Netbooks?

[thebeginning]

Anyone have one or plan on getting one? While it may not be for everyone, this is a seriously cool technology and could be quite useful for some.

For those that don't know:

Netbooks are taking over the laptop market by storm - the industry numbers are insane. "Why so succesful?", you may ask. I shall tell you. Netbooks are tiny, watered-down laptops that are built largely to browse the internet, do general office work, and other light-load duties like streaming videos, sharing photos, etc.

Here's the cool part: many of them now have 3g connectivity. Which means you have a laptop that gets high speed internet ALL THE TIME. I know iphones and such have this feature, but this seems like a much bigger advantage to me. They're about the same price as a nice laptop when all is said and done ($200-400 to purchase it, with ~$60/month data plans).

So far companies like Acer, HP, and even Nokia are making the most headway.


I'm considering one. Again, they're not for everyone. Just curious if anyone here had experience with 'em.

[Skele]

I have two netbooks, both of which use just your basic wireless technology instead of 3G for internet. I will give you my experience with them and then if you have any questions, let me know.

The first one I bought is an Acer, with an 8gig HD (I can't remember the proper name of the hard drive but its not a 'needle' based version, I believe its a solid state, if that makes sense) and uses a linux platform. Starts up quickly, runs efficiently and is a work horse. It is perfect if you are dorking around on the internet or doing some serious writing.

The second one I bought is a Dell, comes with a 160g HD, and uses Windows XP as its operating platform. Able to do more with it but it lags when doing more than one thing at a time and the battery life is horrible. The Acer has a battery life of 3-5hrs depending on if I have wireless actively running. I'm lucky to get 2.5 hours with the Dell.

The pluses of the netbooks. Portability. I would rate the ease of use (on either of them) as a 9/10.

The minuses of the netbooks. No CD drive, so you are limited to either downloading stuff via wireless or thumb drive.

They are perfect for writers and students and dorking around on the internet (The Acer handles break dot com fabulously!) --anything else, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I think it really depends on what your needs are. The Acer came with Open Office already installed so you basically already have the Office Suite of products available. I've used all components and never had a problem with lag or corruption.

And as always, YMMV! Hope this was of some help

[brad]

I think I'm going to wait for the wave of tablets like the much rumored iTablet.

[OTRphoto]

The hubby and I just picked up two from woot for $229/ea. Other than the 10.1" screen they have the same specs (except the netbook has a bigger HD lol) as my system at work... go uncle sam!!!

We both have 17" laptops that we tote all over with us. He got his for when he is at the firestation and doesn't need all the bells and whistles. I got mine for traveling when I don't need to edit photos. Just to download them and check email.

So far - for the price - they have been great!

[Jeffery]

I plan on picking up a Dell Mini 10V and making it a Hackintosh.

[picman]

Originally Posted by bung

I plan on picking up a Dell Mini 10V and making it a Hackintosh.

Apple apparently killed the Hackintosh with the latest Snow Leopard update. Older versions will still work.



Also if you are in the market for a netbook, make sure you know what OS you are getting. Windows7 may not be an option.

[bgpro611]

I bought the 10" HP a month ago and love it. Put my 15" HP in the closet for now. I've been wanting a small screen laptop for some time but refused to pay the prices they wanted for the 12" Sonys and others. This works out great as a in the console of my truck traveling computer! When it comes to electronics life is good! Smaller and cheaper; must be hard to make a living in that business.

[CaptainTom]

How would they fare as a photo, slide show, portfolio type presentation ?

screen resolution good enough ?

[bgpro611]

I'm sure there are computers with better screen resolution out there but if you don't have them with you because of size or weight they are not helping your business at all. I am not in the photography business but I do presentations to various clients and find my HP to be up to the job. My wallpaper is a photo I took in Cozemel and it looks no different on the 10" than it does on my 15". Since they don't give you any trouble returning these things if I was you I'd give it a try. The small size alone makes it easy to drop into just about any camera bag that will handle a D-700 or better. I already had an external DVD burner so I could copy discs easily, the lack of a drive is no problem.

[OTRphoto]

Originally Posted by picman

Also if you are in the market for a netbook, make sure you know what OS you are getting. Windows7 may not be an option.

