Netbooks

I know a few on here have these - are they bearable for typing with? I'm
thinking of it as something to be used generally for 2x 1 hour sessions a
day on a train with the odd longer period...

 

Acer Aspire 1 keyboard is OK although I have smallish hands but mouse
pad action is a bit difficult to get used to and so I tend to use a mouse.

Battery life should be perfect for what you want.

Despite early doubts, I have stuck with it and my laptop now sits in a
drawer unless I need to work with Windows specific programs.

Steve

 

Aye, keyboards vary from the unbareable to the just passable.

I use a HP 2140 which is quite nice as its full sized keyboard, but I
wouldn't want to actually pay for one !

 

I sometimes miss a few keys on mine when typing, but it's probably
more getting used to the keyboard action than it being the keyboard
itself. I obviously type like a gurl.

As for the pad, I love it! Once you get used to the fact that it
has a scrollbar at the side (which is very handy) and avoid that
side of the pad, there's no problem at all. I don't even think
the buttons are in the wrong place either.

I'm not too happy about the battery life on mine, as I think
it could/should be better, so I think I'll invest in the battery
upgrade at some point; although to be fair it does have the
wireless on and connected all the time which probably kills it
a lot quicker.

Now that I've installed pyNeighborhood and can use the shares
on my Win network, along with printing to the printer shared
on one of the machines, there's nothing it can't do.

 

mine isnt that much smaller than a standard laptop size. I used it
100% while I was away. would certainly use it on a train.
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Search for, download and install "A1CTL". It'll double the battery
life under XP, and add a useful stretch screen option.

 

I haz linpus, not XP.

 

I have some of most of them here and the Asus PC1000 gets it by a head.

Battery life. Touchpad. OS stability.

 

Ahh.

I've dumped that and use ubuntu with some fairly extreme power
management and the fan tweaks, and XP with A1CTL, both give me a
couple of hours with the CPU set to drop down to 800Mhz.

Thinking I might get one of the 6 cell batteries though, and double
that.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, ginge

Whaaaaat? That's fucking *useless*!

My EEE 901 gives me > 5 hours continuous use.

 

You've got a 6600mah battery on that.

I'm only running a 2200mah battery, with 1.5Gb of Ram and a 120GB hard
disk on mine. Swapping to the 6 cell version would put us on a level
playing field.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, ginge

Quite possibly. It's the standard battery, whatever that is.

 

Yes they are fine if you get one of the ~10" screen ones.

Amazon were knocking out Samsung NC10's in blue at 299 ukp. I bought one.
It's got built in bluetooth so it connects to my existing wireless mouse,
although I have to say that, much to my surprise, the trackpad is useable.
It comes with 90 days McAfee and all the usual stuff works on it including
the spare copy of office that I bunged onto it. It copes well with the likes
of BBC iPlayer, so you could watch telly with a pair of bluetooth (or wired
if you must) headphones on the train. The battery life is seriously
impressive and will easily cope with your requirements.

I have to say that I am impressed with it, as is everyone who's had a go
with it. IMHO it looks good too.

 

Yebbut that's crap laptop money! I've already got a crap laptop of the
bird's here - I'd want one for the portability over a laptop, but I'd not be
willing to chuck £300 at one... Maybe £200 at a 900.

 

I'd buy a half-decent small laptop instead, like an IBM/Lenovo
X-Series.

 

I rate mine. It runs XBMC a treat to act as a mini media centre
streaming video from the terrabyte Seagate Freeagent hanging off the
Vaio desktop.

Not sure I would want to type "War and Peace" on it, but for a bit of
mobile report writing it's perfectly adequate. The trackpad, though the
weakest feature, is reasonably usable once you get used to it.


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I wasn't suggesting that Doki should buy a *new* one...

For use on the train they're good (better than my MacBook IMHO) as
they're quite narrow. MacBook beats it on usability and battery life,
though.

 

But for all that bloat-ware it presumably has an electro-mechanical hard
drive? For me the whole point of a netbook is no moving parts: something
I can shove in my Barbour pocket and not worry about. IMO at that spec
and money you're as well getting a low-end lappy. My AA1 came delievered
at £148 and it rocks! Mined ewe, it doesn't do DVDs on the train - no
drive!

 

Dropped me Asus from the overhead locker on the plane last night, then
setalled down to watch Life Story' no probs

Why don't you just rip 1/2 a dozen DVDs to DivX and pop them on a
stick/card? 'Swot I do. Oh, and get rid of the Windoze bloatware asap.

 

ooh - ta.

I've only been getting about 140 minutes out of mine (though that's
with wireless on all the time).