Small laptop/netbook advice please.

[Arch]

Right. My old laptop, 7 or 8 years old, and the weight of a small black hole, is dying. I fancy a new small laptop, or netbook, but I'm relatively clueless about what to get.

For a start, is there a difference between a laptop and a netbook, and if so, what is it?

See, clueless.

I want to be able to surf the net at home using my mobile broadband dongle, and use wifi if available when out and about with it. I want to download photos from my camera, and store them and edit them, and possibly some music too - mainly I'd use it as a tool to transfer music to my MP3 player from CDs, with the odd bought downloaded track. I'd like to be able to watch YouTube, which my old laptop seems unable to do smoothly. I don't tend to play games, apart from simple online ones. At home I'd want to use a USB mouse, rather than the mousepad on the laptop. I've played with a few in Dixons and found the mousepad style I prefer (with 2 separate buttons, rather than one that clicks at each end), but I'd only be using that when out and about, so it's not a dealbreaker. At home, it's likely to be plugged in to the mains pretty much all the time.

I realise that smaller laptops don't have CD/DVD drives, so I'll need to get an external one to transfer software like Windows office. I don't tend to use my current laptop for listening to music or watching DVDs anyway.

I may, in future, want to take it on cycle tour with me. But just being able to lift it will be an advantage.

Specific questions include what size of memory and hard drive you'd all recommend (in simple terms please!), any comments on the best brands, battery life, any other things you think I ought to consider.

Budget: as little as possible - I'm thinking £200-300, but preferably towards the lower end.

 

[marinyork]

Netbooks are basically small, cheaper laptops. Whereas laptops have measured over a fairly long period of time grown to have some fairly chunky screens 17". To cut things short it sounds like you want a netbook. The good news is despite saying you are relatively clueless, you've identified exactly the price bracket these products are sold at and it's a nice time to buy. It sounds pretty much exactly what you want actually. Something along the lines of 10", 1Gb ram and so on. For transferring stuff just get a USB stick, 4Gb, 8Gb even 16Gb whatever, they aren't pricey these days. It's not anything to worry about whatsoever unless your machine(s) don't have USB.

 

[HelenD123]

Arch - I was pretty clueless as well, but bought a Samsung N130 netbook for my tour and have been very pleased with it. It's been dropped a few times and is none the worse for it. The wifi on it works well; it seems to pick up networks that other people's gadgets can't. I haven't done any photo editing on it but for everything I have used it for I haven't noticed any performance difference from a PC. The battery lasts pretty well, up to 6 hours.

I took a separate mouse on tour but never ended up using it. Unless you can get one thrown in for free, see how you get on with the built in one first.

 

[jann71]

Also watch out for the number of usb ports it has. External drives usually use 2 usb ports side by side, and you need 3rd if you want a mouse.

I have an Acer aspire One bought around this time last year, never use laptop any more. This one has the longer battery - approx 6-7 hours.

Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram, 140Gb hard drive. £229 at time.

 

[dan_bo]

These are pretty good for the money Arch, got one a couple of winters ago and it's held up fine. I was in HMV the other day and they've got an Acer version of the same thing for just short of £150. Bargain.

 

[ColinJ]

Most laptops are a bit too big to be really portable. 15" are actually fairly chunky. The 17" ones are way too big, but I suppose if you don't move them about they can make a good substitute for a desktop computer. You certainly wouldn't want to carry one of them on a bike.

As marinyork says, netbooks are basically very small laptops. My sister bought one from ALDI a couple of years ago and I was using it over Christmas and was quite impressed with it. It has a 10" widescreen. A screen that small wouldn't suit me as my main screen, but for general use and travelling it would be fine. You could always plug in a bigger monitor at home.

I have a 12" Dell widescreen laptop. It's at the small end of the laptop range of sizes and is a compromise - a slightly small screen for extended use, and slightly too big to be carried long distances. It weighs about 1.5 kg but then there is the powerpack on top of that, and an external DVD drive should I wish to carry it (I don't! I install software at home and leave the drive behind when travelling.)

I'd go for a 10" widescreen netbook and if if you find the screen too small at home, plug in a bigger one. (You can pick up old CRT monitors for nowt these days because everybody is switching over to LCDs, but you could pick a decent LCD screen up for under £100 now.)

Yes, the price range tends to be about £200-300. I saw one the other day for £199. Hang on, I'll find it...

It's not the same one, but here's one for 1p under £200.

There's quite a range at eBuyer.

