netbook <£300

skippy2421 · 26 Jan 2010 at 14:19

Right looking to order a netbook Friday, however i know very little about these things so i was hoping you guys could educate me. I have a budget of £300 however if i can go nearer £200 the better. I'd like the windows 7 starter version ideally as i much prefer 7 over xp, however this is no big deal just a personal preference.

Basically the only thing i must insist on is a 6 cell battery as it needs to last a while, i don't want it dying on me after 3 hours. It wont be doing anything too intensive, a little word processing some basic programming in R and some spreadsheets.

First of all i was intrigued by these new pinetrail netbooks namely the asus1005pe. I have looked at dell and there's nothing of interest to me there. There's also the msi wind u130 however that only seems to have a 3 cell battery so that's no good. Should i bother with these new netbooks or go for the older sort?

Secondly i've noticed all netbooks seem to be the same with exception to the fact some have 250 gig HDDs and some have wireless n. What benefits would i get from wireless n or are these negligible for the cost?

I'd appreciate any advice on this area guys.

thanks

Bleek · 26 Jan 2010 at 14:30

Ok after playing with a 10"... I decided the extra inch made all the difference!

I bought an Acer 751, 2GB, 250GB, 6 cell for £249.99, it came with Vista Home which is a bit pants BUT scrub off all the fancy crap, make it look like XP and it runs surprinsingly well.

I went for the 11" screen because the resolution of 10's was just too shallow for me, I work on charts and spreadsheets.

As for the Acer 751 itself, its a gorgeous little thing. Light, attractive, nice wide keyboard and still most definitely a netbook but with added comfort (screen and keyboard). Battery life with the 6 cell is reported to be 8-9 hours with the screen under half brightness and to be honest it's too bright on anything but <50% anyway.

Ok so I've only had mine a few hours but I can already see it's a great little machine for a steal of a price.

skippy2421 · 26 Jan 2010 at 14:50

Bleek said:
Ok after playing with a 10"... I decided the extra inch made all the difference!

I bought an Acer 751, 2GB, 250GB, 6 cell for £249.99, it came with Vista Home which is a bit pants BUT scrub off all the fancy crap, make it look like XP and it runs surprinsingly well.

I went for the 11" screen because the resolution of 10's was just too shallow for me, I work on charts and spreadsheets.

As for the Acer 751 itself, its a gorgeous little thing. Light, attractive, nice wide keyboard and still most definitely a netbook but with added comfort (screen and keyboard). Battery life with the 6 cell is reported to be 8-9 hours with the screen under half brightness and to be honest it's too bright on anything but <50% anyway.

Ok so I've only had mine a few hours but I can already see it's a great little machine for a steal of a price.

Thanks for your reply, i had not considered this one in the slightest and will have a look, the extra screen space could prove useful so i'm keen to have look at this especially at the price point you listed.

I have been primarily looking at the 1005pe/ha and the various sammys. Any other alternatives? The dell mini 10s look nice but seem expensive for what they are.

Bleek · 26 Jan 2010 at 15:11

There were quite a few negative comments around about the Dell.

I'll take some pictures of the 751 later, it really is a nice piece of kit, compare to a few other 10" netbooks I've seen the 11" screen is a joy.

Davyb · 26 Jan 2010 at 15:37

I took my acer 751 back after 2 days of usage.

It constantly crashed / blue screened and nothing i tried fixed the issue.

When i took it back they told me it was the 15th one they had recieved back in 2 months.

The screen on it was great. But the processor was just not upto the job of doing anything.

I went for the Asus 1005ha instead and i have not had an issue with it.

Just my 2p worth

Bleek · 26 Jan 2010 at 15:49

That doesn't sound good, perhaps a driver/firmware issue at the time?

What OS were you running?

skippy2421 · 26 Jan 2010 at 15:57

hmmmm doesn't sound promising, obviously this is just the one instance. However Bleek how do you find the acer considering it has the slower processor 1.33ghz i think? Do you get any big slow downs?

