More laptop vs netbook advice please!

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Firstly, apologies for hijacking this thread.

I currently have a HP laptop (I think the screen is either 15 or 17"). It is a bit on the large size in terms of portability.

I am at Uni & require a piece of equipment which is small. I would be using it for essays ect and accessing the internet. Wouldn't be downloading films or music. I don't want to pay a small fortune, so could anyone advise me on which would be suitable for my needs.

Thanks

johncolescarr

the_devil_made_me_do_it wrote: »

Firstly, apologies for hijacking this thread.

I currently have a HP laptop (I think the screen is either 15 or 17"). It is a bit on the large size in terms of portability.

I am at Uni & require a piece of equipment which is small. I would be using it for essays ect and accessing the internet. Wouldn't be downloading films or music. I don't want to pay a small fortune, so could anyone advise me on which would be suitable for my needs.

Thanks

Hi,

if its for Uni I would definitely recommend a laptop, 15". when I did my degree I spent hours upon hours in front of the screen and I am sure that on a 9-10" netbook this would be excruciating, also netbook keyboards tend to be 25% smaller so if you are typing a lot this could really hinder you. I personally find that the standard 15.6" is the perfect size for viewing and carrying about, although you might prefer a 13" if you can see yourself carrying it about quite a bit. beware of 17" as the weight can be a bit much, 17" laptops are really desktop replacements that you can take home in the holidays but you wont want to be carting it around campus.

If you find your current machine too big and heavy (ie if its a 17") then consider picking up a fairly decent laptop, I got one for my girlfriend (dell 15" inspiron core 2 duo, 2 gb ram, 320gb hardrive) last year for just under £300 off ebay, brand new and in box. Its been an absolute dream. There is mixed reviews on dell, I like them, but just using it for an example.

I would stay away from the absolute cheapest laptops with poor spec as this will only frustrate you and you will probably not be able to afford to replace whilst at Uni.

The most important thing with uni stuff though is to get yourself an external hardrive or a big stack of DVDs for backing up as the effort you put into producing your work is priceless and you will be very upset if you loose it all the day before its due to hand in, dont learn the hard way like I did!!

DancingMatt

I absolutely love my Samsung NC10 netbook. Cost me £304 from Amazon about 6 months ago and now you get them for £270 ish (various retailers, think I even saw it in Carphone Warehouse with and without a broadband dongle). It's 10" screen, about 1.5kg, brilliant keyboard, lots of drive space, and was consistently top of the charts for netbooks on just about every reliable and comprehensive review site I read. And I read a lot of them.

It's been superceded now by some newer models that are very similar, I think there's an NC110 and a 120 which has a 12" screen.

It doesn't have a DVD or CD drive, of course, being a netbook. You transfer files to it through your network if you have one, or via a USB stick. You can naturally plug in a monitor (it has a VGA port) or a mouse etc.

If you want something portable for typing, emails, web use, etc. then get a netbook and I couldn't recommend enough that you get this one. And if you do more than that, I'd also seriously consider it - I actually use mine for (amongst other things and in increasing order of complexity, I'm a graphic designer): music with iTunes, tagging with MP3Tag, downloading, editing and tagging photos with Adobe Lightroom, and I even have all of Adobe CS4 installed on it and have authored DVDs with Encore on it (i.e. exported to a disk image and burnt that to a DVD on another PC).

No it's not super-powered and I'd never bother with any of my video editing work on it. I also have a 17" laptop which is a heavy beast and a dual-screen desktop PC for all my major work. But I carry my NC10 netbook everywhere and use it all the time and I dare say you'd find more uses for it too!


Other than the NC10 and its replacements - a friend has just got the new Sony Netbook and that has a higher resolution screen which might be worth considering too. But I think that's £400.

naf123

yeah, I have a good desktop at home and have no desire to replace it.

But I am at uni, I waste hours between lectures when I could be at home writing up my essays etc and to be honest, I dont find it insipiring being in the computer room which tends to be overcrowded, smelly, and hot.

So I splashed out, bought a samsung NC20 and I havent regretted it. Sometimes I do my work on it, sometimes on my desktop, I just save everything on both machines and put it on the shared network and copy on the other machine! :-)

Its good enough for typing and email and browsing but i dont think anything else more than that.

the_devil_made_me_do_it

I do have a Sony VA10 desktop PC. Tis getting on a bit in age now, but is still a cool piece of technology.

The laptop I have is about 2 yrs old and is big and quite heavy. It's ideal for home use and the odd trip to uni, but it's a no no for regular trips to uni espcially when carrying books and files.

squirrelchops

So.....had a look on Pc Pro website....is this acer any good...got decent reviews but would it meet my needs...any negatives i should consider??

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/352135/acer-aspire-5536

Cheers muchly