Author Topic: Bought a netbook (Read 5946 times)

mgdavis · « **on:** May 26, 2009, 05:24:47 PM »

I went down to Best Buy today and picked up a HP Mini 1116NR. It has a 1.6 ghz cpu, a nine inch screen, and the 16 gb solid state memory.

I like it alright so far, although I'm irked that the removable media port is for SD cards only, instead of a multi-port that I could use with the cards from my camera.

One thing that I'm really enjoying is that it doesn't kick out nearly as much heat as my big laptop. Lugging around an extra "laptop cooler", just so I can keep the computer on my lap without broiling tender parts, gets old.

Tim L · « **Reply #1 on:** May 27, 2009, 02:43:20 PM »

Mom bought the 10.2" version several months ago and really likes it. Best upgrade going is to up the ram to 2 gig. Newegg had a 2 gig stick for less than $20 after shipping. Just checked, best price now is $21. Still a worthwhile deal.

Boomhauer · « **Reply #2 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:15:39 PM »

$300 ain't that bad of a price for a nice little computer. I'll keep that in mind in case I recieve any gift cards to best buy or something...or need a new laptop. I think I'm done computer gaming for the time being, so no worries about that anymore.

(I looked it up on google and the hit for Best Buy for an 8.9" screen model was $300)

K Frame · « **Reply #3 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:26:21 PM »

How much?

Mtnbkr bought one for Abby to give her "her own" computer.

I was looking at it this past weekend, and you know, the thing is pretty amazing and very capable. I may end up getting one as I was trying to figure out what kind of computer I was going to use in the basement once I get it squared away as my media room.

I'm really looking at the Acer ones, though. They seem to give more bang for the buck and have more features that I would find to be useful.

Iain · « **Reply #4 on:** May 27, 2009, 04:32:11 PM »

If you just want the basic internet functionality and can live with the 1024x600 8.9" screen then the Aspire One is a really neat little bit of kit. I'm posting on mine now. I drop it in my bag and take it nearly everywhere.

Have to say though, the new Lenovo 12" 1280x800 model with high-def chip is looking rather smart. For me a 12" screen makes the netbook a totally functional, but not high powered, all round computer.

K Frame · « **Reply #5 on:** May 27, 2009, 04:53:41 PM »

Iain,

Does it come with a full version of Microsoft Office installed? I'm getting varying feedback on that. I know, fairly useless, but here's my thinking...

When I visit my Mom, I would get the one with the monitor output (same type Mtnbkr has) and I would be able to do work for the office if I have to.

Iain · « **Reply #6 on:** May 27, 2009, 04:57:40 PM »

Don't know, bought the linux version. I'd be surprised if it did though.

That's a solid idea though. I've thought about doing that myself.

zahc · « **Reply #7 on:** May 27, 2009, 05:00:44 PM »

I have the Aspire one, it's dandy. I used to have an original eeePC, and I loved the size and weight, but the screen and 4gb hard drive, and not that much battery life anyway, were just a little too toyish, so I upgraydd'd. The Aspire one, to me, is a bit heavy but the 5 hour battery life and usable screen space make it just usable.

Personally, I'm waiting for the ARMbooks to come out. I've seen rumors of sub 2-pound machines with 10+hour battery life and a screen size on par with my my One....basically smartphone guts with a screen and keyboard. To me, that would be everything the original eeePC wanted to be, but wasn't, especially since there is already an ARM port of Ubuntu.

AJ Dual · « **Reply #8 on:** May 27, 2009, 05:43:52 PM »

Quote from: Mike Irwin on May 27, 2009, 04:53:41 PM

Iain,

Does it come with a full version of Microsoft Office installed? I'm getting varying feedback on that. I know, fairly useless, but here's my thinking...

When I visit my Mom, I would get the one with the monitor output (same type Mtnbkr has) and I would be able to do work for the office if I have to.

Many come with MS Office as trial-ware.

OpenOffice is quite good, and seems to be about 95% of the functionality of the Office suite. And it's compatible with all but the latest Office 2007 .docx and .xlsx file formats etc.

Which in my experience most businesses don't use the latest office 2007 formats anyway because they need to keep compatibility with legacy documents, spreadsheets, or divisions still running on office 2003 and earlier etc.

BryanP · « **Reply #9 on:** May 28, 2009, 09:03:08 AM »

They're quite nice. I picked up an Asus 1000HE a couple of months ago. 10" screen, 160GB HDD, a usable keyboard (which isn't always a given with netbooks).

