Netbooks

[clarkey]

hi guys,

I'm in the market for a netbook.

Been looking at Acer Aspire or a Dell Inspiron Mini10.

I am leaning towards the Dell @ $649 AUD V's $799 AUD for the Acer.

Any comments on both of these???

Would u buy in Australia or should i wait till i get to LOS where I will spending the next few months or so??

The Dell and Acer both come with WindowsXP but the Dell comes with a McAfee security system for a 30 day trial.

Any comments on McAfee???

I will be using the netbook for banking, email, facebook, blogging, poker, surfing.

I am no tech-head so any help is appreciated...

Thanks guys, Clarkey.

[Crushdepth]

I don't like Acer in general (awful build quality). But there are so many nice netbooks out now, maybe have a look at some of the nice ASUS, HP mini and Lenovo alternatives. The one I am lusting after is the HP mini 5101 which blows everything else away on specs.

But since its not clear if HP will ever actually sell the HP in Thailand, am seriously thinking about an ASUS instead.

[britmaveric]

Acer Aspire One is rock solid and I love it!! Sadly 8.9in ones have gone the way side for 10/11in netbooks. Anyways Acer has done a great job, and blown away the Asus models.

[stkyricesf]

Acer Aspire One is rock solid and I love it!! Sadly 8.9in ones have gone the way side for 10/11in netbooks. Anyways Acer has done a great job, and blown away the Asus models.

I just bought an Acer Aspire and it freezes up after 3 minutes. I'm no amature when it comes to

computers, but maybe its just a lemon. I'm returning this one My friend got a dell and it works

fine, although from research I assume they all heat up fast

[britmaveric]

I've been using my for a year or more. Great lil device and no blue screens or freezes, def sounds like you got a lemon. Just bought another high capacity battery for it. Granted 6-7hr longevity is super. (couldn't be happier)

[tw25rw]

I have a Toshiba NB100. It has the worst keyboard I have ever used.

[JSixpack]

I've got an Acer Aspire One and I love it, been great.

You should buy in Australia, cheaper & has English-only keyboard.

Forget McAfee, dump it and get free Avira or Avast.

[quiksilva]

Im waiting for the Lenovo S12 to come to Thailand.

It has the best specs I have seen on any netbook out there. 12 inch screen. Proper keyboard. Watching HD movies on a netbook? Check. Call of Duty 4 on a netbook? Check.

[Will27]

Had just about decided on the Acer Aspire

1810T when someone mentioned Samsung's

N510 which is due soon.

Will have a look at that and then make a

decision.

Regards

Will

[Insight]

Am personally waiting for the Asus T91 or T101H Netbook Tablets to arrive in Thailand. Personally think these things will change the world

Whatever you buy, might be worth holding off for about two months or so until Windows 7 is released. Having a scout around Fortune yesterday I noticed most Netbooks were running XP Home.

[Changian]

I've got a Samsung N10. Excellent little machine, no complaints. Got an extra 1 GB Ram and an external DVD writer for free when i bought it.

I use it for everything. Not the most powerful processor but I use Photoshop CS4 on it without a problem whilst also having other programs running. Keyboard is about 95% of a regular laptop - so no noticeable difference when typing. Only negative is that the inbuilt speakers arent so loud, so not great for listening to music without external speakers.

[britmaveric]

^remember netbooks are not suppose to replace every function of main notebook.

[Saraquin]

Hi

I really like the offerings from ASUS, the EEE-PC performance is impressive and good battery life, I have not had bad experiences with Acer (only the support centre) toshiba do have nice netbooks too. the few samsung ones i have seen use rather akward hard-drives with a sluggish lag on access. Personally i would reccommend against HP/Compaq and Dell versions. (70% of the laptops i end up righting off due to major hardware failure) either way just my 2c.

cheers.

[Rinrada]

I've got an Acer Aspire One and I love it, been great.

You should buy in Australia, cheaper & has English-only keyboard.

Forget McAfee, dump it and get free Avira or Avast.

Agree Nice bit of kit..thinking about one ...

