Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)
  • Laptop or Netbook?
  • brooess
    Free Member

    My 5-year old Sony Vaio is getting on my nerves. It's slower than a slower thing on slow day in slowsville. All I do on it is browse t'internet, listen to iTunes (with the music files on a separate hard drive) and general admin in Powerpoint/Word/Excel.I'll play around in Photoshop resizing images (nothing more complex than that) and I have some Bose speakers for quality of sound.

    I usually download music from CDs and backup my photos to CD but could get a separate CD drive for a notebook, and I like a decent size and quality screen for viewing photos and videos.

    It's used almost exclusively in the house – sometimes in the bedroom and sometimes in the kitchen so maximum portability not really that important.

    I basically like the idea that a netbook is relatively cheap but tbh what I really want is something significantly more powerful than what I have now. I can't remember the exact spec of my Vaio but I'm guessing things have got a lot faster for a given ££ in the last few years?

    So laptop or netbook?

    Mounty_73
    Full Member

    I find with people I work with and know…..they always want a netbook, because its so small and easy to carry around…..but then sooner or later they wished they had bought a laptop….more uses and more powerful…

    Unless you really have the desire to carry it around with you every where, then I would go for a laptop…IMO…

    If you Sony is 5 years old, nearly all the laptops today should be much quicker….just avoid Windows Vista and Celeron processors…

    Lots of laptops around 300 to 400 quid. Have a look on http://www.ebyer.com

    samuri
    Free Member

    I agree. Laptops are great until you have to start carrying them about everywhere. Then it's notebook time. Get a laptop. You'll get frustrated with a diddy notebook screen and keyboard.

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    monkeychild
    Free Member

    Stick ubuntu on it and get your speed back and save £££s

    cp
    Full Member

    laptop definitely based on what you've just said there!

    have a look at the dell inspiron or vostro ranges (vostro is in the business section)

    brooess
    Free Member

    @monkeychild.

    Interesting idea. I'm not an IT idiot but no expert either. Would I need to delete Windows or just download Ubuntu and use it? And what should I backup (if anything) before I do ie: what are the risks, if any? How would I swap back to Windows if I wanted to?

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    I've got a 17 inch laptop and a high spec 10 inch netbook

    Netbook is covered in dust too small to fiddly and a waste of money it was..

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Surprised at all the netbook haterz. We love our little netbook and it gets used a lot.

    You'll get frustrated with a diddy notebook screen and keyboard.

    The screen is fine for surfing and doing email which is pretty much the point of the device (though I wouldn't recommend it for the OPs photoshop work).

    The keyboard is pretty much full size on the Samsung and perfectly usable.

    miketually
    Free Member

    If you've got the same software as you did 5 years ago, and are doing the same things, the old laptop shouldn't be running any slower. Probably just needs a clean up.

    iggs
    Free Member

    laptop every time

    The netbook I had (dell) was useless for everything but surfing the internet.

    You want to listen to music, process images (even in a low level way) and deal with MS Office then get a cheap laptop now. If you buy a netbook you'll end up buying a laptop in the not too distant future I guarentee it

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    Certainly everyone I know who's bought a netbook has sold it and got a laptop instead within 12 months or so (3 or 4 people now).

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Computers only slow down cos of the crap you install on them either knowingly or unknowingly. Learn how to clean it up.. start with msconfig 🙂

    mieszko
    Free Member

    I've got a good spec 15.6" laptop that has a good graphic card but weights quite a lot and the battery life isn't too good, but it is just soo much quicker than my GF netbook or my old laptop, and as I don't carry it round too much I'm not that bothered about size and weight 🙂 I got her an Acer 11.6" netbook with 2gb ram and 250gb hdd, the specification looks ok, and after comparing the screens 11.6 was the smallest I wanted to buy as smaller ones are just too small (7" screens have to be a joke, I rather browse internet on my mobile :-)), her netbook also have a full size keyboard and a webcam. She loves it as it's small and light, fits into her bag while still being usable. I would probably throw it out the window as it's too small for me for longer use and is dead slow sometimes as the Atom processor is crap, and flash ads on STW make it even slower. I was using it for couple of hours and my eyes were just tired of looking at that small screen. It was cheap but probably similar price full size laptop be quicker.

