Buying a Netbook

Katie-Kat-Kins

I've decided to buy a netbook, and I'm looking for a bit of advice on what to get. I went to PC World for a bit of a browse today and they had a Packard Bell 10.1" with 1GB RAM and 250GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 and approximately 7 hours battery.

It was £229 and they offered £50 trade in on my old laptop (which I don't use any more as it is about 13 years old :eek: - so worth sod all!).

Looked like a good option but I was wondering whether anyone else had any recommendations or suggestions for anything better for the money or any way of getting this one cheaper.

We have a desktop as well that we will continue to use for anything that uses lots of memory, things like photoshop etc. The netbook will be for taking out and about, accessing the internet and maybe running files like word or excel. Not for watching movies or downloading music or anything. The only must have is it must be capable of plugging into an external moniter, and running a slide show on that as a separate display as this will be needed for business stuff.

Thanks!

PS I tried to read the netbook wanted thread to avoid posting something similar but I couldn't wade through all the squabbling so I started a new thread! Keep it friendly please folks!

busenbust

so much a matter of personal opinion but this is what I bought last month: lovely keyboard, well constructed , and great screen: Packard Bell Dot s2 £260 inc. vat. HTH.

patricia1066

£20 is cheap!

busenbust

patricia1066 wrote: »

£20 is cheap!

yes, very!

Katie-Kat-Kins

busenbust wrote: »

so much a matter of personal opinion but this is what I bought last month: lovely keyboard, well constructed , and great screen: Packard Bell Dot s2 £260 inc. vat. HTH.

That's the very one we've seen! But now down to £229, and with the £50 trade in that makes it under £200 which seems very reasonable.

What do you think of it??

busenbust

Katie-Kat-Kins wrote: »

That's the very one we've seen! But now down to £229, and with the £50 trade in that makes it under £200 which seems very reasonable.

What do you think of it??

Absolutely love it Katie! As I say, netbook purchases are so very much personal ; my OH uses it too and she loves it!

HTH /

closed

does your trade in meet these conditions?

*Limit of one trade in per new laptop purchased. Trade in unit must be a laptop and must: have an optical drive (e.g. CD/DVD), power up and log into an OS, include the correct power supply and battery, not be locked by a password and not have any significant cosmetic damage, i.e. the keyboard and screen must be undamaged and the casing and hinges intact.

you'll be lucky to get 7 hours out of the battery

Personally I think a proper laptop is more useful, especially for watching dvd's, but it depends on how you are planning to use it

Katie-Kat-Kins

closed wrote: »

does your trade in meet these conditions?

*Limit of one trade in per new laptop purchased. Trade in unit must be a laptop and must: have an optical drive (e.g. CD/DVD), power up and log into an OS, include the correct power supply and battery, not be locked by a password and not have any significant cosmetic damage, i.e. the keyboard and screen must be undamaged and the casing and hinges intact.

you'll be lucky to get 7 hours out of the battery

Personally I think a proper laptop is more useful, especially for watching dvd's, but it depends on how you are planning to use it

Yes amazingly my ancient from the ark laptop meets all those conditions! It cost me almost my whole year's student loan so it was pretty advanced at the time. It will power up although the battery doesn't retain much charge, it logs into windows fine, have a CD drive and is in absolute mint condition as it was sooooo heavy I never took it anywhere apart from between home and the student house!

I know that the battery life quoted is always.... shall we say optimistic... but the majority of the time we'll have access to power, and a quoted 7 hours is better than a quoted 3 hours (I look at the quoted battery life on phones etc as being like the quoted MPG when you buy a car, good for comparison purposes but not acheivable in the real world).

We won't be watching DVDs on it - or we don't intend to, it is just really for a bit of use while we are out and about with the business. The primary purpose will be to be small and light and to run a slide show on a separate moniter and to enable access to paypal for online transactions. Don't really want to spend much more than £200 so a full size laptop is out of the question really.

Katie-Kat-Kins

This is the deal we saw today:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/packard-bell-dot-s2-uk-002-06515578-pdt.html

But I've just been browsing elsewhere and have spotted this:

http://www.staples.co.uk/pcs-and-laptops/netbooks/mini-210-1165sa-pc-intel-atom-processor-n455-1gb-ram-250gb-hard-drive-10-1-led-display-windows-7-starter-free-mcafee-internet-security-software

Any thoughts? The staples one is potentially cheaper as they offer up to £60 trade in.....

Chr15_2

Strangely I went to our local PC World today having seen the adverts, the 'experts' didnt have a clue what they were talking about which was a shame but having come away I ended up reserving one for pick up tomorrow, will look to expand the memory though to 2gb. Looks nice and sturdy.

jimbob96

dell.mannn wrote: »

A friend bought Advent - not happy!

My Cousin bought an advent netbook with windows 7 and it is brilliant, amazing battery life. Highly recommended.