Aldi Mini notebook - £279.99

Chilledjim

I have the Advent 4211 from PC World, same as the Aldi item but with built in webcam and bluetooth but with only a 1 year warranty .... cost £279.99. For me the extra 2 years warranty is outweighed by the extra functionality. It is a great bit of kit can run XP, Vista or even OS X!!! At the moment the Advent4211/MSI Wind is the best netbook about!!!

If you need to find out more have a look at the following sites:

http://forums.msiwind.net/

http://windosx.wikispaces.com/

It is easily upgradeable too, mine now has 2Gb ram, 320Gb HDD and runs OSX

Jim

smash

Personally I bought the Aspire One from PC World which was £179.60 after a 5% online discount and Quidco. It's certainly better than the Maplin netbook, but battery life is only about 2-2.5 hours. For me, the Asus Eee 901 is a better spec, but the keyboard was too small and it's £100 more.

So value for money, the Aspire is probably the best in my book, but it really depends what you want it for. If it's just surfing the net, reading e-mails, writing some docs/spreadsheets it's ideal. Having something non-Windows that boots and is ready to use in 15 seconds is perfect.

BarGin

Chilledjim wrote: »

I have the Advent 4211 from PC World, same as the Aldi item but with built in webcam and bluetooth but with only a 1 year warranty .... cost £279.99. For me the extra 2 years warranty is outweighed by the extra functionality. It is a great bit of kit can run XP, Vista or even OS X!!! At the moment the Advent4211/MSI Wind is the best netbook about!!!

If you need to find out more have a look at the following sites:

http://forums.msiwind.net/

http://windosx.wikispaces.com/

It is easily upgradeable too, mine now has 2Gb ram, 320Gb HDD and runs OSX

Jim

Could you post a link to an explanation of how the OSX installation is achieved please?

c45arlo

I have been running os x on the advent 4211 since it came available

http://www.modaco.com/content/asus-eee-pc-http-www-eeeasy-com/270099/pauls-complete-guide-to-installing-osx-leopard-on-your-msi-wind-advent-4211/

If the link does not work just do a google on the woreds "paul os x modaco" and you should find it. There are full details on how to get it operational as a mini macbook located there.
I had to change the wifi card which added around £15 to the cost plus an I upgraded the ram to 2Gb.
The headphone socket and mic socket do not work but a bluetooth headset sorts that out.
Wifi, bluetooth and webcam all working.
Just £900 cheaper than a macbook air and it's very portable!

paultoon

In general use (surfing web etc) roughly how long might the Medion's 3 cell battery last?

bodgerbill

You may find this link useful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_netbooks

It is a summary table comparing the commonly available sub-notebooks. For those worried about buying the three cell version, there is now a company in france supplying 6 cell battery packs for about £60 (for the MSI Wind - the Medion Akoya mini is just a re-badged version). Its probably only a matter of time before someone in the UK is able to supply these.

HGLTsuperstar

Actually the medion website is offering a 6 cell version for £49.99. I'm going for one tomorrow (so if you hear of someone being arrested for knocking old ladies flying as Aldi opened their doors, you know who it was), and then if the battery isn't enough I'll consider upgrading.

HGLTsuperstar

Well I got one and so far = BARGAIN! Very happy bunny.

vikingaero

Certainly very interesting.

But at £280 it's blurring the border with a basic laptop.

I've got a eee pc 701 at £199 and am looking forward to the next generation of tiny laptops. The eee pc is good for it's size but I'd go for a slightly bigger screen next time. Might go for a 901 eee pc in 6 months if they upgrade it a little.