Laptop or Netbook

Calliesmum

Hi I have just started my nursing course and am looking to buy either a netbook or laptop but I am not sure which one would be better for my needs. I will mainly be using it for research for my course and for writing essays and other study related things.I will need to use the portability occasionally so a desktop isn't an option but I wont be taking it with me everyday. I could spend up to £400 but really dont want to spend more than £300.
I would appreciate your opinions as I am hopeless with all things technological.
Thanks

jayme1

if you are wanting to do research or lots of essay writing then the larger screen on a laptop will be much, much better.
plus laptops are far more powerful than netbooks so in your spare time you will be able to watch flash content such as iplayer or youtube (both in HD) without the computer stuttering.

Donnie

Have a look at this MSI CR610 for £270 to see if it suits. Take it for a test drive. Make sure there is no screen flickering. If there are any problems you can send it back for a full refund within seven days of delivery.
It's not the most powerful laptop, though it's more powerful than a Netbook and the screen and keyboard are easier to use.

If you are sure that you don't need an optical drive and want something half the weight of a laptop, you can take a look at the MSI U230 at £254 as it has a respectable 12" screen.

I don't know if you will be happy having to work on anything smaller than that. If you think that you could, then you can drop down to this Pink Samsung N130 at £170.

Russel245

Go for a laptop. I'm assuming that your nursing course runs for longer than a year netbooks have a pretty poor reliability rate compared to fully functioning laptops.

Since you wont be doing much gpu intensive graphics is irrelevant, you will probably want 3-4 gigs of ram and a moderate processor to be sure you wont slow down when opening multiple browsers/pdfs/docs..

Hows this toshiba laptop (I went for Toshiba since they have one of the highest reliability rates along with Asus; from what I've read at least [avoid acer - its cheap for a reason])

Donnie

Russel245 wrote: »

Go for a laptop. I'm assuming that your nursing course runs for longer than a year netbooks have a pretty poor reliability rate compared to fully functioning laptops.

Since you wont be doing much gpu intensive graphics is irrelevant, you will probably want 3-4 gigs of ram and a moderate processor to be sure you wont slow down when opening multiple browsers/pdfs/docs..

Hows this toshiba laptop (I went for Toshiba since they have one of the highest reliability rates along with Asus; from what I've read at least [avoid acer - its cheap for a reason])

3 or 4 GB of RAM??
I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate on 1.5 GB RAM and using a Celeron processor. Currently have 25 tabs open, have PDF files open, chatting on Messenger and listening to music....and just for you.. I have opened Word 2007. My physical memory usage stands at 63%. Still less than 1GB.

Hammyman

Indeed. 2GB is more than enough for pretty much everyone apart from gamers, photo editors and other high end users. Likewise hard drive space. Unless you're ripping movies to hard drive etc, then even 80GB is more than enough. My main drive on my computer is only using 70GB which includes a 4GB Hibernation file, OS ISO images, a wealth of photos, around a fortnights constant music (my entire lifes worth of CDs ripped at 320bps).

Russel245

Donnie wrote: »

3 or 4 GB of RAM??
I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate on 1.5 GB RAM and using a Celeron processor. Currently have 25 tabs open, have PDF files open, chatting on Messenger and listening to music....and just for you.. I have opened Word 2007. My physical memory usage stands at 63%. Still less than 1GB.

Maybe I just have a jaded view on computers in light of my own machine. But I'm using just internet browsers and 2 docs open and I'm using over a gig of ram.

...but then chrome is using about 50mb per tab.

fiddiwebb

laptops are far more powerful than netbooks so in your spare time you will be able to watch flash content such as iplayer or youtube (both in HD) without the computer stuttering.

My Samsung NC10 netbook doesn't stuuuuuttter when watching iplayer or youtube thank you very much :mad:

jayme1

fiddiwebb wrote: »

My Samsung NC10 netbook doesn't stuuuuuttter when watching iplayer or youtube thank you very much :mad:

but can you play either in HD? http://youtu.be/Su1LOpjvdZ4?hd=1 if the option for better quality is there then I would want to be able to use it.

OP another good reason to get a laptop over a netbook is that they have an optical drive so you can watch a DVD movie. you can also buy a TV tuner and then forego the need for a TV altogether.

Calliesmum

Thankyou all for your help I think I will go for a laptop.

parallax_20

I would go for a laptop. My HP 14" laptop was the ideal compromise between portability and size. Netbooks in my opinion are slightly underpowered, but extremely good on battery power which you don't get with a standard laptop.