Netbook around £200?

alex24 · 17 Jan 2010 at 23:50

Looking for something to take to university and work (word processing, reading pdfs, possibly some light spreadsheets) on when I have a couple of hours off. Will also be used for light browsing at home, possibly hooked up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

The eeepc 1001HA can be had for £199, with the downside it only has a 3-cell battery. How long can it be reasonably expected to last? Asus quote 4hrs but I imagine that's an exaggeration. Don't want to go much over £200 new, say £210 max.

Open to second hand too, but would have to be around the £150 mark max for something without a warranty etc.

Thanks for any ideas.

Attu90 · 18 Jan 2010 at 00:08

Ive just bought a Lenovo S10-2 for £210 but with the vat increase the same site now lists it as £223 but still worth it i think, its got a 6 cell batttery (lasts about 6 hours surfing the net) N280, 1gb ram and 160gb harddrive with win xp.

Ive now installed Windows 7 home premium and its runs great but will probably upgrade to 2gb ram soon.

Muel · 18 Jan 2010 at 00:32

I'd recomment the NC10 or whatever the new version of it is. I have an NC10 and it lasts me a true 5 hours with brightness full and wifi on.

My mate just got a Toshiba something or other, but it was about £300, lasts 9-10 hours though.

We use them for uni every day, dunno where I'd be without mine tbh.

alex24 · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:21

Attu90 said:
Ive just bought a Lenovo S10-2 for £210 but with the vat increase the same site now lists it as £223 but still worth it i think, its got a 6 cell batttery (lasts about 6 hours surfing the net) N280, 1gb ram and 160gb harddrive with win xp.

Ive now installed Windows 7 home premium and its runs great but will probably upgrade to 2gb ram soon.

Yes, I looked at the S10-2, it looks very nice but is a tiny bit over budget. Going to keep my eyes peeled for an offer on one though.

Muel said:
I'd recomment the NC10 or whatever the new version of it is. I have an NC10 and it lasts me a true 5 hours with brightness full and wifi on.

My mate just got a Toshiba something or other, but it was about £300, lasts 9-10 hours though.

We use them for uni every day, dunno where I'd be without mine tbh.

NC10 is a bit old now, and hard to obtain at a reasonable price anyway. The newer versions are slightly over my budget too unfortunately. I also had a go with an NC10 and didn't much like the touchpad (way too narrow), and the build quality was a little disappointing with the one I tried.

Anyone know what pinetrail netbooks are coming and when? Aren't they supposed to be a bit cheaper to make? It could be worth waiting for one perhaps.

seldNofSparta · 19 Jan 2010 at 00:07

You will find netbooks start at around 220-230, so thats 20 quid on top of your maximum.

alex24 · 19 Jan 2010 at 00:21

I've noticed that, but when you're on a strict budget it's tricky.

Been looking at the pine trail Asus netbooks on the horizon, looks like they'll be available soon for around £250 on some models, might push prices down of the older ones, so I reckon I'll hold out and see what happens in the next month or so.

Would appreciate any other comments though chaps.

buffalobill · 19 Jan 2010 at 08:58

There are a few Inspiron Mini 1011 machines on the Dell Outlet site that can be bought for £188 delivered.

Typical Spec:

Operating System
Windows XP
Memory
Memory 1024MB (1x1024) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
Hard Disk Drive
160gb 5400 rpm HD
NoteBook Screen
Display 10.1in Widescreen WSVGA with Truelife
Processor
Atom N270 (1.6GHz,533MHz,512KB)
System Color
LCD Back Cover Alpine White
MISC
Battery Primary 3-cell 24W/HR
Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b g)
Base
Inspiron Mini 1011

Banny · 19 Jan 2010 at 09:18

I had the NC10, great little netbook, very well made.
If I was buying again, I would be looking at a Netbook with HDMI out which seems to be the Mini-10. No doubt there are others but dont have the time to be looking round the internet to name them all.
I say this, as it was the sole reason I sold my NC10 as I couldn't get 1080p from my TV via VGA with it, TV problem not netbooks.
I would consider this important as the netbook doubles up as a great media centre.
perfect netbook = dualcore Atom, decent video and HDMI out, might happen one day.

poot1873 · 19 Jan 2010 at 10:27

buffalobill said:
There are a few Inspiron Mini 1011 machines on the Dell Outlet site that can be bought for £188 delivered.

