Netbooks

[derrick]

Can anyone reccommend a good netbook, it needs to be able to run microsoft office, do not want to pay loads of money for it but it must be good, must have good battery life,
never used a netbook before, just need something smaller than my laptop.
Cheers Del.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I read a lot about netbooks before buying one and the cheaper ones are supposed to be pretty crap. My sister in law has a Sony netbook running Windows 7 and it is absolutely garbage (painfully slow). I think it is an Intel atom chip with integrated with graphics and 1GB ram, it simply cannot handle HD video. I paid a bit more and got a HP DM1 netbook, I have had it since xmas so there might be better or cheaper available but I would highly recommend it. It also has an 11.7" screen which is bigger than normal but not too big. It's an AMD-E450 dual core cpu, AMD HD6320 graphics chip, and 4GB ram and 320GB HDD and comes with WIndows 7 home premium. The price of it just over £300 if you look puts into low end full size laptop territory but it's very well built, fast and can easily handle HD video. I use XBMC (media centre application) and connect it to a 42" plasma playing 1080p video and it's superb. It also has an HDMI out which is great. I would certainly look at netbooks with this processor and video as it works really well. It never gets hot unlike my ancient AMD laptop. It is superb with MS Office also. It surprised me as I was expecting it to be pretty average as I have never been that impressed with laptops (although they have usually been cheap ones that I have used). The battery life is very good too. I read some reviews saying that touch pad is not great but I find it fine. I would research netbooks well as you do not want to get something dog slow that is a pain to use.

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavilion-dm1-4125ea-11-6-laptop-11884689-pdt.html

 

[rusky]

I have one of these http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-1011px-netbook-10587605-pdt.html although it's having a new HDD fitted probably due to it flying off the dining room table after the wife tripped over the power cable!

Looking at them now, this looks good http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-...046808-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~~12046808

They generally come with Windows 7 Home Basic which means you can't do much with the appearance but that's normally fine.

I upgraded mine to 2GB RAM for about £10 & it runs Office 2010 fine.

 

[TheDoctor]

I'm using a Samsung NC10, which runs Office, has about a 6-7 hour battery life and seems pretty good. Not sure how it would cope with Windows 7 - I'm still on XP.

 

[TheDoctor]

Only problem I've had is the mousepad thingy. It's a bit small and awkward...

 

[gavintc]

My wife's netbook died recently and she replaced it with the MacBook Air - outstanding if a little bit pricey.