Ive been looking at a few and am a bit baffled about processors etc.

whats the difference between an atom N270 and the 450? On a dell inspiron 1011 its supposedly 1.66 GHz and some of the others ive been looking at a bit lower in price are 1.60GHz. I take it there would be no noticable difference between those figures? Is it something i should be worrying about? Ive also been looking at the samsung n130 with windows xp,atom n270,160gb sata hd,1GB RAM and 802.11n wifi. Ive read that the figure with the N at the end might be better for wireless connectivity around the house compared to the ones ending in G? not too sure what that was about.i just read someone going on about it in a review.

another thing ive read is that without an optical drive,movies would have to be played directly from the hard drive. what does this mean and what are the benefits of having the optical drive?

the one ive got my eye on is the samsung NC10. it seems to get good reviews and on one review site it gets 5/5.. unlike most of the others under 400 quid. has anyone got one?

The main useage it would get is playing music from the likes of spotify,surfing the net and being able to view vimeo/youtube etc vids stutter free.
I wouldnt even be using word or office.. so if i could remove them to help it out in other areas then so be it.

any thoughts would be appreciated.

cheerzz

martin

"under 400 quid"? i wouldn't want to spend more than 250 on a netbook. they've all got pretty much the same spec unless you find one with a dual core atom.
i was looking at toshiba nb200 series personally. although yes the samsung is no bad choice at all.

I've got an NC10 and highly recommend it. In fact it's become the most used computer in the house. The performance is adequate for anything other than the obvious such as photo editing, web design and gaming etc. Great for browsing, blogging etc. I also use it to sync my phone. The best feature is the build quality which is much better than others when I bought mine 6 months ago. The only downside is that the speakers are puny. You can only hear through them if TV is switched off and room is relatively silent. No problem listening through headphones though. As you'd expect, it's very portable and we've taken it with us for weekends away where it's been easier to check websites etc than on phone. It's also nice to carry. I know that sounds odd, but there's a ridge adjacent to the battery that makes it easy to hold and carry. Finally the keys are big enough and well spaced. Now that I've tried it, anything over £250 looks really poor value for money. You can always plug in a USB DVD player for an extra £40 or so if you miss the ability to play DVDs/CDs or record. Wouldn't use it as my only PC but can't be beaten as a 2nd one, especially when charges really quick and seems to last forever (7 hours or so?).

the samsung n110 is the later version of the nc10, but is essentially the same spec. i have one. great bit of kit, good keyboard, good trackpad, good screen.
watch out if you buy the nc10 as the battery can have various specs – from 3hrs through to about 8. the n110 goes to 9 hrs as standard.
yes – the 'n' is the latest wireless standard. your router needs to match to take advantage of higher speeds.
films and the like can be ripped onto your HD from an external drive, so you don't have to cart the external drive about if you don't want to.
i'd budget for an external optical drive if your chosen netbook doesn't have one ( and by definition, netbooks usually don't ). 40 or 50 quid depending upon how shiny you want it.

I bought an Asus 1005p from Amazon for £250 last week
Blurb from amazon –
Asus 1005P 10.1-inch Netbook (Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB, up to 11 Hours Battery, WLAN, Webcam, Windows 7 Starter, Black)

Bought it for the mental battery life. Seems fine for what it is, though the audio could be a bit louder, but no real complaints.

TBH I'd buy a laptop

My missis got the same one as IanMunro, and it's fine, with the exception of the Windows 7 starter, which is next to useless. For instance, she can't even change the background desktop picture. I'd get one with XP on it if I was you.

b r – Member
TBH I'd buy a laptop

Aye, but as one of the things he wants it battery life he'd have to pay quite a bit more to get a comparable spec.

N110 here
Had it for six months or so. Love it !
Good battery life, nice keyboard and touchpad, fast, light and seems well made.

Hardly ever use the pc, macbook or 17" Del since I got it !
Use it for more or less everything… internet, word, tracklogs, music (via a big amp), etc

XP btw

A mate just got an Asus from Argos. I don't know the model but its the latest one with dual mode startup (W7 and Linux), outrageous battery life an the new processor. He's been researching the market for ages and says that's the one to get and Argos had it cheapest.

Acer Aspire One D250 here, netbooks are great, very handy, mine gets used loads

hardware wise they're all much of a muchness tbh as said before

personally for a netbook I'd still look for XP,
lightest and will almost certainly do everything you need to do on a netbook

keep an eye on the battery though, they either seem to come with a 3 or 6 Cell battery, personally I wanted the larger one, deicide which you want before buying

whichever you get imo it's worth spending a bit of time uninstalling all of the useless garbage that gets thrown on any new PC nowadays, de-clutter frees disc space and depending on what they've thrown on could also marginally improve performance

Thanks for the thoughts,folks.

Thats what i plan to do with the progs i wont be using,keith.I hate stuff running in the background or being on the computer that never gets used.

well today i asked pc world if they could get a samsung nc10 into the local store.. it wasnt going to happen so i just got them to send one out freepost.only one place in Inverness had one and it was filthy with a key missing.. with only 20 quid or so knocked off it so online was the way to go. (if ye dont stock it..you WONT SELL IT!) that goes for bike shops too.

I decided on the NC10 as it seems to get rave reviews and its also only 49 quid more than the cheapest of netbooks in the town here. Ive also read that the screen is better than the newer version glare-wise? so i decided to go for the older version seeing as how its now being discounted at a reasonable price.

One more question.what options do i have on surfing with dongley type things? I use aol as my provider but was wondering what ways i could be surfing away from home for next to nowt. or are they all much and such price-wise?

mrs Ed has one and I thought they would be a good idea until I had a go on it, I find it a bit too small and fiddly and the screen is a bit on the small size

get a proper laptop and put linux on it, the open source OS uses less battery power

get a proper laptop and put linux on it, the open source OS uses less battery power

All very well if the s/w you want to use runs on Linux (mine doesn't). Not that linux uses significantly enough less power to make the runtime of a normal laptop anywhere near as good as a typical netbook running Windows. The proper laptop will also be rather bigger and heavier if you're wanting to carry it around with you.

It also needs to be small enough to slap under the car seat.If i cant hide it then its a waste of time getting it.

Another vote for the NC10 here, bought one 2nd hand off eGay, under 200 notes, and it's great.

Was mainly for skyping the missus, as I'm away with work most of the time, so it's paid for itself many times over compared to phone calls.

Nice keyboard, great battery life, super portable.

Cheers, Rich