"mini" laptops/notebooks - please advise!

Leopard

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

I was in a similar position myself in 2005: I decided that I could no longer go without home computing. I went through everything systematically and analytically, with help of course, and only bought when I knew what I wanted. I visited many stores just to see what was out there and how much it cost. I am not the sort of person to be influenced by salesmen of course.

So you bought a Mac, I trust.

Astrowife

Sorry, should have made clear that I've been looking at refurbished rather than new.
Unfortunately I don't earn very much, so £300 will be a real stretch. I've been looking at Dell's outlet site - they seem to have some good prices (yes I am remembering to add the VAT!) though I'm not sure what the delivery charges are.
I'm leery of going to PC world type places as I've found the staff to be very pushy in the past and they can tell I don't know what they're talking about. If money were no object I'd go get a Vaio (I know so many people who love theirs) but have no idea how to find a reputable refurbed one.

[Deleted User]

grumpyoleteacher wrote: »

Word processing? The netbooks rarely have a CD/DVD drive so you can't install typical software, but you can download open source software.

You're not just limited to Open Source software. Most free software is distributed online, which installation would not pose a problem.

If you have another computer, or if a friend will let you borrow theirs, you can network share a CD/DVD drive and use that to install software from. It eliminates a lot of the requirement for an external drive.

inmypocketnottheirs

I have a Samsung NC10 netbook, which is great for portability. Fine for word processing and web browsing on the move. It has 160 GB hard drive so good on board storage. The matte screen I find is great when out and about as it cuts down reflection.

I did a lot of research before buying this, looking at the Asus netbooks but wasn't keen on the limited solid state storage. Dismissed the Toshiba NB100 because of keyboard size, the Advent models for the same reason. The Samsung does have an almost standard size keyboard that can be used for touch typing.

I got mine from https://www.misco.co.uk with 9 months buy now pay later, so effectively 9 months interest free credit.

Mat_P

how about refurb from bigpockets ?

IBM Thinkpad T43 Laptop ~ £180 ish

isplumm

Hi,

I just bought a "Acer Aspire One D150-1Bw 10-inch Netbook (Intel Atom Processor N280, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Windows XP Home)" from Amazon for £280 .... with free delivery .... gets excellent reviews .... you could then put Open Office on it .... decent screen, good bit of memory, access internet, etc ... also price has now dropped to £272 ...

I would not buy anything bigger than 15" screen laptop .... you'll find it get to heavy ...

Mark

devizes18193

personally its worth eye-balling some models . I've a similar situation and as a 6ft 5 bloke I have dhopper fingers and find a small keyboard problematic . The other thng is usb ports , In this day and age we all tend to gather accesories , mobile phone dongels , card readers and the like ,and you can never had to many . In the least if your typing at home you can always plug in a keybord

rainbow_carnage

I write for a living. I use a Toshiba Satellite laptop. The next time I buy a laptop, I'm switching to a Mac. I'm also about to buy a netbook, but not for work.

Things to keep in mind:

I would never do my writing on a netbook. The screen and the keyboard are much too small. Your eyes will start to bleed after a couple of hours.

If your writing is important to you, spend a little extra on the laptop. Don't go for the cheapest thing you can find. It will cost more in the long run. It's better to buy a refurbished model of a good brand than to go with a cheapo brand like Acer. I had an Acer laptop once. The screen fell off. Literally. The damned thing fell apart into two pieces. I didn't drop it or abuse it any way. It just fell apart. And Acer customer service was beyond terrible.

Do you make your living through your writing? This is a very important question. When a laptop breaks under warranty, you usually have to send it away for 1-2 weeks. That's 1-2 weeks that you can't do your work. 1-2 weeks of no earnings. That's more than what the laptop cost in the first place.

We also have a G5 Power Mac desktop in the house. It's four years old. We haven't had a single serious problem with it. In the meantime, I've gone through three laptops. Get an external hard drive and back everything up. I also e-mail every new major draft to myself, just in case the laptop and the hard drive die at the same time. It's been known to happen.

Marty_J

rainbow_carnage wrote: »

I write for a living. I use a Toshiba Satellite laptop. The next time I buy a laptop, I'm switching to a Mac.

Good idea! :cool:

We also have a G5 Power Mac desktop in the house. It's four years old. We haven't had a single serious problem with it. In the meantime, I've gone through three laptops.

And let's not forget, if you do have a problem with it, Apple have the best customer service in the computer industry by quite a wide margin.

Get an external hard drive and back everything up. I also e-mail every new major draft to myself, just in case the laptop and the hard drive die at the same time. It's been known to happen.

You might be interested in Dropbox. It makes it very easy to upload files, which you can then share between computers.

Astrowife

rainbow_carnage wrote: »

Do you make your living through your writing?

Not at the moment - in an ideal world I would, but because I have to write on bits of paper and then sneakily type things up at work/in the library, it's hard to produce enough that's worth trying to sell.
(I mainly write short stories, I've started several novels but never wanted to finish any of them!)

I think I need to take the plunge with something cheap. If I could increase productivity, I could hopefully increase my income and therefore upgrade to something slicker...