Netbooks: Yey or Ney?

[wonderboy416]

So what is the general consensus here on netbooks?

I really didn't really need a netbook as I have a fairly powerful 15.4" laptop with a 12-cell power for plenty of juice, but Future Shop had the high capacity 6-cell Aspire One with the N280 processor, windows 7 and 250gb HD for $329 last week. I couldn't resist. After figuring out how to change the wallpaper (a feature MS disabled for the starter edition), finding a codec that will run h.264 at 720p flawlessly and getting everything else set up I absolutely LOVE IT. I'm getting about 8.5 hours of battery time with wifi enabled, skype, msn and chrome all loaded. It's so much easier to just put it down on the coffee table and pick it up whenever I want to do some quick surfing or messaging. It's also much nicer to use in bed and I don't have to worry about it getting insanely hot and possibly overheating. The small keyboard and screen are a small price to pay for such portability, I even find myself reading the news while in the umm... gentlemen's room in the morning.

Of course if you put the CPU under intense load the system can be brought to its knees quite quickly and the battery life will be drastically reduced, but I have my laptop which is almost always plugged in for that stuff anyway.

I will say that I'm a bit disappointed by the boxing day sales that FS and BB are offering, I was thinking a great deal might pop up which would inspire me to take this thing back, but that's not going to happen after seeing the flyers. Sure you can get systems for $249 and $299 but they're with the N270 processor, XP, a smaller hard drive and a pathetic 3 hour battery (which seems to plague a lot of netbooks). Although FS has an MSI wind with a beastly 9-cell battery promising up to 14-hours of battery life for $329 right now online.

What do you guys think? Am I going to fall out of love? How do find using them as a secondary/travel pc? I have some friends that are diehard mac users (which I can never understand) who have purchased a netbook and love them.

 

[kettal]

Bought my mom a $250 refurbished hp mini. Great keyboard, worked great for her. Broke after 3 months.

 

[wonderboy416]

How'd it break?

 

[kettal]

don't know how, but now the screen turns itself off whenever it is opened more than 30 degrees.

I pulled it apart, hoping to find a switch, but could not find it.

 

[syn]

Netbooks are great, depending on your needs. For basic browsing, etc. they're usually perfect.

 

[gei]

I have both a powerful desktop computer AND laptop. A 15.4" laptop is great for longer trips, but I find it much much too cumbersome to carry around for shorter weekend trips. If you do a lot of traveling, a netbook is a must.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I prefer the power and flexibility of a notebook when I'm moving around, they're generally not much more of an inconvenience compared to a netbook. If I need something compact to stay in touch I get can what I need from my iPhone or iPod Touch which fits into my pocket or the loose change section of my knapsack.

 

[gei]

there's a tremendous difference in size between a 15.4" laptop and a netbook. not to mention some of these enormous 17" laptops some people have.

I always find it very inconvenient to take a laptop out on a plane.. whereas with a netbook I find it quite easy.... not to mention the fact that it can normally be stored in the seatback in front of you...

 

[hwy7]

I got an eeepc as soon as it came out.

It's slightly more powerful than a wristwatch, but it serves its purpose.

 

[wonderboy416]

I'd love to have an Ultra slim 13 inch laptop as a compromise.
The problem being that the ULV's just can't hold up to a modern dual-core cpu and that there's no optical drive and limited ports. I strongly looked at trading in my notebook for an MSI X340 (same dimensions as the Mac Air pretty much - now at Future Shop for $499!) but thought it's best to keep my 15.4 inch notebook and have a netbook with an insanely long battery to tote around on the road and to cafes etc. I feel like I made the right decision, although everytime I see an X340 I get the feeling that I'm missing out on a sexy piece of hardware - then I remind myself that's not why we use computers.

 

[ganjavih]

Forget netbooks! Get an X-series Lenovo ThinkPad... they rock.

 

[jmacmillan]

I recently got an Ideapad S12 and like it.

 

[wonderboy416]

jmacmillan,

What's the battery life on it?
I recently gave up my Acer D250 (it was struggling to play HQ videos when streamed which was driving me nuts) and got an Acer Timeline 11.6 1810TZ instead. I think the 11-12 inch screen is the sweet spot after living with the 10 inch screen for a while. It wasn't cheap but I'm getting a good 8-9 hours out of the battery and it's got a real dual-core CPU, 4gb ram etc so I'm not sacraficing much in the way of performance. I didn't see the S12 available hmm..