On a seperate note what's your impressions on the 1005ha Davyb seeing as that's another option i'm looking at?

Davyb · 26 Jan 2010 at 16:15

I didnt appear to be the only one with the issue. I tried xp / win 7 and both had the same issues.

Using the camera also hung the machine..

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=16164&start=410
^^ very usefull forum for acers.

FACT 1: People have reported the "freezing" problem in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (beta and official version), and Linux. In safe-mode, in normal operation, and even while the computer is in sleep mode.

FACT 2: Some people no longer have the problem, yet there is *no single fix* that has worked for everyone
-Changing memory modules or hard disks has worked and *not worked* for several people.
-Changing operating systems has worked for at least one person, and *not worked* for many more.
-Updating the BIOS has worked for some people, and *not worked* for others.
-Changing drivers to a different version (graphics or other) has worked for a person or two, but not for others.

Basically, there's no telling what will work for your individual system. However, the most reliable fix has been to have the entire motherboard replaced. Only Acer doesn't always do that. Sometimes they just update your BIOS and send it back. Sometimes they replace the hard drive. Total crapshoot.

Onto the 1005ha.

I love this netbook.

It has done everything i have asked of it and more with issue.

Im running win7 with 1GB ram and it has had no issues ( i havent used my main desktop since getting this )

I have got almost 8hrs from the battery ( light suring in work with my 3G dongle attached ) and all settings turned down.

Anything else you want to know ask away

marmalade · 26 Jan 2010 at 17:37

Go Asus 1005PE the battery life is at least a couple of hours more. I use 2GB of Ram and Windows 7 Ultimate. Mine is white (from Germany) I hate typing on black surfaces The whites are not generally available in UK maybee not till end of Feb Blacks for around £276

seldNofSparta · 26 Jan 2010 at 17:44

I recommend the Samsung N130, its in my opinion one of the aesthetically nicer looking netbooks, if not the_nicest. I'd recommend the N130 as long as you dont mind not having the Nvidia ION graphics chip or the extra 1" on to the screen size, but I suppose these additions come with the more expensive netbooks. Never the less, who wants to play games on a netbook? 11" over 10" is useful for the resolution though, as stated already in this thread.

Bleek · 26 Jan 2010 at 17:45

skippy2421 said:
hmmmm doesn't sound promising, obviously this is just the one instance. However Bleek how do you find the acer considering it has the slower processor 1.33ghz i think? Do you get any big slow downs?

Not at all, I've already loaded up my charts and spreadsheets and it's more than capable. I'll be honest i'm surprised at how smooth it is.

I have however trimmed features, services and startup 'crap' in Vista so that it has an XP-like footprint of ~500MB.

jaysus · 26 Jan 2010 at 19:02

I've got the Acer D250 running XP and I can't fault it. I wouldn't complain about having a slightly bigger screen but this does everything I ask of it. I've not really seen how far the battery will go though as I use it as a house netbook - its never far from being charged.

Iceman · 26 Jan 2010 at 19:30

After using an acer 531 i could not fault it good battery life about 5-6 hours.
But i just didn't like the win 7 starter package.
I now own a dell mini 10v and now i have cleaned all the dell crap off there its a good little machine, I use it for email and internet and some basic word processing and spreadsheets.
Only thing letting it down is the 3 hour ish battery life but that doesn't bother me.

Bleek · 26 Jan 2010 at 20:11

Well using the power saver profile on my 751 I've just pipped 4 hours usage (setup, tested youtube for 20 mins and lots of www) and the battery is reading 46%.

Bleek · 26 Jan 2010 at 21:37

Still going, I'll run out of energy before this netbook does! It reckons I still have over 2 hours left, that would easily push me in to the 8 range and I've been using it none-stop!

Bleek · 27 Jan 2010 at 08:23

I put it in sleep mode at around 10:30, woke up at 0600 and it stll had 11% (1 hour) power left!

