Netbook/Notebook

chrism_scotland

chrism_scotland

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Chris
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I've been looking at picking up a small notebook to take with me when I'm on my travels and something I can have in my bag as I can't really use my work laptop for anything, I've looked at and discounted tablets for now as I tried a Xoom and didn't get on with it and I'm not really wanting an iPad.

I've been looking at the Lenovo x121 which seems nice and small, but been thinking that I maybe don't need to spend that much as that and that a lower powered netbook would be better but ideally I want something thats not got the crappy 1024x600 screen res.

Just wondering what netbooks/small notebooks anyone here is using?

Cheers,

Chris
 
I've had a Samsung NC10 for a while now as a travel netbook. Hard drive changed to 500Gb for picture and video storage, memory upped to 2Gb and running windows 7 quite nicely.

No good for serious editing but fine for viewing 5d2 raws with Faststone. I have edited and uploaded a few pictures whist away with it again using Faststone image viewer for the editing. Don't think Lightroom will run due to the screen pixel size.

It will play full HD video from the camera (scaled of course) but does break up a bit as it can't really cope with the data rate. Good enough to see what you captured though. Also fine for web browsing and running skype etc. More screen height would be nice but 95% of the time its not a problem.
 
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I know you don't like tablets, is it because you prefer keyboard and touchpad or the operating system? Have a look at the ASUS Transformer with keyboard dock.

The downsides to tablets is the limited storage space

The plus side is the speed, its a lighter operating system so can run and play HD content etc. on lesser hardware.
 
I have one of the emachines E350 netbooks. Has the similar spec to more expensive laptops but I got mine for £160 from Tesco with clubcard points as well. Upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2 GB and runs windows 7 quite well. I have lightroom on it but it is quite slow :thinking: but doeds work OK.

Nick
 
Like Robert, I use a Samgung NC10. There'll be a more up to date model now but I can't fault mine. It runs Win7 with no problem at all. It's great for downloading photos onto and viewing them. I wouldn't advise trying Photoshop on there though lol. It even comes with an SD card slot :)
 
Bought an Asus 1011px dualcore atom n270 processor 1gb 250gb, for £199 last week, running win 7 starter, all runs well also installed LR3 which runs fine, for adding sharpening and adjusting white balance etc.
Agreed Faststone flies along as a viewer and reasonably decent editor.
 
Thanks for the replies folks, I know the seen thing now is to get a tablet, but I rule out the iPad, partly on cost grounds as to get a 32GB one is really quite pricey.

The lack of storage space is a downer on the Android tablets but I know that you can get round this on either the Asus Transformer or Motorola Xoom but using an external HDD, and of course the expandable memory means its not expensive to add another 32GB to either machine.

I do think that a keyboard would be nice and I have seen the Asus with the keyboard but at £430 it seems to me a lot to pay for something thats likely to be replaced soon.

I know that theres a free bluetooth keyboard and mouse offer for the Motorola Xoom which would possibly suffice for the few times I want to use a keyboard as it seems small enough to stick in a laptop bag.

I guess I've just been thinking that Tablets seems to be quite pricey v a netbook and not as powerful, but I have had concerns about the screen res (1024x600) on the smaller netbooks, my mum has a Samsung N110 (NC10 successor) and it seemed awful with the poor res.

I need to have a ponder really, £300 roughly would get me a Wifi Motorola Xoom or a 32GB Blackberry Playbook which I quite like the look of as well.
 
I have an Advent 4211 (Its basically an MSI wind U100 but with Advent branding and £100 off the price!so much the same that I use the MRI bios!) While its a few years old and has had a few upgrades (2gb of ram, new 250Gb hard disc and a wifi N card) it still has the power to just about run CS5! The screen is slightly low res but this is partly due to the graphics chip not being awfully powerful, which is an issue with most netbooks. While I like the idea of a tablet, I know I would get fed up of it as I would not have the same choice of software as on the netbook (I love the fact it can run steam games like half life and deus ex!) but really I think the main reason is I have an android phone, so why would I want an android tablet!!
 
monkeytennis said:
I have an Advent 4211 (Its basically an MSI wind U100 but with Advent branding and £100 off the price!so much the same that I use the MRI bios!) While its a few years old and has had a few upgrades (2gb of ram, new 250Gb hard disc and a wifi N card) it still has the power to just about run CS5! The screen is slightly low res but this is partly due to the graphics chip not being awfully powerful, which is an issue with most netbooks. While I like the idea of a tablet, I know I would get fed up of it as I would not have the same choice of software as on the netbook (I love the fact it can run steam games like half life and deus ex!) but really I think the main reason is I have an android phone, so why would I want an android tablet!!
Click to expand...

Thanks for this, it is being able to use my current Windows software thats made me re-look at a netbook, although I know I have things that won't run at the 1024x600 screen res, I've got a load of older Steam games that would run fine on a netbook!!

I do like tablets and I know I probably should rely on impressions of a display model but the Xoom and Asus seem to be quite laggy which I think would annoy me, although I'm sure theres probably something I could do about it
 
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