Acer Aspire One A150L Blue N270 1GB 120GB 8.9" Net Book

Catalogue number: 204-1131

£179.00.....Tesco UK

[whimsy]

Clarkey,

I have owned both the Acer 8.9" screen model and the newer 10" screen model. Both are very solid machines as Britmaveric has said. They are made FOR Acer, not made BY Acer. Acer has a good service network in Thailand as they are the number 1 selling brand there. You should be able to get either model for much less than A$799 and there are factory cashback bonuses running in Australia on both of them as a further discount. (A$69 and A$49 respectively). The 8.9" model is getting harder to find now as I think it has been discontinued.

Currently, the on-line store where I bought both mine has the 10" with a bonus 2 year warranty, 2GB RAM and a 6 cell battery (around $200 value in bonuses there) for A$499 after the $69 cashback (about 14,000B). PM me if you want the name of the store.

If you need it with a Thai keyboard, then buy in Thailand, otherwise, buy in Australia. Either way you will have a 1 year International warranty valid in both countries.

By the way, I think you will find that the Acer also comes with the Mcafee 30 day trial, plus Microsoft Works 9.0, full version and a 60 day trial of Microsoft Office 2007. If you are not a big computer user then Microsoft Works may be all you ever need.

Alternatively, the Lenovo s10e for $488 from the same seller looks a pretty good deal to me and a nice machine too.

[lazygourmet]

I might wait for the Nokia booklet 3G

[ozzydave]

hi guys,

I'm in the market for a netbook.

Been looking at Acer Aspire or a Dell Inspiron Mini10.

I am leaning towards the Dell @ $649 AUD V's $799 AUD for the Acer.

Any comments on both of these???

Would u buy in Australia or should i wait till i get to LOS where I will spending the next few months or so??

The Dell and Acer both come with WindowsXP but the Dell comes with a McAfee security system for a 30 day trial.

Any comments on McAfee???

I will be using the netbook for banking, email, facebook, blogging, poker, surfing.

I am no tech-head so any help is appreciated...

Thanks guys, Clarkey.

Based on experience with a fleet of Dell products I would be steering away from that brand. Have you considered the ASUS PC1000 range, or the MSI. There is a review of these two excellent products.

pricing in AUS seemstobe as good or better than I have found in Thailand (from any reputable outlet I considered).

oh - I am a tech head :-)

[alleykat]

Can someone please explain the main differences between a notebook & a netbook? What features do you lose by getting a netbook. I am aware that there's no DVD player for example. But could I plug in an external DVD player to watch movies on it?

Can I use it for Excel & Word? I travel quite a bit so the smaller size of a netbook would be handy. I would use it mainly for internet (but not downloading from net), email, uploading photos, has to have wi-fi, some Excel & Word.

[d0ndela]

I would recommend you to try and read the PC Pro magazine from September. It has a very big test on netbooks. You should of course read the details, but to summarize the test results were as follows:

Acer Aspire One D150 ***

Acer Aspire One D250 ****

Advent 4214 **

AsusEee PC 1000HE *****

AsusEee PC 1005HA ***** (PC Pro recommends)

AsusEee PC 1008HA ***** (PC Pro recommends)

AsusEee PC T91 ***

Dell Mini 10 ***

HP Compaq Mini 110c ****

HP Mini 2140 ****

Kohjinsha SC3-VB **

Lenovo IdeaPad S10e ****

MSI Wind U115 Hybrid ***

Samsung N110 ****** (Test winner)

Samsung N120 *****

Samsung N310 ***

Samsung NC10 *****

Samsung NC20 *****

Sony VAIO VGN-P19VN/Q **

Toshiba NB200 ***

I'm not sure we are allowed to post links to torrents, so I won't do that, but it's available out there.

[jrbkk64]

I have the Samsung NC10 and it is great. The post above proves it.

[Crushdepth]

Can someone please explain the main differences between a notebook & a netbook? What features do you lose by getting a netbook.

* Much less powerful processor (but much better battery life)

* Smaller screen

* Smaller keyboard can drive touch-typists crazy (but there are a few with decent sized keyboards now)

* Ethernet port is 100MB on most (but not all) models, as opposed to gigabit ethernet on most notebooks.

* Half the price of an ordinary notebook.

