Please recommend a net/notebook

[Claire Hunt]

My daughter has taken over the family laptop (Dell).

To preserve family sanity and to reduce the arguments about whose turn it is for access, it is essential that I buy a small (non gaming) lap/net/note book.

The trouble is we are not a techie family, and have no experience in the field (even Hubby is useless with computers!).

I have been lurking here for a while, and it occurs to me that some of you could tell me what to buy for surfing and occasional letters etc. Budget is about £300.

Thankyou - Claire.

 

[John the Monkey]

PC World's "Advent" netbook comes in around that price (£250 ish?)- Mrs Monkey has one for similar reasons (arguments over who goes on the computer &c)

Connects via the home WiFi, works fine.

 

[darthpaul]

Samsung NC10 or Dell Latitude 2100

 

[potsy]

Another fan of the Samsung NC10 here,loads of memory,decent sized screen and excellent battery life 5+ hours.

 

[jay clock]

I have an Asus EEE 701, an Asus EEE 901 and an Acer Aspire ONE. All are excellent. Keyboards are small but manageable. The 901 has massively better battery life and is also WIndows XP if that matters to you. But Linux is very very user friendly.

If I had to recommend one for home use I would definitely recommend the Samsung NC10 - sis in law has one and it is excellent. I think there is now an NC110 as well

 

[Downward]

Bought this last month after a while with a Netbook
£299.99 - Currys Refurbished Laptops - Paid less though but you can get 5% off by searching for a voucher code.
Plus if you have a Natwest Advantage gold you get a years extra warranty if paying by debit card.
It says refurbished but we have had 2 and both are brand new. Guy from currys says people go int the shop buy one change their minds and take it back without using it but then they have to sell it as refurbished/2nd hand.

Acer Aspire 5532 AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 TK-42 (1.6 GHz), Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 3072 MB, Hard drive: 160 GB, DVD-RW rewriter, Black shell, 15.6 Widescreen

 

[SavageHoutkop]

why small? any particular reason? I needed a portable but proper 'laptop' spec computer for use on trains, and went with the Acer 1810TZ, brilliant for a decent package in a small container.

If you don't actually *need* small you could look at some of the bigger laptops.

I have heard good things about the NC10, if you are after small, as recommended by others.

 

[amnesia]

+1 for the NC10 - hard to beat as a netbook

 

[twowheelsgood]

I own both an Acer Aspire One and an EEE 701, but I would go for the new generation of CULV netbooks. These are more or less netbook sized but have low-power versions of mainstream CPUs and perform MUCH better. Another important issue is that Win 7 uses hardware graphics acceleration and the (slightly) better graphics in these make a great deal of difference.

Examples include the HP DM1, Aspire Timeline 1810T and Lenovo u150.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I have both an NC10 and eee1000H - both are excellent. (I have two because my main laptop is a 17" one, and there are times when I want something more portable; the second one is permanently connected to my hifi system, providing access to all my mp3s, spotify, last.fm and Internet radio stations.)

 

[ACS]

I had a NC10, great little device but have upgraded to N510 (slightly bigger screen). Would recommend both without hesitation.

 

[psmiffy]

If you are going to be using it near a power point most of the time then I would look at something not so small with a decent keyboard - I have an Assus 901 - its brilliant - long battery life and small size are its best features but the keyboard is too fiddly to do anything serious on

 

[TheDoctor]

I've used the Asus Eee 901 (excellent battery life, lightweight) and the Samsung NC10 (not as light, poorer trackpad, much more storage) and would recomend either.

IIRC the Asus 901 that jayclock has is the one I had.

 

[PaulSB]

I have an Asus 901, it is excellent and highly recommended.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Smasung N130 bought just before Xmas has yet to dissapoint.