 

[Arch]

Also watch out for the number of usb ports it has. External drives usually use 2 usb ports side by side, and you need 3rd if you want a mouse.

I have an Acer aspire One bought around this time last year, never use laptop any more. This one has the longer battery - approx 6-7 hours.

Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram, 140Gb hard drive. £229 at time.

yes, thanks for that, I'd realised I'd need 3 USB ports - it seems most have three, but it's something to double check.

Ok, it seems I won't go too far wrong. That's the second recommendation I've had for a Samsung, Helen, so it's a place to start looking. I might hold off for a month for budget reasons, but I'll look around now. Last weekend I was in Dixons and had that panic "Should I buy now before the VAT goes up?" moment, but we worked out it would only make a few quid difference, so sanity was restored.

The problem is, there's so much choice, and they are all actually pretty much the same thing, but one assumes one might be about to make an expensive mistake... It seems like for every person who swears by Dell, or HP, or Acer, there's someone who swears at them...

 

[HelenD123]

I'll happily bring mine round for you to have a play with next time I'm in York.

 

[Arch]

I'll happily bring mine round for you to have a play with next time I'm in York.

Oh that would be nice, we can catch up over tea (or coffee, or something stronger!)

 

[potsy]

Hi Arch, I do all my computering on a Samsung NC10 and really like it. They sell for around £250ish now which is right in your budget.
10" screen, 1GB RAM, 160GB HD and best of all for me is the battery life is very decent 4-6 hours usually.
I bought an Acer one at first for £199 and battery would last <2 hours and within days stopped working altogether, took it back and upgraded to this one.

3 USB's, SD card slot for transfering photos, built in Bluetooth.
Think there may be better now in the range as I've had this 2 years now.

My usage is mainly surfing the net, downloading and transfering music, storing pics etc, looked into getting an external CD recorder but never bothered in the end.

 

[HelenD123]

Oh that would be nice, we can catch up over tea (or coffee, or something stronger!)

Look forward to it. I'm not allowed to come over until I've got rid of my cold though so that Spandex doesn't catch it. I'm sure you wouldn't want it either!

 

[Arch]

Look forward to it. I'm not allowed to come over until I've got rid of my cold though so that Spandex doesn't catch it. I'm sure you wouldn't want it either!

Well, probably not, and anyway, socialising is less fun with a cold. Let me know when you're better.

 

[Piemaster]

I'm using an MSI U230. Bit bigger screen at 12" but it does have a nicer keyboard than the netbooks I looked at as it is full width, something to consider if you intend to type much. Its actually classed as an ultra portable notebook. 3xusb, 2 button pad. Unfortunately bit more than you want to spend at £306.37.

Humph. Linked one has better specs than mine and I paid full price for it 9 months ago.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

If you're after a small laptop there is (IMHO) NO other option than the Acer Aspire 1810TZ. Unfortunately it's out of your pricerange and also seems not to be made anymore!

If you get a 'netbook' it is really a baby laptop in all ways - it's NOT a full powered laptop and if it's your only computer I wouldn't recommend one. When they were first brought out the idea was to have a small cheap PC, and for various reasons I won't go into the maximum specifications were capped to make sure the computer as a whole wasn't that good. If however it's the only option in your pricerange, I too have heard good things about the Samsung NC10 [edit: was it the NC10 or the N130? Can't remember!!]; just make sure you're happy with the screensize. There is however a warning here - I was looking for my laptop about a year back and it seems that while (say) the NC10 is brilliant, another model (still by Samsung) could be absolutely horrible. I also read some reviews for the baby Dell laptop and the reviews were awful (for a normally good brand, this is unusual). So before you commit to buy, see if anyone on 't interwebs has done a review of your particular model (yes, with ALL the funny letters on the end).

If you are looking for a laptop, then there are a few things to bear in mind. Cheaper laptops (not netbooks) will normally be ones where the battery life isn't that great; and they'll also be heavy/heavier. If you're thinking of taking it about with you it's worth doing quite a bit of weighing up various options. Note that PCWorld and the like always show their laptops without the battery, because (apparently) it's not good for the battery if it's permanently plugged in and people steal them (I also think it's a cunning ploy to make the laptops seem lighter than they are).

If your current laptop is currently 7-8 years old in any case, however, you'll probably not notice that a netbook is hindering you in any way. In fact, it'll probably seem much faster.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Humph. Linked one has better specs than mine and I paid full price for it 9 months ago.

that's the problem with buying anything computer related, as soon as you've bought it it's obsolete!