Comments on: Hackit: Netbook haters?

By: ddm3187

ddm3187 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:53:16 +0000

I have a Dell mini 9 that i brought with me on deployment to Iraq and it has survived the rigors of living in a dry dust and static filled environment. It has survived many of days at the bottom of my assault pack and many hours being near electronic jamming equipment without a sign of trouble I think a lot of people have forgotten the concept of the netbook ultra portable and powerful enough to surf the net and chat and use some type of messenger. If they are looking for a computer with enough processing power to compute the meaning of life and to go into a seizure from all the flashing bright colors from it being displayed on the screen they should stick with a desk top.

By: djputchap

djputchap — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:51:32 +0000

I own a 1000he. It’s great. Keyboard is nice, I have small hands, and the mouse is adequate for its size, but I had to buy a separate mouse, a V450 Nano Logitech. Added an extra GB of ram and replaced the 160gb with a 250gb. It’s overclocked to run at 2ghz, using SETFSB and with GMAbooster, the puny 950 GMA, is running 2.4x more processing power than stock. I couldn’t be happier with what I get out of it, after all it IS a netbook, and NOT a desktop. For $350 it’s about the same price as the high end model of an iPod or Zune. I can’t complain, and for 10 inches of viewing pleasure? It fits my needs and that’s all a product should do for you.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:48:29 +0000

As much as I love my AAO, I can’t really say that it’s a replacement for a desktop or even a full size notebook. I knew what I was and was not going to get when I purchased it. One thing that I think is overlooked, is that the intel atom n270 processor while clocked at 1.6GHz, is also hyperthreading. not a true dual core, but it certainly makes a difference, particularly when compared to a non hyperthreading p4 at the same clock speed. true, I can’t even run msn video at full screen without massive jitter, but that’s not why I got it. I wanted portability, and that’s what I got. as far as gaming is concerned, Diablo 2 runs okay, maxed at 800×600. World of Warcraft is… well if you need to check the AH on the go then its okay. 7fps outside, 27 inside if you’re staring at a wall. other than that, the 1024×600 max resolution can cause problems with certain applications that are expecting at least 768 pixels in the vertical. 1024×600 is a poor choice for a widescreen resolution, but its livable. the AAO has a very clear, crisp and bright screen, but it is a bit reflective. I find myself running firefox in fullscreen mode with just the address and status bar showing. Also, I don’t know how other netbook keyboards are, aside from the minuscule eee keys and the 89% of standard acer keys, but they work okay for me. scrolling with the trackpad is simple enough, you just have to find the edge of the trackpad, which incidentally is very smooth in operation on the AAO. I normally use a wireless laser mouse however.

By: Travis

Travis — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:02:20 +0000

i just bought an acer one friday and love it its great for reading ebooks and can play my nes gba and most of my ds roms its a great little device to have

By: John

John — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:58:47 +0000

I bought a Samsung NC10 two months ago and love it. Very portable and fantastic battery life, my laptop has become the desktop and the NC10 the portable – desktop redundant. I have taken the NC10 on holiday and didn’t even notice it in hand luggage. Only gripe being the mousepad which I have tried to adjust, but not perfect yet. I use it for email and web browsing mainly.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:05:32 +0000

I have owned several subnote-netbooks and quite frankly they are ALL, with few exceptions, a money pit.

However, I bought number of 2nd hand small laptops for far less, and were considerably better value for money. I bought a IBM thinkpad X32 centrino subnote with wifi, bluetooth and an XP Pro Licence. I upgraded the ram from 512mb to 2GB and replaced the 40Gb ide with a fast 120Gb model and this travels with me everywhere Cost £130.

Two weeks ago, I bought an IBM T30 14.” Thinkpad and an IBM A31P 15.4″ Thinkpad, both P4-M’s for £170 for the pair. One I am now selling and the other is going to be a mini-Server.

Yesterday, I bought a Compaq Armada P2-300MHZ for £10! I also bought a Toshiba Portege P3440 P3-500MHz for £40.

I will upgrade the £10 Armada to 320mb RAM (The max) and install either Linux XUBUNTU or Damn Small Linux? after installing a Cheap WiFi card extra ram. It makes a great disposable laptop for kids or high-risk locations.

Save money, buy second hard!!

By: Diane

Diane — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 03:34:44 +0000

I have a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and I like it a lot. I haven’t typed on it enough yet to get used to the slightly different keyboard, but I will be typing more on it soon. The Acer Aspire One has a better keyboard, but no one could beat the Mini 9’s battery life, and I thought that was more important than the keyboard.

I have an 8GB SSD and 1GB of memory, and that is fine for me. We have a fast and powerful notebook I like to use in different room in our house or on trips. But the Mini 9 is something I can easily carry to my office or to various worksites or coffee shops.