Ours came with XP - but I know several people that have the same netbooks and have already upgraded them to Windows 7 with no issues. Vista wouldn't work though... go figure!! lol

[kenw]

Originally Posted by CaptainTom

How would they fare as a photo, slide show, portfolio type presentation ?

screen resolution good enough ?

The screen res is pretty good (1024x 600), but I really think for something to sell with, bigger is better.

We've had an HP mini 1000 for about 6 months. We use it for general surfing and email as a 2nd computer at home, but also for on-the-road stuff including sorting of pics. For example, our trip to Yellowstone where I used it nightly to review and sort keepers and culls before xfering them to a pair of thumbdrives. No editing, just sorting on a larger 10" screen where I can judge focus and basic issues quickly using Picasa (since Picasa sees RAWs).

The 16gb SSD is small but quick and the battery lasts a very long time. The small overall size of the netbook makes it fit easily anywhere. The mini has a "secret" USB slot that came with a 2gb thumbdrive that fits totally inside the unit. You can get larger ones up to 8gb. I use it for image storage as they're already on a USB drive and it makes it easy to xfer them later. THe SD card slot can also be used as an additional drive, at the moment a 4gb SD card sits in there as yet another drive. So in its normal configuration, we've got 16gb as the C:, 2gb more in the internal USB and 4gb in the SD slot. And still fabulous battery life.

If you really need an optical drive, we bought a USB Light-scribe drive for under $100, we use it to dupe CDs/DVDs on any of our net/notebooks.

[snydersnapshots]

I've been using an Acer Aspire One with a 160gb "real" hard drive for several months now and it works just fine. I run Lightrroom 2 on it and the only problem is that the import screen is greater than the 600 pixels on the screen, so the bottom of the box gets cut off--not really a problem since all I have to do is hit "enter" to make it work (that problem may be eliminated since the import screen on LR3 is slightly different). If I had it to do over again I'd opt for the slightly larger netbook that Acer put out that has a full-size keyboard and 1024x768 resolution. I believe the larger Acer NB also has up to 2gb of memory (mine has a max of 1 gb). I did buy a portable DVD recorder for $89 and it works great.

[OTRphoto]

Originally Posted by snydersnapshots

I've been using an Acer Aspire One with a 160gb "real" hard drive for several months now and it works just fine. I run Lightrroom 2 on it and the only problem is that the import screen is greater than the 600 pixels on the screen, so the bottom of the box gets cut off--not really a problem since all I have to do is hit "enter" to make it work (that problem may be eliminated since the import screen on LR3 is slightly different). If I had it to do over again I'd opt for the slightly larger netbook that Acer put out that has a full-size keyboard and 1024x768 resolution. I believe the larger Acer NB also has up to 2gb of memory (mine has a max of 1 gb). I did buy a portable DVD recorder for $89 and it works great.

That is the same one I have - you can upgrade the RAM to 2gb pretty easy and cheap.

Good to know that LR2 works on it. I got it to dl my cards on vacations. Nice to know I can put LR2 on there to do some minor editing if I want.

We planned to pick up the external DVD player as well.

[playbak]

I bought the MSI Wind for my mom. It runs XP and has a 10" screen. The problem with any notebook is screen resolution and viewing angle, netbooks seem to follow this pattern. It's only important if you plan to show people anything on your netbook, the picture looks awful if you aren't right in front of it. Try this in the store and you'll see what I mean. The side and top views are very distorted and off color.

Other than that, it was great. Light, good wireless and plenty of storage. The processor is very weak and as some here have pointed out, RAM can be limited. These devices are not laptop substitutes for people planning to run Photoshop. I didn't load LR, so I'll take your word that it works OK.

So to sum up and answer Capt Tom's question, no, it's not for showing off your work. If you want to test this, just stick some jpg's on an SD card or thumb drive and take it to the store and plug it in to any netbook. I don't think you'll be impressed by the picture quality. I'd rather use my iPhone to show pictures.

For individual use to surf and quick pick/editing it's a great way to go.

[snydersnapshots]

Originally Posted by OTRphoto

That is the same one I have - you can upgrade the RAM to 2gb pretty easy and cheap.

Hmmm...Might have to try that--I thought it had a max of 1gb. I'll let you know what happens.