Netbooks...

MScotts

MScotts

Messages
1,172
Edit My Images
Yes
I'm after buying one for my lad, it'll be replacing his lappy and will be used for general web-browsing, college assignments (MS Word typw apps), etc.

I've heard good things about the Samsung NC-10, and it does fall into the £300 I've set. Has anyone here got recommendations on others worth considering and/or experience of the NC-10?

TIA (y)

--Andy.
 
Slightly over your budget, but take a look at the new Samsung N51, if he wants to watch videos, its well worth it.
 
Ta for the quick response. :)

When you say 'watch videos' are you talking about watching stuff off the net (e.g. Youtube) or stuff taken off a phone, and that the NC-10 isn't overly good at handling/ viewing that sort of stuff? Or, is it more to do with proper 30fps hi-Res video playback?
 
Sorry, when I mean watch videos, I mean HD quality stuff, like quicktime movies etc. Flash/youtube stuff would work fine on either machine :)
 
I bought an NC-10 the other week for work and it seems really good. I bought it specifically to play 720p at 60fps and as it struggle I purchased a codec for Media player for $15 called CoreAVC Professional Edition and it works a treat. We used it over in China last week to give presentations and it did exactly what we wanted it too.

The battery power is really good, it seemed to last an age before it needed recharging.
 
The Samsung NC130 has £20 cashback if bought before 4th Dec from authorised dealers (incl. Amazon), making it less than £210. It's only got a mono speaker (stereo socket), and I think they took the Webcam resolution down a couple of notches.
 
Thanks for all the responses folks, muchos appreciated (y)


aligibbs said:
Sorry, when I mean watch videos, I mean HD quality stuff, like quicktime movies etc. Flash/youtube stuff would work fine on either machine :)
Click to expand...
Kushti. tbh, the Flash type vid will be the one that he'll use mostly...


jerry12953 said:
Amazon have somne good offers on Samsung netbooks at the moment (or did recently). Presumably slightly out of date models or XP equipped ones.
Aren't they +/- the same when it comes to speed, processor power, etc?
Click to expand...
I looked on Amazon but there's little choice in there (either that or I'm being blind). One thing to note is the O/S for these - I'll continue in a separate post below this one so it gets better visibility. Currys seem to be doing a decent deal on Netbooks and Lappys atm. I went to one of their stores and they had the same deal as Currys online, plus a cashback offer post-sale!


Quaker said:
I bought an NC-10 the other week for work and it seems really good. I bought it specifically to play 720p at 60fps and as it struggle I purchased a codec for Media player for $15 called CoreAVC Professional Edition and it works a treat. We used it over in China last week to give presentations and it did exactly what we wanted it too.
The battery power is really good, it seemed to last an age before it needed recharging.
Click to expand...
Cheers. If it ends up being the NC-10 or one with similar capabilities then I'll look into the CoreAVC codec.


LemmingLover said:
Never played with Netbooks but I got this email offer through today from Amazon. May be worth a look.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001Q3LXDS/ref=pe_15021_17530831_as_txt_2/
Click to expand...
Thanks.


grumpybadger said:
I've got a Dell Mini 10 I'm very impressed with (its the 4th netbook I've had and the first to really hit the spot for what I wanted)
Click to expand...
Thanks GB, I'll perhaps consider Dell, but not at this moment in time, (*recollects past poor experience with that brand*)


photon said:
The Samsung NC130 has £20 cashback if bought before 4th Dec from authorised dealers (incl. Amazon), making it less than £210. It's only got a mono speaker (stereo socket), and I think they took the Webcam resolution down a couple of notches.
Click to expand...
Not a bad deal, however it seems to be going down a notch.
 
jerry12953 said:
Amazon have somne good offers on Samsung netbooks at the moment (or did recently). Presumably slightly out of date models or XP equipped ones.
Click to expand...
When at Currys perusing Netbooks last Sunday I noticed that they all tended to have XP SP3 loaded, and I asked the assistant to check why. He phoned me later in the day after doing some research and said that due to Vista being resourse-hungry the majority of Netbooks have XP pre-loaded and are likely to do so even with the Vista sucessor on the shelves. However he did say that Win-7 (up to the Pro version) should run happily on a Netbook such as the NC-10, and that if I were to buy one he'd aim to have a copy of Win-7 home-premium chucked in on the deal.

All seems straight up and honest to me, however, what's your slant on this regarding Netbooks continuing to be sold with XP SP3 as opposed to some flavour of Win-7 (even the uber cut-down 'Starter version)?
 
