Netbooks

Discussion in 'Gear' started by Puck, Dec 3, 2008.

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  1. Puck

    Puck Pro Bowler

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    looking for a small, lightweight, easy to use laptop for an 8 year old girl
    screen sizes look to be about 8.9"

    I've looked at the
    OLPC XO (must buy 2 - give one/ get one)
    Acer Aspire One
    Asus EeePC 901
    Msi Wind
    Lenovo S10
    probably prefer WindowsXP over Linux
    she has alot of games that I'm not sure if they'd play under Linux
    she can get around in both OSX and XP, so Linux might not be a problem, as long as her games (Disney,etc.) were able to run in Linux

    primary uses -
    surf web /children's games / basic learning / youtube / flash sites / movies

    $350 is a sweet price point ..... we have options as there are a few older machines at her disposal, but they both have limitations and are showing there ages

    any advice would be appreciated
    I've got to get her something for Christmas .........
    whatever it is, it's probably something she already has
    like another Bratz doll to go with the other 50
    same goes for a computer, as she can use either an old G4 eMac or a crippled 17" Dell Inspiron that weighs about 20 pounds, the eMac is an old CRT version of what became the iMac. it's stuck on OSX 10.3 and there's quite a few workarounds to get some children's sites running their flash games properly

    so, I'm sure she'd be pretty giddy about "her own laptop" that she can carry around the house with her and watch her movies without dragging out the portable DVD player or being confined to her desk at her eMac


    rambling now ..........
    would appreciate suggestions
     
  2. Childress79

    Childress79 Loungefly ®

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    One of my friends has an Asus Eec 900.

    He's taken it all around the world with him the last 18months & put it through all kinds of rough treatment.Very well made & reliable little thing.

    Only draw back is a tiny solid state HDD. Not a problem really though as Kingston & Corsair now make rerasonably priced 32 & 64 GB thumb drives.

    My dad just bought an Acer Aspire full size notebook which was very good value for money in terms of CPU,Ram,HDD & Graphics. Set up out of the box though it was a nightmare with half his HDD space taken up with Acers own installation crap. They put his O/S in a 70 GB partition.

    It didn't come with a manual or a driver disc & none were available from Acer online.Acer seems to be a great product with very poor support.
     
  3. GoT

    GoT Strength and Honor

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    picked up a Acer Aspire AS5730-4163 from Newegg. Agree with Childress, BUT the machine I got came with latest drivers and machine prompted me to create Factory Recovery discs on initial startup. Took a few minutes but I made them. I guess making me create my own recovery discs is kinda cheesy, but machine came with lots of HW for the price. No dead pixels - that I can find, but I had too get a friend too help me get it connected too my wireless NW. That's ok dignity is overrated


    Oh Christmas present for wife so nobody tell her OK?
     
  4. Puck

    Puck Pro Bowler

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    don't think I'll get an SSD option
    the 120gb HDD seems more appropriate
    show she can load some games / pics
    shame about the Acer and the OS partition ..... that seems excessive
    could use a thumb, but that's one more thing for her to lose / break

    as cheesy as it seems, the XO Laptop is pretty cool, but it's more useful if other XO's are within range. but the thing can be charged via solar, car battery , and they claim "human powered" (wth, does this thing have a crank or something?) ... you can get SD cards witha "live and persistent" Fedora 10 to use as secondary OS ... just pop in the card .. take it out and you're back to Sugar
    ........ I just think she's gonna be beyond it's benefit shortly

    probably a contest between the Asus and the Acer. not many people recommending the Lenovo's, Winds and Samsung's over these 2
     
  5. Broken Record

    Broken Record Biscuit Eater Staff

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    I have an Asus that I like quite a bit, but the keyboard is very small. It's fine for web surfing and email, although it's a little sluggish for streaming video. Youtube generally works pretty well, but hulu hangs a lot. It has next to no internal hd space, but I don't use it to save anything anyway. The Linux shell is a piece of cake to operate, though it is limited. I use it primarily for travel and it works great for that.

    I got my wife the Acer running XP Home and she really likes it. I bought it for $350 at one of the big office chain stores (Office Depot I think). It has everything she needs except for an optical drive, so we have to plug in an external to load software, but that's no big deal for us.

    I priced the Dell mini laptops when I bought the Acer and I'm glad I went with Acer. You get a lot more for the $$$.
     
  6. Got a HP Mini 1000 from Costco the other week. Thing works perfect for what I need it for........portable pornography. Oh, and email/internet when out of town. 10" screen, 60 gig hard drive, 1 gig ram. Think it was $449. Actually a very nice keyboard and runs every program I need. Picks up the wifi connections flawlessly.
     
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  7. PitBull

    PitBull Bred to Brawl

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    Phonsie..
    what exactly is the HP mini?

    Does it operate exactly like a standard computer, or is it more like a portable DVD player with an additional feature to check you email?
     
  8. http://www.shopping.hp.com/mini/

    Like a standard laptop. Thing is about the size of a book but way thinner and weights about 2.3 lbs. No drives at all on it besides the hard drive. If I need to load something on it I just use a portable DVD drive that plugs in the usb. But almost everything I need I get from the net or off of USB memory sticks. Kind of nice thing is that it has a SD card reader built in, makes it nice for pictures or extra storage. Used it for the first time in Florida this last week and it was perfect. My only complaint would be some glare outside with it but then again I was in Florida.
     
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  9. PitBull

    PitBull Bred to Brawl

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    sounds interesting...
    $400.. pretty cheap for a mini laptop.

    I need one because i travel alot, but i remember reading/hearing somewhere that the mini's are very limited is terms of usability and nothing like a PC. Something about it having it's own weird operating system which basically limits you to either watching movies, or accessing the email address you have programmed on the device.
    Thats probably something else.

    I'm checking out some reviews right now.

    Which do you recommend.. The 8.9 inch screen or the 10?.
     
  10. PitBull

    PitBull Bred to Brawl

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    can i dock it to my LCD monitor, and full size keyboard and mouse at work?
     
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