Are they any good?

My dad’s ageing Dell laptop has just needed Windows reinstalled for the third time in as many days and I fear the time has come to get him a new computer. He can’t afford an expensive replacement but there are a few interesting looking deals on netbooks at the moment.

I was wondering if a cheap netbook might be the solution. He uses his laptop to write letters, browse the interweb and download pictures from his camera. The netbook would be plugged into an external monitor and keyboard so the tiny screen wouldn’t be much of a hindrance.

Its likely to be me buying it so I was wondering what the IT nerds thought. Is a sub £200 netbook worth it or should I stump up a bit extra and buy a base model craptop. Can a netbook handle office software, antivirus and a printer without fear of it blowing up?

If you’re using an external monitor and keyboard, £200 would be better spent on a desktop box

what ourskidsam says. tbh a £200 desktop would be better than a laptop too – you buy a laptop or netbook and you;re paying for a screen, keyboard, smaller sized ram /cpu etc etc

Fair comment about buying a desktop instead. Not seem much I like so far.

I bought a dell optiplex 760 small form factor box with w7 on eBay a could of weeks ago for 140 quid. Plenty more of the same available. Bargin.

seller was millraceit.

A single-core Atom has about half the performance of a Pentium M at the same clock speed (but uses a lot less power to do so).

It’ll run all that. Whether it’s acceptable performance (especially with the photo stuff) depends on how patient you are. I took a netbook travelling with me, with 2GB RAM and it was OK for general tasks. Rendering complex webpages was noticably slower than on a modern machine, and for things like the flickr uploader it was actually quicker to let it upload full-resolution pictures than have it resize before upload. The dual-core ones now may be a bit better.

As said, a basic desktop will be way better, or there are much quicker “proper” laptops at nearer £300.

I’ve never been a fan of Netbooks. The only good thing about them is the price and the fact they are very portable. That comes at an expense though. Horrible tiny keyboard, tiny screen, usually no CD drive, tiny mouse pad…

As above, spend the cash on a desktop with all the proper bits and use it with the monitor, keyboard etc you have already. Much better spec and will handle office, av etc without blowing up.

Have to agree with whatnobeer. What people seem to imagine netbooks to be is actually called a Macbook Air.

Hmm, the Dell optiplex is an interesting option. Morgan Computers have a few and having bought from them before I know their stuff is pretty good. Plus the optiplex is small enough to lob in the bin when it finally wears out!

We’ve got one, it’ll be fine for all that kind of thing. Though like everyone else has pointed out, the main advantage of a netbook is portability, so if you’re not planning on moving it a box would be a much better bet.

we use the optiplex sff models at work and they’re pretty reliable.