Laptop or Notebook?

[HJ]

The Samsung NC10 has a 1024 x 600 screen rather than 1024 x 768 mentioned earlier which means that you need to scroll up and down more than normal. It is shipped with XP and afaik you can't buy it without Windows. DABS & Amazon are selling it for about £290. Argos and Comet are selling it for £280 ish BUT their version has a half capacity battery so they aren't really the bargains they seem.

An updated version of the NC10 called the N110 is being sold by PC World at for £330 but the differences are minor (I use both) and personally, I would save the dosh and go for the NC10. Both these Netbooks weigh about 1.3 ish Kg

Word 2003, Excel 2003 and Word 2007, Excel 2007 work fine on both.

There is a new Samsung, the NC20, which has a bigger (1280 x 800) screen but that is upwards of £360 and you're probably better off getting a more conventional laptop at that price if you don't need the light weight / portability.

Netbooks are great if you want something to use on the move, and the one listed here are the best of the netbooks. But a netbook is no replacement for a desktop machine. There are quite a number of laptops available within your price range, here are a few suggestions: Samsung R610, Sony Vaio VGN-NS20E/S or Acer Aspire 5735.

 

[Jack9216]

laptop if you need a CD drive, otherwise for what you're looking for, a notebook

 

[Mr Pig]

But a netbook is no replacement for a desktop machine.

Netbook or laptop? Many laptops now make full sized PCs redundant for many users.

 

[woohoo]

Netbooks are great if you want something to use on the move, and the one listed here are the best of the netbooks. But a netbook is no replacement for a desktop machine. There are quite a number of laptops available within your price range, here are a few suggestions: Samsung R610, Sony Vaio VGN-NS20E/S or Acer Aspire 5735.

As I said

you're probably better off getting a more conventional laptop at that price if you don't need the light weight / portability.

but it depends on the use. I have access to a range of PCs (ignoring my old W98 machine) from a Samsung Netbook through a fairly meaty ThinkPad Laptop up to a Quad processor desktop. For email (even Outlook) and WP, the Netbook is fine and very useable. However, it is fair to say that the Netbook would be no good for playing Assassins Creed.

If all I did was email, internet and light WP, then I would be perfectly happy to use the Samsung Netbook as my only machine (but it wouldn't suit anyone who buys their PCs by the acre )

 

[Danny]

Redders I would just go for the Dell. There are as reliable and well specified as anything you are going to get for the price.

I've had several Dell computers and have been happy with them all.

My only reservation about buying Dell is that the founder of the company, Richard Dell, is a serious right winger and big supporter of the US Republican party. But at least you know where you are with him, and I am not sure that he is objectively any worse than the hippy capitalists who run Apple.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Originally Posted by Ben Lovejoy
17" laptops with decent resolution are almost certainly out of Redcog's budget range.

I'm looking at one now that cost me £370.

I think you missed the rest of my post. Yes, you can get cheapo 17" models now, but they have rubbish resolution, rendering the screen size irrelevant.

A proper 17" machine is minimum 1440x900, preferably 1920x1200.

 

[redcogs]

Redders I would just go for the Dell. There are as reliable and well specified as anything you are going to get for the price.

I've had several Dell computers and have been happy with them all.

My only reservation about buying Dell is that the founder of the company, Richard Dell, is a serious right winger and big supporter of the US Republican party. But at least you know where you are with him, and I am not sure that he is objectively any worse than the hippy capitalists who run Apple.

i've just ordered the Dell Danny. Looks like i'm a fully subscribed USA republican now..

 

[woohoo]

i've just ordered the Dell Danny. Looks like i'm a fully subscribed USA republican now..

Weren't you looking at signing up with AOL as well?

You might as well join the John Birch Society to complete the set

 

[Mr Pig]

Yes, you can get cheapo 17" models now, but they have rubbish resolution. A proper 17" machine is minimum 1440x900

Mine is 1440x900 and the HP ones I could get for about £410 had high-definition screens and Blue-Ray drives. The display on my laptop is very nice, much better than the iMac and Dell we've got/had had. You don't have to spend a lot to get nice screens these days, I've seen some crackers at low prices. It's a hit and a miss so you're best seeing them first.

 

[HJ]

Netbook or laptop? Many laptops now make full sized PCs redundant for many users.

Sorry didn't make that clear, a netbook is not a replacement for a desktop. There are plenty of laptops around which make very good desktop replacements...

 

[CopperBrompton]

The display on my laptop is very nice, much better than the iMac and Dell we've got/had had.

Wow, you must have had very bad examples of both: Dell and Mac LCD screens are widely recognised in the photographic world as the best you can get without moving into the full-on professional range (Lacie, etc).

 

[Mr Pig]

you must have had very bad examples: Dell and Mac screens are widely recognised as the best you can get

Really? News to me. Both manufacturers sell screens that vary quite widely in quality. Large Apple displays are nice but the ones fitted to iMacs are nothing special. Dell screen come in lots of flavours too. My son's Insperion laptop display is absolutely fine but it's not as good as the one on the Fujitsu-Siemens I'm looking at now. Both may make good displays but that doesn't mean that every display they sell is top-level quality.

Even Lacie make junk at times. We had two Lacie external hard-drives that both packed in after about a year. Opening them up, both used Seagate drives which were known to be low quality and unreliable. The name on the box means a lot less than it used to.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Check out the photography forums. A screen that 'looks nice' is not the same as one which is accurate. Many screens are too bright, glossy, etc, which may look superficially attractive in shops but are awful to do any serious work with.

 

[Mr Pig]

I didn't realise he was going to do photographic work on it, missed that.

And I still think it's bollocks basically. My son's iMac screen simply wasn't a great screen. As soon as we took it out of the box I noticed that it wasn't as sharp as the Ilyama screen we had at the time, fine type was pixilated rather than being sharp, straight lines. I assumed it was maybe just a setting or something but it wasn't, it was simply not a very good screen.

Of course my son insisted it was a good screen, as that's what Apple snobs do. It's got the Apple logo on it so ipso facto, it's a great product. But I'm not an idiot, and I'm not blind, so I'm quite happy to say that the emperor has no clothes on.

In fact, of all the LCD screens we've had in the house in the last five years; Dell, Ilyama, HP, Acer, Fuji-Siemens, the iMac was the lowest quality. That is you wanted to simply look at the thing rather than measuring it with your willy! ;0)

 

[another_dave_b]

I didn't realise he was going to do photographic work on it, missed that.

And I still think it's bollocks basically. My son's iMac screen simply wasn't a great screen. As soon as we took it out of the box I noticed that it wasn't as sharp as the Ilyama screen we had at the time, fine type was pixilated rather than being sharp, straight lines. I assumed it was maybe just a setting or something but it wasn't, it was simply not a very good screen.

Of course my son insisted it was a good screen, as that's what Apple snobs do. It's got the Apple logo on it so ipso facto, it's a great product. But I'm not an idiot, and I'm not blind, so I'm quite happy to say that the emperor has no clothes on.

In fact, of all the LCD screens we've had in the house in the last five years; Dell, Ilyama, HP, Acer, Fuji-Siemens, the iMac was the lowest quality. That is you wanted to simply look at the thing rather than measuring it with your willy! ;0)

I use a MacBook, and I don't think the screen is as good as the equivalent Sony. But I knew that when I bought it.