Typical Spec:

I picked up one of those Dell Mini 10s for £195 with Win 7 instead of Xp, nice little machines !

marmalade · 19 Jan 2010 at 12:29

Hang around and perhaps pickup a Asus 1005HA as the Atom N450 start coming on stream?
Though obviously anyone with the £300 budget would get the Asus 1005PE next month - which is the next leap forward at least in appreciable battery saving
The Lenova (as stated) is a good buy

alex24 · 1 Feb 2010 at 11:43

Currently hoping the Asus 1001P comes in at sub £200. Looks like a decent machine and ticks all the boxes. $299 in the US atm, which is less than £200, so hopefully come release here (I think feb 8th), it'll be a good price.

249 euros (amazon.de) is about £218, so a big difference in price from the US to europe it would seem. That's pretty annoying. I'd like to see an option with no OS, as I really don't want/need another copy of crappy old XP.

Luke · 1 Feb 2010 at 12:10

I have an EEEPC 901. It's smaller at 8.9" but I get 7 hours of battery on the move.

siege2 · 1 Feb 2010 at 16:53

emailiscrap said:
I have an EEEPC 901. It's smaller at 8.9" but I get 7 hours of battery on the move.

+1

I got mine for 185.00 on the bay August last year, 16gb ssd 1gb memory, now have in it 2gb memory module

gam3r · 1 Feb 2010 at 18:29

Acer A150, I have one, it's great.

jellybeard999 · 1 Feb 2010 at 19:37

I bought a refurb Acer One 8Gb SSD Linux for £130 a while back. (google - A1/LU.S030A.203 ) and have added a 16gb SD card (two SD slots on the machine) and another 1Gb of RAM.

Installed XP, Firefox, MS Office etc and theres about 5-6gb of space free. It's a little slow as standard, but it's fast if you install flashfire ( http://flashfire.org/xe/ ) which is a driver which uses some of the system ram as SSD cache. If this bothers you, the A150 uses a mechanical HDD and is a bit faster.

I only really use it for browsing or media, and it's perfect for the purpose. I don't see the point in spending a fortune on a netbook given what it'll be used for.

alex24 · 19 Feb 2010 at 00:28

Asus 1001HA - £229 (for 6-cell)

Asus 1005HA - £229 (6-cell)

Toshiba NB200 - effectively ~£190 with cashback and quidco. 6-cell.

Any opinions on those three?

The 1001P doesn't seem to be surfacing yet.

soundb0y · 19 Feb 2010 at 00:47

Sorry to go OT a bit,

I am thinking about getting a netbook soon for uni as their computers are terrible (ie always stops responding after opening about 2 tabs)

But the only worry I have, would it be a pain to use it quite a few hours a day doing assignments and dissertation? I suppose I could hook it up to one of their monitors and keyboard but it's hard enough to find a free one in the first place..

alex24 · 19 Feb 2010 at 01:28

I suggest you pop into a high st store and see for yourself by having a play with some of the ones on display. Since you're in Clifton, there is at least one place on the triangle that has some on display.

Out of interest, what library/computer room are you having problems with? I assume you're at UoB or UWE..?

soundb0y · 19 Feb 2010 at 10:45

Im at UWE on frenchay, they arent as bad as I make out I suppose but all the minor annoyances tend to frustrate me which isn't good when trying to work.

Felix E · 19 Feb 2010 at 11:13

i have the nb200, runs windows 7 very well, it's a good little machine. battery life with the 6 cell is not amazing though, but i would certainly recommend it/