It comes with Star Office (The same package the Open Office is based on) and that has served my needs well enough for what I use this for. The only "work" I do on it is to occasionally log on to the VPN and remote control a machine in my office, so installed office apps aren't that big a deal.

K Frame · « **Reply #10 on:** May 28, 2009, 10:28:26 AM »

Open Office is nice. Yes, it's nice.

But, it's simply NOT suitable for what I do, especially given that we have switched to MS 2007 applications.

AZRedhawk44 · « **Reply #11 on:** May 28, 2009, 10:36:24 AM »

Quote

When I visit my Mom, I would get the one with the monitor output (same type Mtnbkr has) and I would be able to do work for the office if I have to.

I do that with my netbook (ASUS eee-PC running Ubuntu 9.04). I attach it to a 19" LCD, but the display seems to max at 800x600 for the external, and 1024x600 for the built in monitor.

All together, it's enough real estate to work for a day or two. Us programmers and admins like our displays big, though. I feel very cramped in comparison to my 24" @ 1920x1200.

Quote from: Mike Irwin on May 28, 2009, 10:28:26 AM

Open Office is nice. Yes, it's nice.

But, it's simply NOT suitable for what I do, especially given that we have switched to MS 2007 applications.

You poor soul. I loathe Office even more with each subsequent release. This new version that lacks drop down menus on top (and changes default file format AGAIN) is awful. My product I work on interfaces with office though (and not with Open Office) and I work with the piece of ess aych eye tee as I need to.

If anyone has tricks for running > 800x600 on an external monitor with an eee-PC 1000HA, I'd love to hear it.

zahc · « **Reply #12 on:** May 28, 2009, 11:14:13 AM »

I think I had to use xrandr when I had my eeePc, in order to use the big projectors at work. That was a while ago, though.

mtnbkr · « **Reply #13 on:** May 28, 2009, 11:19:16 AM »

Quote

Personally, I'm waiting for the ARMbooks to come out. I've seen rumors of sub 2-pound machines with 10+hour battery life and a screen size on par with my my One....basically smartphone guts with a screen and keyboard.

Way back in 2000, I felt like something along the lines of a beefed up PDA would be capable of handling most people's computing needs (basic word processing, email, web, etc). Though, my idea was more along the lines of a PDA with desktop dock to convert it into a "PC" (the dock would have a hdd, external monitor, keyboard, mouse, network connections, etc).

The form factor and OS/platform has changed, but the basic idea I had apparently has merit.

Chris

K Frame · « **Reply #14 on:** May 28, 2009, 11:37:14 AM »

"You poor soul..."

I've largely prefer Word 2007.

I hated the ribbon at first, but now I find it to be more intitutive and a lot easier to work with, and a lot faster, as well.

AJ Dual · « **Reply #15 on:** May 28, 2009, 11:46:11 AM »

Quote from: Mike Irwin on May 28, 2009, 11:37:14 AM

"You poor soul..."

I've largely prefer Word 2007.

I hated the ribbon at first, but now I find it to be more intitutive and a lot easier to work with, and a lot faster, as well.

As an IT sysadmin, if I can't find a freaking thing in Office 2007, they've done something wrong, IMO. I don't care how streamlined or elegantly they've grouped everything as "task based" or work-flow or whatever they're calling the new paradigim.

I'd rather go looking under the couch for spare change, and ask the dog by the fireplace where the extra fonts are in Microsoft BOB at this point.

It makes me miss the paperclip.

Maybe Microsoft did such an excelent job on their new UI that the rest of us are just too smart for it Mike.

roo_ster · « **Reply #16 on:** May 28, 2009, 11:55:59 AM »

Mike Irwin:

Honestly, I doubt you'll be satisfied using a netbook, given you want to drive MSOffice2007 & tech pubs with it.

The atom processor is a neat little thing, but it gives up a lot of power to the intel & amd multi-core critters. Also, since most (all) netbooks use mobo video and are limited to 2GB RAM, using MSO2007 to open large Word/PPT docs & such with significant graphics* is going to leave you wishing for more ponies under the hood.

Netbooks are 80% machines: will do just fine, performance-wise, for 80% of the folks. I could not use one for work, as I regularly must travel and run some hefty number crunching & graphics apps on the road. I burned up three general issue lappies in three years last time 'round. This time, I have a more robust model that is only now, two years into its three year lease, starting to show signs that heat has taken its toll on its guts (replaced HD throwing errors, replaced RAM that was choking).

