get an ultraportable laptop (as I did ..you can get old models easily on ebay for < $400 USD) .. Asus 1000H or perhaps the 900A are models my friend has been considering

 

...the dell mini12 is 400€ thats nearly 380pounds...for the cheaper linux version.

Pah!