Networks Netbook Advice

Hi, I'm looking for a netbook for my mum. But i dont really know to much about them, so im after some advice.

It'll be used for general use, internet, word, photos, music etc. And if possible some basic photoshop. So ideally it'll be ok spec'd but not to much to compromise of the battery life and size. It needs to be a 10" netbook , around £300. So far we've looked at a few, and there seems to be some decent acer and hp ones around that price but i could do with a quick run down of what cpu etc to look for etc.

Thanks

 

This should be useful. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/netbooks

I would highly suggest you look at CULV laptops as well as they provide much better bang for buck and a larger screen.

 

You have described your requirements and price range that is good.
On this price range you could get a decent ACER Notebook for home use computing.

Like

Acer Emachines EM2501915 10.1" Netbook
Netbook - 1.0 GB RAM - 10.1" Display - Windows XP Home
EMACHINE 10.1/1GB/160/XP HOME 3 CELL

Price range from 249.99 to 299.99

You may search more on net and see their user reviews before selecting one.
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I recomend a Acer Aspire ONE.

I have one of these and they are very good.
battery life is excellent.
Convinient size, and dosnt cost alot.

8" http://www.acer.com/aspireone/aspireone_8_9/

10.1" http://www.acer.com/aspireone/style.html

 

any netbook will be pretty terrible at photoshop. i have a Samsung NC10 (which i heartily recommend) and the most i do with it is a bit of paint.net.

 

thanks for all the advice guys. Those Acer Ones look like they might be the one. There seem to be vary spec's on it tho, is it a case of get the highest spec'd version as they all seem to be on the atom cpu.

 

All of the netbooks at the moment are using the Atom CPU and so are definitely not powerful in any sense of the word. The odd one or two out there are using the nVidia Ion chipset so have a dedicated GPU rather than integrated and consequently have a little more grunt when it comes to the video side of things but they will probably be out of your price range (£400ish).

I'd definitely have a look at the new Samsung netbooks (N210 and N220) as well as they are using the Pinetrail Atom CPU and seem to have some nice improvements to battery life. I recently bought an N220 for £290 which I can generally get 7 to 8 hours use out of even after switching the CPU to 100% on battery as opposed to the standard 50%.

I'm not sure what the Acer equivalents are on this but the spec on all of them is pretty much the same, it's just down to keyboard/touchpad and aesthetics. Some have a few extra bits and bobs (the N220 has an additional mini sub to improve the audio a touch and an HD decoder chip to handle 1080P) but in general they'll all do the same job.

 

I'm in exactly the same position as you, my mum has her eye on a netbook and have spent a few days looking at what is the best for her.

That list of reviews from PC Pro is very useful.

Quite keen on the Samsung N210.

 

Yeah, i think im on the same page as you. Seems to be the best of a very even playing field.

 

The Amazon deal with the ram upgrade and a case looks likely to be what we end up ordering.

 

Avoid anything with a 1024x600 res, its a pain as a lot of sites don't fit right, look at something with ION rather than Intel graphics as it'll handle full screen flash stuff etc. better.

Hp mini 311c, asus 1201n etc.

 

glad I read this post.. My new Acer Aspire One arrived today. I bought it for my daughter. The screen res of 1024x600 is a major pain in the butt. It runs Windows 7 starter but I wondered if switching to XP would allow me to use 1024x768? My guess is no, however having googled a lot I have found others that have 10" screens and GMA Intel gfx running this res with XP.. Any ideas? Is this a screen limitation as I suspect?

P.S. The netbook is sweet. Has webcam, multi gesture touchpad, a numeric keypad (accessed by using fn key), build quality is superb. Model is Acer Aspire One 532h-2D.

 

Having used a netbook whilst travelling with work I really couldn't recommend one if you want to do anything more than browse the net. The only advantage I can see is that they are smaller that a standard laptop, but that also means smaller keyboard and smaller screen, both which I found to be a pain. If you must have small then great, otherwise I'd get a laptop.

 

My netbook has a button that will switch from 1024x600 -> 1024x768 but the native res of the screen is 1024x600 and scaling down the higher res to fit the screen give you a performance impact that is just not worth it, instead look to lightweight browser themes (compact etc on firefox) or using F11 in the browser to go fullscreen.

Chances are your netbook will be a lot more user friendly if you just ditch windows, started with XP on mine then Win 7, none of them are as good as Ubuntu on the shite Atom/GMA graphics combo, actually makes it usable though battery life takes a hit vs windows for some reason, still 4-5hrs isn't bad.

Agree with Jambutty to some extent though a higher res and a proper CULV CPU or GPU helps a lot.

 

IMO avoid netbooks altogether and look at a basic entry level laptop with 15" screen as this will have a lot more power

photoshop will take forever to do anything and any sort of multitasking and it will cry at you.

netbooks are aimed to be ultra portable email/word processing machines nothing more.

 

yep i must agree, netbooks are a waste of money for anything but simple e-mail and word use, im sure some phones are more responsive then them tbh

just go for an entry level laptop every time tbh

 

If you HAVE to go for a netbook make sure you realise they have these drawbacks:
Screen size: For the most part 10" ones have a 1024x600 resolution which is limiting from web browsing, sure the width is fine but you have to scroll continually. A 1366x768 screen negates this issue.
Speed: An Intel Atom is basically the slowest processor in production; obviously it sips power but the performance it gives is awful. Having read performance benches the dual core Atoms aren't much better. AMD based netbooks appear to fare far better at the expense of some battery life.
Graphics: ION Graphics and some ATi based graphic chipsets have appeared in a few netbooks and are FAR superior to the crummy Intel ones. Photoshop CS4 I believe benefits from Nvidia GPU acceleration so it would boost performance, there's also flash/video hardware acceleration being slowly adopted so a discrete GPU will help no end.

As someone mentioned before, a CULV laptop is a good prospect if you want extra performance for a slightly higher price in a slightly larger form factor. I was originally looking for a dual core netbook with a graphics chipset, then decided to splash out on the more powerful laptop in my sig.

(I once tried photo editing on my netbook (Atom N270 based); it didn't go well, the screen was too small and it was incredibly slow..)

 

Netbooks give the hint that they are mainly orientated towards basic web and office work, for this they are fantastic.

EvilMerc has summed it up incredibly well that they do have some limitations, yet if you work within these you have a fantastic piece of hardware.

Dual core Atom if you can makes a massive boost to performance, especially if the Netbook is running Windows 7 Starter.

 

Well my Mum only wants it for email internet and looking at pictures really.

I'm quite intrigued to see what it can actually do though. Got some free time soon after my exams so will put the thing through its paces and see if it can get up to much.

 

this is the netbook i have, mine has xp though, http://www.simplyasus.com/Asus_Eee_Pc_1008HA_679669.html
i agree it would useless at anything more than surfing the net and basic tasks but i have a much more powerful pc for that so this netbook is perfect for the cost