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General Netbook advice please
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busiscoming2
Posts: 4,461 Forumite


in Techie Stuff
I am after buying a cheap secondhand Netbook, mainly for taking on holiday for internet (have a teenager!!!). I have seen a few on ebay.
My questions are these:
Are they all wifi enabled?
Can they all use a dongle?
some seem to run on Linux, is that easy enough to use?
Any thing or makes to avoid or look out for?
Thanks.
My questions are these:
Are they all wifi enabled?
Can they all use a dongle?
some seem to run on Linux, is that easy enough to use?
Any thing or makes to avoid or look out for?
Thanks.
0
Comments
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Budget? Bear in mind that older Netbooks had poor battery life.
Let's see examples of what you have found...or are we supposed to guess?
This is good; MSI Wind U135 DX-1486UK £138 with a six cell battery. Upgradeable to Windows 7 if necessary.
They have a good selection of Netbooks under this price, but with 3 cell batteries. Here
£20 more will get you more battery life.0 -
Not bothered about how long the battery lasts as it will probably be plugged in for most of the time anyway.
These are on at the moment:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290575957271&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1156
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180681454774&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_998wt_1139
but obviously don't know their worth or what the sale price will be.
Looking at completed listings some have gone for around the £50 mark.0 -
busiscoming2 wrote: »Not bothered about how long the battery lasts as it will probably be plugged in for most of the time anyway.
These are on at the moment:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290575957271&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1156
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180681454774&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_998wt_1139
but obviously don't know their worth or what the sale price will be.
Looking at completed listings some have gone for around the £50 mark.
Huge difference between the two that you have listed. The ASUS is quite limited, with a 4GB hard drive. That is less capacity than a DVD disc.0 -
There are a lot of Netbooks available on eBay, but are you sure that you want to purchase without having any kind of warranty?0
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stilltheone wrote: »There are a lot of Netbooks available on eBay, but are you sure that you want to purchase without having any kind of warranty?
Well surely if it doesn't work upon receipt then I covered by the ebay/paypal rules.
I have to pay a lot more for a unit just to get a warranty.0 -
busiscoming2 wrote: »Well surely if it doesn't work upon receipt then I covered by the ebay/paypal rules.
I have to pay a lot more for a unit just to get a warranty.
A lot more? The MSI to which you linked is already at £87.
The 'as new' updated version is £128. You get more than just a warranty, you get an 'as new' machine.
Of course your budget has to be taken in to consideration. You can post the machine on which you intend to bid and hopefully you will be advised as to a maximum bid.
The MSI is already there for me. 3 cell battery, scratched, no warranty and well used.
What would you pay for it?
Perhaps you can go through the listings in the link that I've produced.0 -
No the MSI is too expensive now.0
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busiscoming2 wrote: »No the MSI is too expensive now.
Found anything else?
You still haven't stated the top of your budget.0 -
busiscoming2 wrote: »some seem to run on Linux, is that easy enough to use?
I happily use Linux on my main PC, but I had a few problems with the version of Linux that came with the netbook (an Asus EEE 901) that I bought.
The problem was that the distribution (Linux version) had been created specifically for that range of netbooks. As a result, it didn't have a wide range of users and programmers, which meant that it was a bit buggy and that when things went wrong it was hard to find help on web forums since the Linux distribution wasn't widely used.
I formatted the drive and replaced it with Windows XP, which was a lot easier to use, but performed terribly in comparison - it was slow enough to begin with, but repeatedly having to update anti-malware applications became tedious very quickly because the process took so long and slowed down an already slow machine.
Finally I replaced XP with Arch Linux, which has performed brilliantly - it's so much faster than XP!
As for usability, Arch Linux might be tricky to set up and configure for beginners as you are expected to have an elementary understanding of Linux and be confident enough to edit text files, etc. If you're technically minded (or just interested in Linux), you'll probably be okay, though. Once set up, it's just as easy to use as Windows (maybe even easier).
Other Linux distros are more aimed at beginners and will guide you through the installation without you having to manually edit configuration files, but they're more bloated and so won't be as quick.
If you get a netbook with Linux installed and don't like it, you can always install Windows (assuming you have a spare licence or can buy one) or a different variant of Linux...0 -
I have a netbook, and TBH it's not that good.
Right now I am using an IBM ThinkPad X41 (1.5 GHz CPU, 1.5 GB memory), which is a better PC and can be had for well under £100.
This one is running Windows 7 and I have another with Linux (Ubuntu) on it.0
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