Considering a Netbook

[J1mmy]

I think it's likely that I am going to go for an XP platform. It just has that flexibility as largely down to the fact that I'm familiar with it.

But of course, I need to make sure the netbook doesn't overlap with the prices of that of normal laptops.

[GroundZero3]

I have the dell Mini 9, and its pretty nice. Im still trying to get used to the keyboard. I would suggest if you got the SSD route to get something larger than a 8GB. I have one and Xp takes a good amount of space on it. Add office and right now im down to 2.64 GB free! I could never use this as full time replacement, the screen is way to small

Just a heads up!

[J1mmy]

The Dell mini is about the same size as my HP TX2500. Apparantly, the HP mini is supposed to be the smallest on the market with a 10" screen AND a keyboard closest to the full size.

But, I don't know if they do the SSD range, and if you they I may not go for it, mainly because of the amount of space available. A recent size would probably be the 32GB drive, but still, I'll probably be down about 15-17GB after installing all my applications. The SSD is an attractive feature to me because it doesn't skip with the shake of the laptop - which I'm guessing there will be a lot of considering teh size of the Mini's.

But the SSD and normal HD is probably another thing to think about after finding out of they are included in HP's Mini Range.

[GroundZero3]

What kind of applications are you planning to install on it? The purpose is for portability not to be a laptop replacement.

[J1mmy]

The biggest installation is probably going to be Office, and maybe Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Lightroom

I'm not going to attempt to use it as a laptop - I'm selling my current laptop because I don't use it fully.

I'll just be using it for word processing, internet, emailing, music, video - everything an average user might do. But there might be the odd web editting or simple photo editting in Lightroom. But if it can't handle it, I'll simply uninstall it, but it would be a bonus if it could.

[nemowolf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J1mmy

The biggest installation is probably going to be Office, and maybe Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Lightroom

I'm not going to attempt to use it as a laptop - I'm selling my current laptop because I don't use it fully.

I'll just be using it for word processing, internet, emailing, music, video - everything an average user might do. But there might be the odd web editting or simple photo editting in Lightroom. But if it can't handle it, I'll simply uninstall it, but it would be a bonus if it could.

This is not an "Average user" laptop. You are going to be VERY disappointed with it if thats your desire. It just doesnt have the multitasking or raw power to handle the workload of much more then IE/FF and maybe trillian or your choice of chat program open.

Runnin the system with about 300megs of actively used RAM makes the system slow down and once FF pegs out at 450-500 I have to restart it so I cant stream audio or video continuously. I was a sad panda when i started having issues with Hulu after more then a few minutes of video.

[thephilosophizer]

Yeah I might forgo thoughts of anything adobe beyond acrobat. Though I have used hulu, and streamed video off my own network, and haven't seen any issues there (I don't know if the distinction matters but I did upgrade my wife's eee to 2gb's before even turning it on the first time, and it does run xp).
Word would probably be fine, wouldn't have much hopes for excel, though she didn't seem to have much trouble putting together an animated ppt.

[J1mmy]

How about if I stick in 4Gb of RAM? Are you also telling me that it can't handle Outlook or Office?

If Word doesn't work, well, then that's really going to shift my decision.

[Coolzer]

You could try MSI wind series...my U100 i bought is serving me well.