For £300 if you are not looking specifically for something to take around everywhere with you then it's getting into cheap normal laptop territory... :)
 
He's after a Netbook to replace his Laptop Amp, my guess is that he's after the portability (and battery life) advantages these have over Laptops. either that or he's aiming to keep up with his college crowd. tbh, I don't mind as his lappy is about 3 years old & tired, and it's nearly Crimbo. So it's a case of killing two birds with one stone, which suits me fine so long as the right Netbook's chosen (y)
 
MScotts said:
Netbook such as the NC-10, and that if I were to buy one he'd aim to have a copy of Win-7 home-premium chucked in on the deal.

All seems straight up and honest to me, however, what's your slant on this regarding Netbooks continuing to be sold with XP SP3 as opposed to some flavour of Win-7 (even the uber cut-down 'Starter version)?
Click to expand...


Whaaat !

I stepped in dog do do buying at Argos...:bonk:

I wanted Win 7, the NC10 will run it just fine, probably better than XP, stay well away from the starter version though.
Twist his arm and get 2 copies of Win 7.....chucked in the deal.....;)
 
MScotts said:
He's after a Netbook to replace his Laptop Amp, my guess is that he's after the portability (and battery life) advantages these have over Laptops. either that or he's aiming to keep up with his college crowd. tbh, I don't mind as his lappy is about 3 years old & tired, and it's nearly Crimbo. So it's a case of killing two birds with one stone, which suits me fine so long as the right Netbook's chosen (y)
Click to expand...

Ah ok, just there have been a few people wanting a netbook because they can't "afford" a full size laptop not realising that for the price of a "top spec" netbook you could get a much better laptop. (However the laptops are cheap for a reason...):)
 
joxby said:
Whaaat !

I stepped in dog do do buying at Argos...:bonk:

I wanted Win 7, the NC10 will run it just fine, probably better than XP, stay well away from the starter version though.
Twist his arm and get 2 copies of Win 7.....chucked in the deal.....;)
Click to expand...

Perhaps the tartan in me always pushes for negotiation as well as research matey. At a place like Argos it'd be difficult to do any deals anyways.

Did you get Win-7 for it in the end, if so, what flavour? What's your slant on the NC-10 and why did you plump for it as opposed to others out there Joxby?
 
I 'should' be taking delivery today of a white Lenovo S12*, cost delivered £275.10 from IT247.com. The s12 is a 12" version of the s10 which comes in at about £230. There are a couple of versions of the s12, one (mine) has an intel chipset, runs a wee bit slower but has better battery life at about 4 hours. The other has an nvidia chipset, runs a bit faster but is about £110 more expensive and not readily available here in the UK.

I've used one of the original Asus 7" eeepc netbooks for a couple of years and have found the screen size to be very limiting for anything other than a few minutes quick surfing so I decided to go for the biggest screen I could find.

*I say should because it should have been here yesterday :(, its currently sitting in the delivery warehouse 2 miles from my house where it's been since 11 aam yesterday morning.
 
I'm on my NC10 now, the only reason I bought it over other netbooks and cheap laptops is the battery life which is friggin great at this price. Obviously its portable too and packs a nice little punch with most programs. I upgraded my to 2GB ram and it handles what I throw at it (Lightroom, Fruitloops...) Perfect and portable.

So I can't be of use and reccommend alternatives, just reassure you that I think its a pretty good buy.
 
another vote for the NC10, dad got one a couple months back after doing a bit of research for him and i also set it up for him.

reviews were way better than anything else in its class. its a lovely little netbook, the keyboard and trackpad can take a little getting used to if moving from a full size form factor.
 
MScotts said:
When at Currys perusing Netbooks last Sunday I noticed that they all tended to have XP SP3 loaded, and I asked the assistant to check why. He phoned me later in the day after doing some research and said that due to Vista being resourse-hungry the majority of Netbooks have XP pre-loaded and are likely to do so even with the Vista sucessor on the shelves. However he did say that Win-7 (up to the Pro version) should run happily on a Netbook such as the NC-10, and that if I were to buy one he'd aim to have a copy of Win-7 home-premium chucked in on the deal.

All seems straight up and honest to me, however, what's your slant on this regarding Netbooks continuing to be sold with XP SP3 as opposed to some flavour of Win-7 (even the uber cut-down 'Starter version)?
Click to expand...

No slant....I just thought they might be trying to clear their shelves of XP models. I didn't look too carefully.
 
At a guess, they'll be trying to push Win7 starter edition for netbooks once they are sure the netbook in question can run it ok, Microsoft won't keep supporting XP indefinately.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top