I need a netbook

March 11, 2010 9:18 AM

I'm thinking about getting a net book and want some advice. More details inside.

First off, for all the Apple fanboys: no, an Ipad, while quite cool looking, is not going to cut it.

What I'm looking for (I think):

OS: Windows 7 or Ubuntu. No real preference here.
RAM: 2GB
Disk space: 16gb if solid state; else any size hard drive

What I'm going to use it for:
(1) Browsing the web
(2) Editing text documents and spreadsheets (probably via OpenOffice--I think this is available for Ubuntu?
(3) Reading long--as in multi-hundred page--PDFs

So, the bottom line here is I want a netbook with a CPU and GPU capable of browsing the web, handling very long PDFs, handling 100-page Word (or Word equivalent in OpenOffice) documents, moderately complex Excel spreadsheets (or Excel equivalent in OpenOffice).

What I will not be using this for: extensive viewing of videos, multimedia, gaming, music, graphic design, etc.

Intuition suggests that there are lots of possibilities given what I want to do; however, I'm not really all that familiar with the net book segment and would like some advice as to models to consider.

Thanks.

posted by dfriedman to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

I'm very happy with my Dell mini 10v. You can get it with 2GB of RAM, and the basic hard drive is 160 gigs. I read lots of PDFs on it (yay grad school!) and browse the web, write documents, and generally use it the same way I would my larger laptop. It's tiny and sturdy and has lots of battery life. The keyboard is almost full size. You can get it with Windows XP or a slightly different model with Ubuntu.

Bonus: I've actually made mine into a hackintosh. You can't do this with all netbooks, and you have to be really careful to double check models, but I chose this one specifically to load OSX on it. I don't know whether your opposition to the ipad is the form, the price, or the actual operating system, but I thought I'd mention the hackintoshing option for some netbooks. It was quite easy, took about 3 hours, and guides are available online. And now i have a mini mac laptop for about $400!
posted by foodmapper at 9:27 AM on March 11, 2010

You didn't state your preference re screen size/resolution - this could be a big deal if you intend to do a lot of reading. My criteria were around word-processing, and the key factor was the quality/size of keyboard. The ASUS N10 won in this area easily, by far the best keyboard, but this is not the cheapest of netbooks, and the market has changed a fair bit in the past year.

I think pretty much any netbook will handle your needs, so it is a matter of preference around form factor, screen size, keyboard quality, battery life, etc.
posted by SNACKeR at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2010

Response by poster: I don't know whether your opposition to the ipad is the form, the price, or the actual operating system

Fair question. I want a physical keyboard. I have no problem with Apple's OS....
posted by dfriedman at 9:34 AM on March 11, 2010

I have a little Acer netbook that I got refurb at a Woot!Off. It's last gen, but it easily streams video, so I imagine it'd do the rest of what you want it to do.

We use it mostly for web surfing, word processing (open office suite), and watching internet TV, all of which it does very well. I should think, therefore, you won't have any trouble finding even a last generation netbook that fits your usage needs.

We do find the touchpad on it a little fiddly and we don't use it with a peripheral mouse, so that would be something I'd check more on next time I got one.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:37 AM on March 11, 2010

I asked this same question not too long ago and got some great answers. I finally decided on an Acer Aspire One AO532h and I have been very happy with it so far. I had it narrowed down to these two netbooks in my price range but the gateways lack of an extra RAM slot convinced me to choose the Acer. I have yet to add a second stick of RAM to mine, but I plan on doing so eventually. To bring the cost down there is an identical model that has a smaller hard drive (160 GB) and a smaller battery (8 hours instead of 10) for $50 less.

First thing I did was format the 250 GB drive, put in 20 gigs for Kubuntu, 20 gigs for Windows 7, and the rest of the space as a NTFS formatted storage drive for all my media and documents shared by both operating systems. I used to hate trackpads, but this one has grown on me. The only flaw so far is the left and right clicking is slightly awkward compared to my ThinkPad, but it does not take long to get used to.

I have both open office and MS Word (using wine) installed in Kubuntu and I have read large .pdf documents with the built in pdf reader with no problem and surf the internet in firefox without a hitch. The only thing it can't do so far is smoothly play 720p video.
posted by token-ring at 9:47 AM on March 11, 2010

if you are willing to go up to $420, the acer 1410 I think is a good deal. slightly larger screen (and more importantly higher resolution and dpi) and faster processor.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:57 AM on March 11, 2010

I ended up with an Asus eeePC (with the Atom n450 processor). It only came with 1gb ram, but at $300, I figure it's easy enough to upgrade that.