The graphics are good, speed is better than I expected–excellent in many cases, but a little jerky in others–wireless is fine, and the trackpad is nice. Dell is updating both the bios and drivers a lot. I did have a problem with freezing after booting, but the first troubleshooting solution on the Dell site worked for me, and it was easy.

It didn’t matter to me, but a lot of people complained about the lack of an F11 key on the Mini 9. That has been taken care of in a recent bios update (FNz does the trick).

People seem to want too much from netbooks. I will use mine to check scores, look at a few websites, check my email, and do some light blogging or document writing. That is what the machine is intended for, and it functions quite well. I’m really glad I bought it.

By: Luc_Besson

Luc_Besson — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:12:10 +0000

proud owner of a samsung nc10.

regaurdless of what games u could play on these little things u really dont want to, they inspire u to get out ur old games that feel out of place on ur alienware desk-jobs.

and as fallout3 was mentioned earlier i think ill make a little pun for anyone whos played it.

netbooks have… wait for it..

“the power of the Atom”

[back to uplink for me:)]

By: jesse

jesse — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:50:40 +0000

I own an Acer Aspire One and it has been one of the best investments I have ever made. I can take this mini laptop anywhere. I have added a touch screen, internal logitech transmitter and I’m planning on bluetooth. The machine is rock solid and to say that it’s underpowered is plain stupid. I think what is going on is that some businesses are joining forces to focus on more “powerful” systems = more money per machine = larger profits.

The size of the keyboard is not a problem, you get used to it after a few hours and you can be as proficient as with a standard size keyboard. I have used my One so much that normal size keyboards seem a little too big now.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:19:35 +0000

I bought an Acer Aspire One with 1gig of ram adn 120gig Hd abou 6 months ago. Had a EEEPC and tried the Dell Mini 9.The One outdoes them all with Ubuntu 8.10. Plus, why would anyone pay more than $100 for a netbook with an ssd anyway? The rest of the Netbook market seems like a total waste of perfectly good computer parts…

By: Alpha

Alpha — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:29:42 +0000

I own an EeePC 1000HD. Its got a gig of ram, 160gig ram, and an intel 900mhz processor. I’ve owned it since christmas, and i havent yet figured out the BIOS key, but I think its underclocked and undervolted to keep power usage and heat emissions down. I use it for music, movies, and the web.

People have to understand that netbooks are made for light duty. If you want a gaming laptop, get an ASUS G series. Now, that being said, I installed Red alert 2, my favorite rts, and its been running fine. The only gripe I have with this netbook is the shift key. I read a review on newegg complaining about the locatioon of the right shift button, and I agree that it is hard to get used to. Maybe in a week or two I’
ll get it down.

no complaints about the speed or performance here

By: kenneth

kenneth — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:25:13 +0000

Hello i got a Aspire one Blue with one gig ram 120 hd 1,6 intel atom processor and 1024/600 res.
I use it for many things : GuitarEffects processor
, soundstudio ( cooledit and reason4 ) , and even games run quite well on this machine . I play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of tjernobyl and i have no problems at all the game run fine even with Highres graphics and high detail on in res 1024*600 and im happy with this little fellow.

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:36:17 +0000

I’ve got an eeePC 1000h with 2G RAM and a 320G HDD – works great. I’ve even run an XP virtual machine with MS Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2005 and IIS. It’s not fast by any means, but it does cope. I hook it up to my 24″ 1920×1200 dell monitor and keyboard/mouse and you can treat it more or less like a regular PC for web browsing and email and you can watch DivX and DVD movies on it without a hitch – although i haven’t tried anything hi def.

By: Ray

Ray — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 08:47:29 +0000

Having owned and used various laptops in various roles (academia, work), I can most definetly say I prefer netbooks.

Having owned an AA1 (it’s got a cracked screen at the moment), I can most definetly say it does what I need it to. I run Ubuntu on it with absolutley no trouble at all, I can easily run kicad, firefox with 10 tabs, ssh, telnet and still be able to stream music.

There are things for and against netbooks, looking at it from a fullsize laptop perspective, you have more ‘computing’ power, a bigger screen and more storage.

On the downside you have something which is hardly portable and a real pain to lug about.

I personally prefer netbooks, I am going to be investing in a new AA1 (the repairs cost the same price as a new unit, so I figure I might as well get a new one and have the old one as a very small form factor desktop).

By: tensegrity

tensegrity — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:44:14 +0000

Netbooks are awesome. I was on the verge of buying a Samsung NC10, but I finally settled on a used ultraportable (Dell D420) just for the full size keyboard. The NC10’s or any netbooks’ performance/specs are plenty good enough but a 100% keyboard was ultimately most important to me (writing is my main use). If there was a <$500, 3 lb, netbook with a full size keyboard, they would have gotten my money.