* Lighter and more portable.

You could probably just rip your movies to the hard disk or a flash drive and watch them from that. External drives are highly annoying to cart around.

[Saraquin]

Can someone please explain the main differences between a notebook & a netbook? What features do you lose by getting a netbook.

* Much less powerful processor (but much better battery life)

* Smaller screen

* Smaller keyboard can drive touch-typists crazy (but there are a few with decent sized keyboards now)

* Ethernet port is 100MB on most (but not all) models, as opposed to gigabit ethernet on most notebooks.

* Half the price of an ordinary notebook.

* Lighter and more portable.

You could probably just rip your movies to the hard disk or a flash drive and watch them from that. External drives are highly annoying to cart around.

Just like a laptop that went to the chop-shop to get better fuel economy by trimming the fat, most netbooks are targeting portability and good battery life with a bonus of being cheap

cheers

[Phil Conners]

I would recommend you to try and read the PC Pro magazine from September. It has a very big test on netbooks. You should of course read the details, but to summarize the test results were as follows:

Acer Aspire One D150 ***

Acer Aspire One D250 ****

Advent 4214 **

AsusEee PC 1000HE *****

AsusEee PC 1005HA ***** (PC Pro recommends)

AsusEee PC 1008HA ***** (PC Pro recommends)

AsusEee PC T91 ***

Dell Mini 10 ***

HP Compaq Mini 110c ****

HP Mini 2140 ****

Kohjinsha SC3-VB **

Lenovo IdeaPad S10e ****

MSI Wind U115 Hybrid ***

Samsung N110 ****** (Test winner)

Samsung N120 *****

Samsung N310 ***

Samsung NC10 *****

Samsung NC20 *****

Sony VAIO VGN-P19VN/Q **

Toshiba NB200 ***

I'm not sure we are allowed to post links to torrents, so I won't do that, but it's available out there.

I'm surprised to see how low the MSI is rated. All the threads discussing it have always had it come out as one of the top models. I'd be curious to read the full review. Sent you a PM.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Phil Conners

[d0ndela]

The MSI looses on value for money, the model they tested (hybrid) is to expensive they say. It scores good on battery life and features, but the price drags it down.

[Phil Conners]

Perhaps it is a different model, I didn't think they made more than one.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Phil Conners

[nikster]

Can someone please explain the main differences between a notebook & a netbook? What features do you lose by getting a netbook.

* Much less powerful processor (but much better battery life)

* Smaller screen

* Smaller keyboard can drive touch-typists crazy (but there are a few with decent sized keyboards now)

* Ethernet port is 100MB on most (but not all) models, as opposed to gigabit ethernet on most notebooks.

* Half the price of an ordinary notebook.

* Lighter and more portable.

You could probably just rip your movies to the hard disk or a flash drive and watch them from that. External drives are highly annoying to cart around.

Netbook is mainly a branding thing. In the end, they do less and cost less. I don't think it warrants a category separate from laptops. It might have in the beginning, because there were no laptops in that price range, and because small subnotebooks were previously extremely expensive. But now, laptops come in all sizes and price ranges. A cheap laptop with a slow processor and a small screen costs you less than an expensive laptop with a better screen and a better processor. Surprise!!!

[jcgodber]

I have the Acer Aspire One and really like it I am very happy that I chose this one.

I did have some bad luck as somehow my grand daughter was using it on the floor. with out thinking she accedently walked on the screen.

After that it would start up just fine BUT you couldn't see anything. The screen was DEAD

A happy ending-- I took the computer to Acer Service in Rangsit located there in the Zeer building. They replaced the screen for me WHILE I WAITED in about 30 minutes. They charged me right around 2500 baht and I could not be happier

The service was way way better than I expected. VERY HAPPY I BOUGHT ACER

Edited September 9, 2009 by jcgodber

[Tywais]

Perhaps it is a different model, I didn't think they made more than one.

There are several models of the MSI Wind > Models also MSI Wind U100 ranked #1 in customer satisfaction.

I have a MSI Wind U100 and bought it due to having the top reviews at that time. Running Windows 7 on it with Office 2007, PhotoShop CS3, etc. with no problems.