Netbooks

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Olivetti

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Am thinking of investing in a netbook to save carting a laptop around. I would intend to use it for email, web-surfing etc, which should be fine (tha's what they're designed for). I would also intend to play games online - card games such as poker or bridge, from the well-known sites. Am I right in thinking that a netbook would be well capable of handling these kind of gaming sites?

Anyone any other tips or experiences which might be helpful?

Thanks in advance.
 
Check you like the keyboard and screen res. Some will find it too small.

Check the battery life. Some last 2 hrs others 10hrs.
 
I have a Samsung NC10 and am really happy with it. Paid 380 euro for it about 9 months ago.

Not quite sure if it suitable for what you are looking for though but it has a great keyboard and long battery life.
 
I've been considering getting one - done lots of research and the Samsung NC10 would definitely be my choice too. Check out Komplett.ie, elara.ie or laptopsdirect.ie (who are selling white ones cheap).

PS No idea about the games as I don't play them.
 
I always thought they would too small for browsing etc but after using one I really liked it and very little difference to using a bigger lap top. In fact i'm on the brink of getting one myself after using it. I did play Facebook poker on it too and it was fine.

Make sure you go with something with the Atom in it though - its a dandy little chip and by far the market leader at the minute. Sales of it far exceeded expectations.
 
Another thumbs up here for the Samsung NC10. Have one about 6 months and it's great. One thing that I would recommend is to change the RAM from 1Mb to 2Mb. It has only 1 slot, so you would need to buy a 2Mb card.

Plus with Windows XP it's quite fast. Please dont buy a netbook running Windows Vista.... it will just crawl!
 
I've an Advent 4211 (google MSI Wind for reviews). It's a great wee computer, well over a year old, and still running fine.

Netbooks are surprisingly versatile machines and you get used to the small size very easily. Try the keyboards out - they can vary significantly. I specifically chose mine as at the time it had the closest to full size keyboard. Another factor to consider is if you plan on using mobile broadband, you might want to consider getting one with a SIM slot built in - no messing about with dongles.

It will grind to a halt if you try to do processor intensive stuff such as video editing, but I've done some photo editing without too much hassle. It'll handle older games easily enough (think Age of Empires). Online games are generally browser based, so if it plays on Windows on your main pc, it'll play fine on the netbook.
 
I also have an Advent 4211 - I've had it for over a year and love it. My only complaint is that the battery life is poor - I lecture, and after one hour of showing Powerpoint slides, the battery has almost had it. I think the Samsung NC10 would be way better in this regard. I had found too that the Advent sometimes loses the connection on a wireless network, particularly an unsecured network, when working off its battery, but found that it was set to switch it off to save power - you can change this in the device manager. I have Microsoft Office, a fairly hefty statistical package, and some games, and find it great for all of these. The keyboard is very nice - I touch type, but could not do this successfully on some of the other netbooks I tried - in fact, that is why I bought it.
 
I have office home and student 2007 and use it on my pc. How can i put it on one of these netbooks if there is no dvd drive? Do i need to buy an external drive to do this?
There may be an embarrasingly simple solution to this......
 
vienne86 said:
I also have an Advent 4211 - I've had it for over a year and love it. My only complaint is that the battery life is poor - I lecture, and after one hour of showing Powerpoint slides, the battery has almost had it.
Click to expand...

That doesn't sound like the typical use for which the netbook is intended. That's like me saying that my only complaint about my family car is that it's no good for ploughing a field ;).
 
ollie323 said:
I have office home and student 2007 and use it on my pc. How can i put it on one of these netbooks if there is no dvd drive? Do i need to buy an external drive to do this?
There may be an embarrasingly simple solution to this......
Click to expand...

No you're right you need a external DVD. Look for a USB powered one.

Alternatively if you are on a network, you could share the DVD drive from another machine, and access it that way.
 
TarfHead said:
That doesn't sound like the typical use for which the netbook is intended. That's like me saying that my only complaint about my family car is that it's no good for ploughing a field ;).
Click to expand...

Not really. A car is not fit for ploughing. Whereas a netbook is perfectly able to show power point slides. It doesn't require anything special or extra to output to a projector. Its just that the battery life for netbooks varies enormously. A netbook is fine. You just have to buy the right one.
 
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