Smaller than notebook PCs: netbooks

[Denny Crane]

Just for fun, I'm looking at this Dell Netbook computer.

For $488, it's configured with:
2G RAM
32G solid state disk drive (fast and no moving parts)
Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
Ubuntu Linux version 8.04.1
Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600)
Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
Wireless mouse

Ubuntu linux 8.0.4
For an extra $50, you can get Windows XP on it.

This thing is tiny at 8.9" and 2 lbs. The screen rez is on the low side and 32G is small for a hard drive, but that's the cost of an incredibly portable notebook style computer. The battery life is 4 hours.

 

[bbwMax]

I've got one, absolutely brilliant, I use my main Tower PC more but it's perfect for up in my room or in school, I have an Acer Aspire One,

> Acer Aspire One A150 Netbook
> Sapphire Blue Design
> 8.9" Acer CrystalBrite™ TFT LCD
> Operating System: Linpus Linux Lite version
> Processor: Intel® Atom™ processor N270
> Memory: 1024MB RAM (2*512MB Configuration)
> Storage: 120GB SATA Hard Disk Drive
> Connectivity: Wireless LAN b/g, LAN: 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet
> Webcam: Integrated 0.3Mp Acer Crystal Eye webcam
> I/O Interfaces: 3 * USB PortsPort, 5-in-1 card reader (SD), (MMC), (RS-MMC), (MS), (MS PRO), (xD), SD™ Card reader for storage Expansion
> Battery Pack: 3 Cell (3,5 Hours Battery life)

My parents paid £219.99 for it from Amazon so about $400 for you in America

 

[Denny Crane]

^^^ the sata hard drive isn't so nifty for devices this small, IMO. They're fragile, have moving parts, and are a lot slower than the Solid State drive in the Dell model I posted about. Those SSDs are not as fast as RAM, but many times faster than a SATA drive.

I think of these netbooks as the new generation of PDAs. Seem to be about 2x the size of a cell phone, rugged, highly portable, and super fast for doing things like browsing the WWW (browser cache in SSD is fast fast fast!).

 

[bbwMax]

^^^ the sata hard drive isn't so nifty for devices this small, IMO. They're fragile, have moving parts, and are a lot slower than the Solid State drive in the Dell model I posted about. Those SSDs are not as fast as RAM, but many times faster than a SATA drive.

I think of these netbooks as the new generation of PDAs. Seem to be about 2x the size of a cell phone, rugged, highly portable, and super fast for doing things like browsing the WWW (browser cache in SSD is fast fast fast!).

Yeh Netbooks are the new things on the block, also with reference to the Sata HD it's fine IMO, haven't had a problem with it,

also it runs Linux Linpus and although certain things such as changing the background is a bit harder the more complicated modifications are easier, I have turned down the speed of the fan, I have also installed Firefox 3 (Originally it runs FF2) and many others, I will eventually attempt to install Ubuntu eventually when I'm feeling a little more confident. Also the SSD is very good on these, it doesn't read them as additional memory but as a part of the HDD, hence why it has two slots,one permanent and one with the option of it, I have the Sapphire blue one so it looks Sexy

 

[Denny Crane]

You didn't mention an SSD in your post, you said 120G SATA drive, which is a standard hard drive. On laptops, those are slow. You get the tradeoff of lots more space (120G vs. the 32G in the one I posted), but it has moving parts, has seek time, has to spin and the speed of that spin affects how fast the computer reads from the drive, etc.

The SSD drives are like memory sticks on steroids. 32G with no moving parts, instant seek time, near instant read times...

In fact, I can't wait until the size on those goes up and the prices come down. At some point, no computer will have hard disk anymore.

 

[bbwMax]

Yeh SSD is pretty good, I have an 8gb one ATM for easy transfer of music and files from my Home PC to my netbook, what I like is the fact Acer have made a point of working with the consumer, since Christmas I've downloaded several updates, unlike windows they install while the netbook is on, its nice to know Acer are constantly tweaking the Aspire to make it perfect, the only bad thing is the mousepad, the left and right buttons are either side of it, but I haven't used it as I have a retractable mouse for it,