    I would go the normal laptop way rather than netbook or if You don't carry Your laptop around the house than maybe think about getting a PC? 400 notes would get You decent spec with nice screen and faster than a similar price laptop… As someone wrote before avoid Celeron processors as they are slow, even the new duo core t3000 or something like that. I've got a AMD Athlon 64 x2 QL65 processor now and it is very quick comparing to my old Intel on the Vaio so consider AMD equipped laptops/pc as well, as they are sometimes cheaper than Intel while being as fast.

    monkeychild
    Free Member

    Ubuntu can be booted and ran as a live cd to see if you get on with it. Then you have the choice of installing it (there is a windows installer) So if you wanted to keep windoze you can dual boot. My PC and Laptop are both ubuntuified and they have never ran quicker.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Certainly everyone I know who's bought a netbook has sold it and got a laptop instead within 12 months or so (3 or 4 people now).

    Mate and I both have netbooks and we're happy with them. But then we also have desktop PCs for doing more serious work and iPhones for more idle surfing.

    Missus loves it because it fits in her handbag, so she can easily take it to work.

    samuri
    Free Member

    Surprised at all the netbook haterz. We love our little netbook and it gets used a lot.

    Well I'm not a hater, I've just bought one.

    Having to lug a dirty great 15" screen laptop around sounds fine until you actually have to walk 2 miles across London (for example) with it. My personal laptop can now stay on my desk at home doing it's bit torrenting thing nice and quietly and I'll take my new notebook away with me for hotel rooms

    edit: sorry, combined two responses there.

    CHB
    Full Member

    I bought an acer ultra thin laptop from Tesco for £399.
    7 hour battery life, 15 inch screen, silent in use (no fan noise!)
    Much better than a netbook.

    disco_stu
    Free Member

    I've got a netbook and a desktop, the netbook gets used pretty much exclusively for the web and listening to music.
    The netbook makes for a great 2nd machine but I wouldn't want to use it for MS Office or editing photos.

    The first thing I'd try would be to get your Vaio working properly
    First download CCleaner and clean up your harddrive
    Install Mydefrag and defrag your harddrive
    Add more memory to the laptop if you can
    A reinstall of Windows might help as well

    you might find you can still make use of the Vaio

    Mounty_73
    Full Member

    If you Sony is still working, why not re-install the OS and/or upgrade the memory, it should work reasonably ok after that.

    alpinegirl
    Free Member

    I have both an old laptop and a new netbook and use pretty much exclusively the new netbook – even for working on graphics and spreadsheets it's fine. I only use the laptop now if I'm doing more than a couple of hours work at home.

    davey_clayton
    Free Member

    I agree with the above couple of posts. Format it and reinstall windows to really make sure you get rid of all the bloatware that's slowing it down, 5 years isn't that long, that's probably 1.5 GHz? Most current netbooks are probably around that spec and prob won't have dual core chips.

    On the subject of netbooks vs laptops, if you're in the house I wouldn't bother with a netbook, pros are extreme portability and integrated 3g apparatus, cons are compromised power and usability (due to small form). Which of these do you need?

    I do a lot of graphics and multimedia work. When buying my current laptop I purposefully chose a 13" screen over 15" because it does the same res, so it gives me the same working area, but is a fair bit smaller (first gen dell xps). For video viewing pleasure I would deffo go for something with a dedicated graphics card, and I doubt you'd find a mini netbook with one.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Got a 17 inch laptop , a 7inch netbook , 11.6 inch netbook , and an e71 phone.

    The 17 laptop stays on desk at work save me riding to and from work with the dead weight. The netbook is used at home for surfing net and for when im traveling – and sufferfesting.

    The 11.6 inch netbook is much more desktop like and my missus takes that away on placements for doing powerpoint and word . Keyboard on the 11.6 inch is damn near the full size . Its tiny on my 7 inch but its still perfectly usable !

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    I've got a 14" laptop and a 10" netbook. The netbook gets used for web browsing in the house and when I want to travel light – on the train etc.

    The netbooks screen and keyboard I find too small if I'm doing a lot of document updates or typing (and I have the same with 12" laptops as well), so if I only had one it'd be the 14" laptop. I do like the netbook though, especially as it has 7 hours or so of battery life.

    I've also got a desktop for games etc, as decent gaming laptops are pretty expensive and still not as good as a much cheaper desktop.

    richmars
    Full Member

    You can also install Ubuntu from within windows and then choose which one to boot up when you turn on it on. I suggust trying a live CD first to see if you like it.

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    I'd say sort the Sony out, as molgrips said it's probably because you've got it choc full of rubbish, but sometimes it's fairly hard to clean out the junk (I have a machine thats 3 years "old" and runs at the speed of a snail despite me only putting non-junk programs on it and having stacks of free space etc. Windows does just seem to get itself upset over time, i've found no decent explanation, but a fresh install sees it whazzing along just fine. Recently installed Fedora 12 on it and it's like a new machine, so much so it's replacing my server 🙂

Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)

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