RichP Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Thinking about getting one of these to replace my 6 year old dead laptop: Toshiba NB550D-10G Will use it for web surfing, music streaming from NAS to HiFi, and a bit of light excel & word etc. Nothing much more strenuous than that. I want someting small & light, that I can stick in a drawer out of the way so not interested in a desktop or large laptop. Will it drive me mad, or are notebooks actually ok? (if it wasn't for the price and desire to use word & excel I'd get an iPad btw) Cheers Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 (if it wasn't for the price and desire to use word & excel I'd get an iPad btw) Good call. iPads are great and I'm a convert, but if you're used to Excel and Word and want them, you won't be comfy with the Apple equivalents on an iPad screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meakin Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Hi there, The only problem I have found with netbooks is that they can be sloooowwwww due to lack of memory (yours only has 1GB) I've done a bit of surfing on your behalf this one is better for about the same http://www.argos.co.uk/static....rmation Wow what a link! Try to get 2GB of RAM if you can as this will make windows run so much better. Hope that has helped Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meakin Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 In regards to Ipads I have found them too gimicky to be of any actual use. The fact I have never seen one used with a stylus and handwriting recognition is testament to that. I have a HP Touchsmart Tx2 which allows both touch, stylus and keyboard so you can use it as a computer, notepad. I use it 8hours+ a day for work. Onenote for meetings (handwriting recognition), office pro for rest, runs photoshop, corelsuite etc. ie its a full blown computer with extras. It is fantastic but HP has pulled the plug on it. I believe it was too competitive with their slate/ipad competitor, and didn't sell fast enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonsko Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 How much do you want to spend? After 16-20 years of supporting and fixing windows machines, I bought my first mac in 2009. Not looked back. They are ace, none of the p*****g about that accompanies windows, rebuilding it every year to make sure it stays fast and reliable etc. etc. Having said that, W7 is arguably much better than all the other s***e that MS has produced. Anyway, if you can stomach the cost, a Macbook air will make you very happy indeed. If that's too much, an you are dead set on getting a.n.other, there are few better sites to use than Notebookcheck.net http://www.notebookcheck.net/Reviews.55.0.html - really thorough in depth reviews, and more importantly, comparisons with other machines so you can see exactly what it is you are buying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 For the last couple of years the majority of my web access has been with a netbook (sony vaio VPCM11M1E). I had a laptop before but when that died on me I replaced it with a desktop PC and the netbook. The desktop doesn't get used for most of the time other than for my part-time business, photo editing and CAD. Everything else, emails, personal stuff, letters, internet and the boardroom is all done on the netbook. TBH I don't notice the speed as an issue it is a bit slower, but as it's always on and sitting next to me on a coffee table I tend o be doing other stuff at the same time. Spec of my machine is 1.66GHz processor and 1GB RAM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dommo Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 I'm using a netbook and have done as my main computer now for about two years. A Samsung NC10. Perfectly good little machine, decent sized keyboard so no cramped fingers. I chucked Windows 7 on it as soon as I got it and haven't looked back. I generally hibernate it instead of turning it off and it's up and ready in no time at all. General performance is ok, nothing more, not really less. As mentioned above, it's lacking in RAM, particularly because I share it with the missus and we generally switch user rather than log off. However, for general web surfing and excel it's fine. I wouldn't use if for heavy office work, the lack of pixels on the screen would get to me after a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRuss Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Got to agree with Dommo here. Bought my wife a samsung NC10 about 2 years ago and she loves it. The battery life is awesome compared to a full size laptop. No good for games or any real work, but for small word docs and surfing the web its superb and it's so portable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekJ Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 It depends on what you are using it for. Netbooks are cheep(ish) and fast enough to be great for Internet access but slow if you are running any heavy Excel sheets. If you want performance for big spreadsheets, stay clear of them and get a notebook. BTW Look at Open Office instead of MS software. It will open and save in MS format and do just as good a job but for free. DJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilot Pete Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Another NC10 user here, I bought the RAM upgrade to take it to 2GB and haven't had any issues. Use it for web surfing, itunes and for messing about with my emerald ecu. Battery life is staggering, just lasts forever! I actually use microsoft office on it and use dreamweaver for my website. I find it plenty quick enough but the small screen is a bit of a hinderence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dombanks Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 the x had one and it was great, it would do all of the word/excel websurfing etc i wanted. i just found the screen a bit too small and the track pad was s**t. (samsung) she then got a 13" macbook which was much much much better. when i replaced my laptop i couldnt really aford the mac even tho they were pretty good. instead i got an acer with an i3 in it and win7. im not regretting that and it works just great. I got a good deal and the way i figure it if i get the same deal i can replace this pc two times more for the same price as the mac. edt: for what its worth this acer was only £100 more than the netbook you posted and i would say very much better Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Ashcroft Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Used a netbook for about 3 years now there great little machines, I recently bought a 11.6" packard Bell with dualcore & 3gb hdmi so near proper laptop spec its also touch screen as well love it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welly Jen Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Used a netbook for the last year at Uni (being a student yet again!). An Asus EeePC. Can't remember the model, but it has 1GB of ram. Small and light, so fits in a little backpack for transport. Excellent battery life. Does everything I need, though large spreadsheets start to slow it down. I put linux on it, rather than windows, which helps speed it up as you don't have anti virus software consuming resources. The only down side is the small screen, 1024 x 600 pixels. Can be limiting for some things. If I broke, or lost it I'd get something in the same vein. Still have the desktop at home for stuff needing the big screen, or more computing omph. Jen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichP Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 Top feedback chaps - many thanks. The link from Tonsko is really useful, and the recommedations appreciated. I'll extend my benchmarking! It's reassuring to hear that these things are a viable alternative for general use - I've often thought that there's great temptation to go higher and higher spec on laptops (or was that kit cars? ) beyond what's actually needed to do the job. Cheers Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris7273 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 I have a netbook Acer Aspire One A0751h It's a very good little thing but : - the wifi is very slow to connectto my network, but once connected it's fine (may take 2 minutes at startup) - it's impossible to play videos smoothly (youtube)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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