* I suspect I am familiar with the sorts of docs you'll be hacking on. Wish we had more tech writers to clean up the engineeringese & softwarepatois in our tech pubs.

K Frame · « **Reply #17 on:** May 28, 2009, 12:16:00 PM »

"Maybe Microsoft did such an excelent job on their new UI that the rest of us are just too smart for it Mike. "

Actually, I'd say that the rest of you are just old dogs who can't be taught anything new.

Hey, want to go hunting, boy? Yeah, let's go... hunting! :D

"Honestly, I doubt you'll be satisfied using a netbook, given you want to drive MSOffice2007 & tech pubs with it."

It would NOT be a full-time editorial computer. It would only be an emergency back up for when I'm visiting my Mother, who doesn't have Word on her new computer.

Other than that, it would be used mainly in my home for grabbing e-mail, recipes, and chatting on threads such as these when I don't want to fire up the main computer.

When I eventually move the TV and sound system to the basement, it would be employed even more often for those activities.

Werewolf · « **Reply #18 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:24:38 PM »

Quote from: Mike Irwin on May 28, 2009, 11:37:14 AM

...I hated the ribbon at first, but now I find it to be more intitutive and a lot easier to work with, and a lot faster, as well.

Same boat here...

Once you get used to it the ribbon is quite handy, fairly well organized and you can make it disappear easily if it's in the way.

Every once in a while something must be looked for but a quick click on the blue question mark and a few seconds time spent results in a, "doh! why didn't I think of that", personal response and never to be forgotten feature located.

Marnoot · « **Reply #19 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:29:30 PM »

Quote from: Werewolf on May 28, 2009, 02:24:38 PM

Same boat here...

Once you get used to it the ribbon is quite handy, fairly well organized and you can make it disappear easily if it's in the way.

Every once in a while something must be looked for but a quick click on the blue question mark and a few seconds time spent results in a, "doh! why didn't I think of that", personal response and never to be forgotten feature located.

Ditto here. I hated the ribbon for the first month or so, but since I got used to it I can get to whatever function/setting I'm looking for faster than I ever did with the drop-down menu.

AJ Dual · « **Reply #20 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:33:38 PM »

Sigh... I agree I'll probably love "the ribbon"...

It's that month of getting used to it I'll loathe.

mtnbkr · « **Reply #21 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:36:00 PM »

Problem for me is that I don't use Word enough at home (the only place where I have 2007) to get used to the damn thing.

Chris

K Frame · « **Reply #22 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:39:14 PM »

Quote from: mtnbkr on May 28, 2009, 02:36:00 PM

Problem for me is that I don't use Word enough at home (the only place where I have 2007) to get used to the damn thing.

Chris

And we should weep for you why, Princess? :D

mtnbkr · « **Reply #23 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:43:17 PM »

Quote from: Mike Irwin on May 28, 2009, 02:39:14 PM

And we should weep for you why, Princess? :D

Because if you don't, I'll send Abby and her knee of doom your way.

Chris

BrokenPaw · « **Reply #24 on:** May 28, 2009, 02:48:39 PM »

Quote from: AJ Dual on May 28, 2009, 02:33:38 PM

Sigh... I agree I'll probably love "the ribbon"...
It's that month of getting used to it I'll loathe.

That's how it was for me.

My guess is that the "Everyone hates the ribbon" thing is the same as the Qwerty/Dvorak thing; the ribbon may very well be more efficient and more intuitive, for someone who has never used Word before (just as Dvorak, as I understand it, is a much more efficient keyboard layout), but someone who has been using drop-down menu based...everything, really, since GUIs became the norm, have as much trouble shifting gears as a Qwerty touch-typist would on being presented with a Dvorak keyboard.

"Different" doesn't always mean "worse". The more I get used to it, the more I like the Ribbon. It helps (for me anyway) to think of it in vi terms; it's a modal interface, and you just have to remember what mode you're in.

That said, I don't have the violent hatred for Vista that everyone seems to have. It may be because my lappy is an Asus Gamer-series, and thus has pretty beefy CPU and GPU, and positively absurd resolution for a lappy, so it can do all of Vista's go-faster-stripe rendering without slowing me down. But Vista with WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, Fences, and Switcher makes for a pretty sweet desktop.

</drift>

-BP

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Author Topic: Bought a netbook (Read 5946 times)