Netbooks?
mod
Alright, so my wife is going back to school to get her master's in library science, and we're thinking about getting a netbook for her. We've got a HP TC4400 tablet pc, which is a nice laptop, but a little too big and too heavy to carry around with her every day, and the battery life is only about 2 hours.
So i'm just wondering if any of you guys have a netbook, and have any recommendations/opinions on them, I'm looking for one in the 250-300 range or so.
So i'm just wondering if any of you guys have a netbook, and have any recommendations/opinions on them, I'm looking for one in the 250-300 range or so.
Replies
How do you find these small, cramped keyboards?
She's going to be doing some web/database type programing, html/javascript/XML, so we're looking for something that is comfortable more than anything.
Typing and battery life really, she's got 2 classes on wednesdays, about 5 hours straight, it would be awesome if we could find something that would last a full day like that, maybe not on the entire time tho, and maybe she can recharge inbetween classes somewhere.
I took it to the last GDC and it performed fantastically. It boots up quickly, runs web and word without problems and the battery life is incredible. I turn the brightness down a bit and easily get 9+ hours of web+video or about 10-11 hours of just word processing and light web.
I made it through 4 talks in one day taking notes through every talk, checking the web between talks and still didn't have to charge it at night.
With the smaller keyboard, it throws you off a bit at first but after 5 or 10 minutes you start to compensate automatically and it doesn't really become a big deal. It'll be easier if the user has smaller hands but otherwise, it's not as bad as you think it will be when you start to use it. At least that's how it was with both my wife and I.
As far as the battery thing, they sell high capacity batteries that last longer, but I haven't tried them myself. Usually we just sit near an outlet and plug in.
but don't think you can still get this particular model anymore.
bought a 2gig stick as well...I can run Silo and UVLayout on there ta boot! (woot)
(tiny little screen, of course)
When I had to type from it on my lap the lack of complete stability was more of a hindrance than the keyboard size, which if I recall correctly, is something like 85-90% of 'full size.' Typing the emails from a table made it feel much more like a normal laptop.
To key/hand size issues, I have fairly large hands and typing on it was not a problem. For comparison my hands cramp up after about 25 minutes of Nintendo DS use, and xbox 1 controllers weren't uncomfortable to me
Also, a 10.1" screen isn't huge, but once you get friendly with the full screen shortcut for firefox it's not an issue at all.
I got this one. Very nice HD display (1366x768) with good colors, feels quite fast and looks less cheap than many other netbooks. Runs Win7 nicely. Downside is the rather dark keyboard - I wish it had a little light like my thinkpad, but it's pretty okay to type on.
Plays some games, runs office decently, big enough screen for web surfing, nice for watching videos. I also take it when I travel when I don't want to bring the expensive Macbook. Nice for previewing pictures I took, surfing at free wifi hotspots or generally to store some travel info (maps, guides, etc).
It has a full size keyboard and is put together real well.