So, that's easily 8 hours from constant use.

skippy2421 · 27 Jan 2010 at 09:22

seldNofSparta said:
I recommend the Samsung N130, its in my opinion one of the aesthetically nicer looking netbooks, if not the_nicest. I'd recommend the N130 as long as you dont mind not having the Nvidia ION graphics chip or the extra 1" on to the screen size, but I suppose these additions come with the more expensive netbooks. Never the less, who wants to play games on a netbook? 11" over 10" is useful for the resolution though, as stated already in this thread.

I've heard good things about these N130's, my friend has one and swears by it. However samsung now have the 210 and 220 about so this has really blown the number of options i have sky high and that's just from samsung. Ohhhh the choices, lol i want to order on Friday best get thinking.

jaysus said:
I've got the Acer D250 running XP and I can't fault it. I wouldn't complain about having a slightly bigger screen but this does everything I ask of it. I've not really seen how far the battery will go though as I use it as a house netbook - its never far from being charged.

Is this the one that's going for really cheap right now? If so i would be very interested to hear what you make of it. As far as i can tell however it only has a 3 cell battery which would indicate it would probably not last as long as the others mentioned in this thread. I need it to last about 5 hours a day on battery. However what do you use it for, i just need to know if it'll handle reasonable sized spreadsheets basically.

Iceman said:
After using an acer 531 i could not fault it good battery life about 5-6 hours.
But i just didn't like the win 7 starter package.
I now own a dell mini 10v and now i have cleaned all the dell crap off there its a good little machine, I use it for email and internet and some basic word processing and spreadsheets.
Only thing letting it down is the 3 hour ish battery life but that doesn't bother me.

hmmmm not come across this one before, i shall investigate. Why did you get rid of the acer? Surely it would have made sense just to change the OS if you didn't like 7. Regarding the mini 10 3 hour battery life would be no good for me at all.

cavonia · 27 Jan 2010 at 09:26

Acer netbooks are great. Couple of mates of mine have had the 11" ones for some time now and no problems at all.

skippy2421 · 27 Jan 2010 at 09:32

Davyb said:
I didnt appear to be the only one with the issue. I tried xp / win 7 and both had the same issues.

Using the camera also hung the machine..

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=16164&start=410
^^ very usefull forum for acers.

Onto the 1005ha.

I love this netbook.

It has done everything i have asked of it and more with issue.

Im running win7 with 1GB ram and it has had no issues ( i havent used my main desktop since getting this )

I have got almost 8hrs from the battery ( light suring in work with my 3G dongle attached ) and all settings turned down.

Anything else you want to know ask away

marmalade said:
Go Asus 1005PE the battery life is at least a couple of hours more. I use 2GB of Ram and Windows 7 Ultimate. Mine is white (from Germany) I hate typing on black surfaces The whites are not generally available in UK maybee not till end of Feb Blacks for around £276

I'm very tempted by this one as it seems to tick all the right boxes however it seems to come at a premium compared to the others, however like you said they're not in stock yet, however teh 1005p is and the only difference as far as i can tell is the 1005p does not have wireless n and has 160gig HDD as oppose to 250. Now i have no need for huge amounts of storage so is wireless n worth the extra £30 or so?

Bleek said:
I put it in sleep mode at around 10:30, woke up at 0600 and it stll had 11% (1 hour) power left!

So, that's easily 8 hours from constant use.

That's very good battery life. Thanks for the running review, i'll have to think about this one as the netbook does seem to have issues for some people, however i hav enot completely discounted it.

Thanks to everyone who has replied by the way, it's much appreciated.

Bleek · 27 Jan 2010 at 11:30

Well I looked at the Acer owners forum and yes there are a few people with problems but how many who DON'T have problems HAVEN'T posted to inform us?

To me it looks like a handful of complaints.

I'll do a proper review at the weekend once I've given it a good 5 days solid use.