Netbook for lengthy stay in Ethiopia

July 14, 2009 4:12 AM

Netbook for Ethiopia: narrow down the choices.

My sister is moving to Ethiopia for 2 years or so, and is asking for advice on which netbook to buy.

Requirements:
Windows or Mac [I know. Probably don't have time to install Hackintosh, either]
cheap - less than $500, prefer less than $400
Reliable - the most important feature. For use when travelling in East Africa & if her laptop breaks. Can't count on repairs while she's there.
Good battery life, obviously.
webcam/mic, would accept usb-based ones but not preferable.
wifi & a usb port or two.
Wired capability is preferable.

She's in Ottawa, but will be in Toronto & New York if there's better selection/price.

Mainly used, as I said, for travel in East Africa. Pretty much email / moderate uploading of pictures, Word, Skype/gtalk.

Further, it needs to work with her Time Capsule [note: I assume that'll require some fiddling, I'm going to help her with that ahead of time, as long as it's known to work].

Is the Atom N270 any good?

Thanks!

posted by Lemurrhea to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

I don't have any netbook suggestions, but do recommend that if she's going to be moving around she should take a suitable dial-up modem if it doesn't come pre-installed.
posted by tavegyl at 5:03 AM on July 14

First of all, I think windows machines can use Time Capsule using SMB.

Secondly, just about any netbook first your listed needs, assuming by "wired" you mean ethernet. If you mean modem, yes, she will have to get an external modem. The "Atom N270" you listed is a HP Mini 1030NR. Atom N270 is the name of the CPU that most netbooks use.

The five best rated netbooks from a poll by Lifehacker were (differences in bold):

-ASUS EEE 1000HE (160GB regular HD, 1.66GHz atom N280, SD/MMC reader, b/g/n wireless, BT, 1.3mp webcam, 8+ hour battery life, 3.2 lbs, about $370)

-MSI Wind U100 (160GB regular HD, 1.6GHz atom N270, SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro reader, b/g/n wireless, BT, 1.3mp webcam, 6+ hour battery life, 3.2 lbs, about $300)

-Acer Aspire One AOD150 (160GB regular HD, 1.6GHz atom N270, SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro/xD reader, b/g wireless, 0.3mp webcam, 5+ hour battery life, 2.95 lbs, about $325)

-Samsung NC10 (160GB regular HD, 1.6GHz atom N270, SD/MMC reader, b/g wireless, BT, 1.3mp webcam, 6+ hour battery life, 2.8 lbs, about $400)

-Dell Mini 10 (120GB regular HD, 1.6GHz atom N270, SD/MMC reader, b/g wireless, 1.3mp webcam, 3+ hour battery life, 2.8 lbs, about $300, upgraded for more)

A lot of other people also like the HP Mini 1030NR, although I think the Dell Mini 10s are the easiest to Hackintosh. I've personally got the ASUS 1000HA and love it, it's the slightly slower and shorter-battery-lifed brother to the 1000HE.
posted by JauntyFedora at 5:10 AM on July 14 [1 favorite]

I have an Acer Aspire One with a 9 inch screen. I added a high capacity battery for $50 that gives me 5 hours plus of time away from the power. It is now my main machine, but I would happily trade it for one with a 10inch screen - the slightly larger screen and size/weight would be worth it. It is very durable and well made. It has wifi and wired ethernet, but you will possibly want to get a wired modem for African use, being aware this will be slow. I gladly recommend it.
posted by cerebrum at 5:49 AM on July 14

I have the ASUS EEE 900HA. With a six-cell battery and wireless switched off / brightness at 40%, I can get 7 hours out of it. Regular usage battery life is 5+ hours. It's got an 8.1 inch screen, and it was incredibly easy getting used to it - when I got back to Canada after a 3 week trip abroad it felt really weird looking at a 15.4 inch screen again.

It's got 3 USB ports and a built-in webcam. The speakers aren't great, but they'll do. Best part, in my opinion? It came with Windows XP.

I ordered mine off NCIX.com, and the total came to about $450 after tax and shipping. It showed up in Kingston about 4 business days after I placed the order, in case speed is an issue for you.
posted by Phire at 6:13 AM on July 14

Actually Ethiopia has a much better standard of broadband network conectivity than you might expect. Especially in Addis.
posted by munchbunch at 7:53 AM on July 14

Reliable - the most important feature. For use when travelling in East Africa & if her laptop breaks. Can't count on repairs while she's there.

If this is for travel (i.e. moving around a lot, rather than just living abroad), and you want reliability and don't have a dedicated IT department (heh) go for SSD (a built-in flash drive) rather than risk the moving parts in a regular hard drive.

Backup/restore is critical for reliability. Remember to focus on a good restoration process, not the backups themselves. First, your sister will need to be able to restore the original operating system, which might involve entering the grey world of torrents if the original vendor doesn't supply OS discs, and a valid license key. Test that these actually work on the real hardware, and double-check that the wifi and ethernet both work. Once she's back online, apps can be installed either from downloads or that DVD you're just about to burn for her.

Documents need to be backed up either locally or to the cloud -- is Time Capsule actually required? or would mozy or dropbox work? (Incidentally, both have Mac versions as well as Windows versions.) The best local backup procedure is going to be a combo of a memory stick and SyncToy.

Big files (videos or big batches of photos) are probably easier done by just walking into an internet cafe with the memory card right out of the camera and having them backup directly to DVD. There will be no end of places that can do this for her. DVDs scratch easily if left lying around or in paper envelopes, and scratched backups are no backups; buy your sister a cheap DVD case to store hers in.
posted by robtoo at 12:04 PM on July 14

Thanks all! We ended up going with the Dell Mini 10, because the store she was tax-free shopping at had no EEE, but had the Dell 6-cell and an Aspire 3-cell. I personally would have ended up with the EEE, but convenience trumps other considerations.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:35 PM on July 21