It came with Windows 7 starter. Awful, awful, awful. I replaced it with Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which has a really great (and fairly lightweight) interface. Downside: I've always had issues getting Ubuntu and wireless to play well together, and this is no exception.
posted by specialagentwebb at 10:24 AM on March 11, 2010

I have a Samsung N120, which was cheap (~$220 around xmas, more now) and which has great keyboard. I'm really happy with it--especially the battery life, which is seemingly endless. I run XP which is what it came with, but I loaded Ubuntu on it with no problem.

I will say that I use my netbook for the same tasks that you list, and the screen size is a real problem. I would trade the large keyboard for a bit more screen real estate.
posted by prior at 10:36 AM on March 11, 2010

I'm sure there are a bunch of perfectly good netbooks out there that will meet your specifications. My one recommendation is pay attention to battery life specs. One of the main reasons why netbooks are so great is that they are highly portable, but that convenience is mitigated when you have to have it plugged in a lot.
posted by Kimberly at 11:03 AM on March 11, 2010

Avoid an SSD drive, they have a tendency to fail, and replacements are like half what I payed for the netbook. I was an early adopter with the Dell mini 9. Was quite happy with it, until hardware started failing. They made changes with the mini 10 pretty quick to a proper hard drive, and hopefully to some of the other issues.

A lot of the info I've been seeing floating around is that most of them are currently pretty similar, but to check-out how the keyboards suit you. And, what OS you want.

Have an external USB slim DVD drive, since it likely won't have an optical drive.

Might want a small USB laptop mouse. And since USB ports are usually limited, possibly a small portable USB hub.

Add it all up, and a used proper laptop may be a better option, just heavier and bigger, but less accessories to carry around.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 11:23 AM on March 11, 2010

I have a Sylvania G Meso, which is no longer being manufactured, but I love. If I had to buy another netbook, I'd focus on the following: battery life, keyboard usability (try them--I'm fine with my tiny keyboard, but other people aren't), RAM, hard drive space, price, and that's about it. Remember, if you get a netbook with windows XP on it, you can always replace that with Ubuntu. In fact, I'd highly recommend putting Kubuntu netbook on any netbook you get over Ubuntu-Netbook-Remix. It's a better looking, more usable OS for the smaller form factor.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:07 PM on March 11, 2010

FWIW, it seems some of the Aspire Ones have bad freezing/locking up problems that are likely hardware in nature. I returned one under warranty after exhausting all my (reasonably smart IT guy) ideas, and discovering that a ton of folks online had very similar problems.

It's a cute little machine though, and Acer was good about replacing it.
posted by Erroneous at 12:23 PM on March 11, 2010

Go for the Dell Mini 10v and hackintosh it. I can't believe that anybody would ever use Windows at all ever--this Hackintosh I have is faster than it was with XP, and faster than my old G4 PowerBook.

And it cost $279.

Only thing I don't like is the trackpad, so I just plug in a mouse.
posted by mixer at 1:19 PM on March 11, 2010

I have a refurbished Lenovo S10 that I got about a year ago for $325 from the Lenovo store. I initially hackintoshed it, but keeping up with the updates turned into a complete hassle so I recently put Ubuntu Netbook on it which works just as well. The one hesitation I'd have about using it as a reading/writing machine is that the screen is wide and short. Personally I would be frustrated to be limited to 600px high if I were paging through lengthy documents - I think the actual resolution is 1260(?) x 600.
posted by bendy at 2:33 PM on March 11, 2010

As other folks have said, there's not a ton of variation in the hardware specs these days, mostly in screen res and HD/SSD size.

I've had good results using my Asus EeePC 900 as an eBook/PDF reader by turning it on its side, and literally holding it like a book. If you think this is something you might want to do (and honestly, even if not), I would strongly recommend checking out the model you're looking at in person at Best Buy or wherever, just to see if the keyboard/mouse/whatever else layout is going to suit your needs.
posted by PMdixon at 3:13 PM on March 11, 2010

Make sure you try out the keyboard in person before you buy/order and for goodness sake GET A FULL-SIZE SHIFT KEY.

I have a netbook with a tiny shift key and it drives me completely mad.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:00 AM on March 12, 2010