help me flist-wan kenobi: netbooks

[coraa]

Word from the laptop shop is that while I may be able to find a fan for my laptop "eventually," I am not going to find one in the "next few months" timeframe. I think that means it's time to give it up as a lost cause, as I can't go that long without a laptop of my own.

That being said, I don't want to go into debt to get a new full-fledged laptop (where by 'full-fledged' I mean 'able to play The Sims 3 and Final Fantasy 14'). So I think what I'll do is get a netbook now, and save up for a new "permanent" laptop later.

So: I would love to hear your recommendations on netbooks!

For my purposes (and please, if this doesn't meet your/the Internet/slashdot/whoever's definition, you don't need to edumacate me because I don't care), a netbook is a laptop, usually small in dimensions, on which I can do basic word processing and access the Internet, but that does not have a huge onboard hard drive, lots of RAM, a beefy video card, etc. I have other borrowable computers for the occasions that I absolutely need something with more processing power, and a NAS RAID array for storage. Basically, I want something that I can write on and use to browse the web, and slip into my backpack for on-the-go writing, and that's it.

I am looking to pay $400 or less including tax and shipping. That means an approximate max of $350 shelf price.

I would prefer something with Windows 7, but it can be cheapo Windows 7 Home or Starter. (I am familiar in that 'broken-in jeans and sneakers' way with Windows, and Linux and Mac are like stiff uncomfortable work clothes with new high-heel shoes to me. I can live with them if necessary, but I'd rather not.) It must, however, have a keyboard; that is, I am not looking for a tablet.

vom_marlowe had good things to say about the Dell Inspiron netbook series, and I've had good luck with Dell in general. I've also used ceph's eeePC for some time, happily. But I'd be happy to hear other people's experience.

Comments

[erik]

I really like my little eMachines eM350. It's small and fairly rugged with good battery life. Mine came with XP. I needed it so the few things I have that only work on Windows had somewhere to call home. It's noticeably slow at times, but for the basics it's fine. I assume this purchase will be made before Wiscon, but if not ask to see mine at the con.

In other considerations, I strongly suggest you talk to someone who has a machine with 7 Starter before deciding that it is adequate. What I am hearing from others is that it is annoyingly inadequate and crippled. For instance it does not come with any way to change your desktop wallpaper. You need 7 Basic for that feature.

[rymenhild]

I have Windows 7 Starter on my netbook (I commented about it in more depth on LJ) and I downloaded a program to change the desktop wallpaper. It can be done. It just requires workarounds.

[jumpuphigh]

Have you looked at Costco's selection? Even if you don't have a membership, it is sometimes worthwhile to pay for the membership in order to buy tech from them. Their concierge service is some of the best helpdesk support I've ever had and I really recommend buying from them.

[thistleingrey]

FWIW, Toshiba and Asus have better than average hardware-life ratings. Acer seems often to be very plasticky in a bad (fragile) way, which may be troublesome given that you mean to carry the machine around a fair bit.

[jazzfish]

My partner's got an eeePC SeaShell, partly because it was blue but mostly because it was one of the few 10" models still available, and she's really happy with it. It's running Windows 7 Starter and does alright. She had a Dell 10" before that and was frequently Displeased with it.

[veejane]

I am told that Acer isn't great about fixing things, which is a strike against them. (They're in Korea, long shipping times, crappy warrantees, etc.) But I have an Acer Aspire One (3 years old now) and it's pretty good: 6-hour battery, small but not too small screen, and the keyboard is wide enough for my chubby fingers, which the EEE keyboard is not. I bought mine off Amazon, and it was about $300, just before the Aspire was about to come out with a newer, nicer edition.

I've never had trouble with it (knock wood).

[tessercat]

I have an MSI Wind U210, with XP, which I got because a) it was only $279 (canadian - with 6 cell battery), and b) it has a 12" screen. I find the 10" and under screens too small for writing comfortably. It also has a 160GB hard drive, standard, which is ridiculous for a netbook.

I would highly recommend going somewhere that you can touch and type on models you are considering before you order them. The key feel ranges widely, as does the positioning of some of the 'extra' keys (like backspace >.< ).

The downside to any netbook is what you've already encountered: if the fan goes, you may have a hell of a time finding a new one. Apparently a lot of the manufacturers are putting special design fans in their netboooks so that you HAVE to go back to them to get replacements. MSI, for example, integrated the CPU and GPU heatsink into the fan assembly, so you can't just buy a fan and replace it. I found this out when mine stopped working (3 months shy of end of warranty) and I tried shopping around at the computer places that specialize in parts -- most of the techies just shook their heads when I said "netbook fan". (I can't speak to Dell's habits about this, as I have no experience with them.)

My problem was fixed with a little netbook surgery (I had never registered it properly, so sending it back to MSI wasn't really an option) -- I opened the case, cleaned the fan, and reapplied thermal paste to the GPU, and voila! Working fine again.

