The laptop is dead, long live the new netbook!

My old laptop literally died in my arms after about 2 weeks of suffering. After 3 years of heavy usage it started to give all kind of error codes before booting up. We ordered a new netbook. The laptop gave up its last current just 3 days before the netbook arrived.

Since I like to read in bed, and I don't care for a CD/DVD player, we went with a 10 inch MSI U100 netbook with XP on it. So far everything what I expected, it is 11 Mbps on wireless and 28 wired. It is also possible and easy to overclock it by 8-15-24% although I don't think I would do that. I might add an extra Giga memory, we shall see....
It is only 2.3 pnds and the screen is still big enough to see everything, although I started to use F11, which makes the browser's frame disappear, and shows more of the website.
The keyboard is only 20% smaller than the average laptop's...Netflix was downloading fine, although Hulu was a bit jerky, I don't know why...
Speaker is on the bottom and not particulary super, I guess this was made for earphones....
Touchpad, well, I don't use it, I have a supermouse with extra buttons on it...
Battery only lasts 2 hours, with a 3 cell type of battery, I use it AC, but this could be at least 3 hours nowadays...

Anyhow in this thread I will write about my experiences with the new netbook.

Price was $280....

 

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A netbook that only lasts 2-3 hours? Now THAT sucks.

 

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I find my Netbook very useful. It is true the sound quality is not perfect. Headphones are recommended. It is not great for running games, but I downloaded WoW, and it runs fine on the lowest settings. It can do almost anything that a normal laptop can do. Although not having a disk drive is also a pain.

 

I'm pretty sure there's an eight hour battery you can buy for like $50.

 

Yeap, I could upgrade it for 6 cell and I think even 9 cell batteries, but again, I use it on the bed next to the wall.
I didn't really put too much effort into researching what kind we get because I figured at this pricerange there isn't much difference among them. If it lasts 2 -3 years, I am happy.

Also, we only do puzzle and cardgames and internetsurfing on it. Last time we got a laptop I went for size and that 17 inch sucker is HEAVY!!! Specially after dinner on your stomach, lying down.

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With this I can watch Netflix movies and still fall asleep happily...

Also please note I didn't care for the OS being new. For what I need I don't feel like learning anything new. Speed and lightness not to mention PRICE were the important factors....

 

Netbooks are increasingly popular because of their portability and low cost. The MSI Wind is a good book, and its one of the most popular (its also sold as the Advent 4211 and Medion Akoya Mini E1210 which are identical). For such a small laptop it has a webcam, card reader and as you say, good wireless capability. The battery life is poor with a 3 cell, but there are options for longer lasting batteries (which will stick out the back a bit more). The Atom processor does a good job. The drawback is the lack of a CD/DVD drive, if you really wanted there are external USB drive options out there.

You probably dont care about the OS, but the MSI U100 handles Windows 7 very well, in fact it can improve the performance a little (unlike Vista which was a major slowdown). MSI Wind + Windows 7 = Lovely.

 

I have a Samsung N110 (8 hour battery, 1024x600, 1GB Ram, dual core Atom processor) and can report that it's truly awesome. Even though it's not meant for number crunching of any sort, it performs far better than I predicted with taxing operations (Canon's digital photo professional was about 3-4 times slower than on my workstation - was expecting a lot worse performance than that). It also plays video files very well, assuming SD which is all you need on a screen that size.

They also make excellent control units for home audio or any other remote service that just needs keyboard and mouse instructions.

The netbook is a sort of half-way house between a smart phone and laptop - so if you don't have an iPhone, like me, you might enjoy having Google available even at the pub.

However, I don't think the netbook will defeat the full size laptop. The cost of a netbook isn't that much cheaper and they're not that much smaller either. I do own a pair of trousers (cyberdog - can't really wear on a daily basis!) that can fit a netbook in its pockets, but generally the smaller size only really makes a difference if you bag is just that size where a full size laptop would be uncomfortable.

 

What would be the advantage? I don't really expect the speed increasing much.I also considered putting linux on it, but it would be a pain and not much of a speed increase, so what is not broken....

One more thing, it does have a spinning HD instead of a SSD, what would be more common in netbooks. I am typing this lying down.....

 

From a purely functional point of view, probably not much. I just meant to say that it works very well. I was very happy simply using XP on it before, but I like the new one, Windows 7 is an excellent OS.

http://gamezandgadgetz.com/windows-7-on-an-advent-4211/

 

I just realized, basicly I have a Kindle.(ebook reader)

With Opera I can magnify pages then F11 takes away the browser and only the webpage is displayed. Now I can go back and forth with the mouse's extra buttons and if I roll the page with the mouse it runs up or down for 3-4 seconds. It is kind of funny....

Oh yeah, the core's temperature is around 42C, which is way less then the old laptops 52 or the new Acer's 68.

 

Yes, I often read pdfs on my netbook, I open up the pdf and rotate the document 90 degrees. Then you can hold the netbook like a book and use the touchpad keys to flip pages.

 

Too big for my pocket too small for a keyboard.

 

I just found a terrific little tool that rotates your screen so you can use your netbook like a reader.

http://jkontherun.com/2008/11/11/eeerotate-softw/

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It works on the MSI Wind, Advent, Medion Akoya too.

 

Funny story:

The other day out of curiosity I pushed the ON button on the old laptop. It came to life! I watched a movie on it and after about 3 hours running it died again. I think it is a HD issue, but since it has other problems (display vertical lines, battery is nearly dead, touchpad is dying, adapter connection ) I wrote it off already as junk....