[oyceter]

My sister and I and my roommate all had eeePCs, which work well, although my sister's (I think one of the seashell ones) got not one, but two defective chargers! Mine is a fancy version with an SSD that I stole from my dad and would not pay for. My sister's has a larger HD and is somewhat heavier. I upgraded the RAM on mine to 2gb, which was pretty easy, and it now runs the full version of Windows 7 very well... prior to that, it had some trouble doing a lot of tabs open in Firefox and Chrome at the same time. I think I told my sister that the latest reviews I had seen (this is about a year ago, so YMMV) said that the Samsungs had the nicest keyboards, but I do like the eeePC ones now that they put the shift key somewhere rational. I think I mostly recced the eeePC to her instead of a Samsung NC10 or NC11 because some of the sites said the Samsung RAM wasn't upgradable. I don't know if that will be a big thing for you, since my sister doesn't seem to have a problem with the amount of RAM she has... YMMV?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I have an Acer Netbook, which I think ranges from about $250-300 in most places. It has Windows starter and is fine for browsing, and I actually find I prefer reading ebooks on my Kindle app on it than on my regular laptop.

If you're going to be at WisCon, I'll actually have it with me if you want to fiddle with it and see if you like it.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

My netbook is a Toshiba Mini NB305, which was in the $350 range as of December. It runs on Windows 7 Starter, which has some annoying limitations (you have to download a hack just to change the background image) but works fairly well once you adjust it.

I chose the Toshiba because it has the closest-to-full-size keyboard in its class. I have enough problems with my wrists that I need a decent keyboard. I still end up carrying an external keyboard sometimes, but the factory-installed keyboard works.

Anyway, I'm perfectly happy with my Toshiba, and I would recommend it.

[canis-ridens.livejournal.com]

How's the heat dissipation on it? I have a Toshiba gaming laptop. It's very sturdy, and it does a great job of getting heat out of the case if I'm running anything demanding, but I usually have it on a cooling pad to protect my legs because of that. Its predecessor, an MSI model, never got that warm to the touch, but that's because it was... better insulated, we'll say, despite being rather flimsy overall. It was generating plenty of heat; it just wasn't letting it escape, and this was probably a contributor to its early death.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I don't really know -- I don't tend to use it on my lap. Good question. I'll pay attention next time I run it.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Having checked... no, I wouldn't want to put the Toshiba Mini on my lap. It's presently hotter than my coffeecup, and I've only been at the cafe for fifteen minutes. (If I graphed the respective heat loss of my coffee cup and heat gain of my running/charging netbook, I bet the curves would meet at about minute 8.)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I have an eee 901, bought for like $450 in fall 2008, so it's probably behind the times. 9 inches, two pounds, slips into bag easily, had like a 5 hour battery life, though the battery seems to be dying. Came with Xandros Linux, I put Ubuntu on it. 3 USB ports, no CD/DVD drive. About 20 GB of solid state storage; other eees come with hard drives. Generally been an positive experience. I'm using it right now, despite having been re-united with my real laptop, because the laptop is noisy.

It's probably not what you want, because Linux and 2008, but might be a pointer.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I've been pretty happy with the HP mini (200 series) I bought at the start of the year. One of the few that had a keyboard my large fingers felt comfortable with. I think it was $360 including shipping from the HP store online.

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

I really like HP, and their little computers are ADORBS.

The only PC I have bought since Windows Millenium Edition is an HP. (How's that for an endorsement?)

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I've got a 7 inch EEE, and while I love that I have it, I a) dislike dealing with Linux and b) really dislike typing on its keyboard. A near-full-size keyboard would be my most important shopping criterium. (OTOH, there's the iPad and Apple's wonderful keyboard... but that might not meet your computing needs.)

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Or price criteria. :P

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I've also been very happy with my Eee, so though I know that it's not what you want with regard to specs, I just thought I'd mention that for computing on the go, the whole principle of the netbook works well because they are truly portable, unlike a full size laptop.

Mine has enabled me to work on the train travelling up Sweden, as well as accessing the net anywhere I can get a mobile phone signal using the mobile broadband dongle. I'm not even dependent on finding wifi access.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

I can't offer specs, but just wanted to chime in on the Asus EEE: the only computer I have at home is Junior, the Shetland Laptop, and we're very happy together. I have the Linux model because that's what there was when I bought him in 2008 but I'm told they now run Windows as well. I pretty much wrote the last two drafts of my mystery MS on Junior and had no trouble with the teeny keyboard (moving from a workstation to a laptop was much harder than moving from a laptop at work to the netbook at home, because the layout is identical only smaller.) So, over longterm usage the EEE has held up very well for me. Good luck finding something suitable!

[avani.livejournal.com]

It's a little out of range and a mac, but I feel like I need to chime in for the Macbook Air. I keep a second laptop for the heavy lifting, but I use this machine for everything else. It's blown past every expectation I had for it, and the display is fantastic. I don't need to switch over to my big box for anything but games and processor intensive simulations. Chris has the 10" EeePC and it's fallen into disuse because he (not a Mac person) keeps picking up my Air to do stuff. To fit your analogy, the macs are more like Birks than work clothes to me: ridiculous at the start, but so molded to fit you in a few weeks that you have no idea how you lived without ;)

[clairebaxter.livejournal.com]

I really like my HP Mini, but I do have mbrubeck set up linux on it for me. (More in an email.)