spec me a notebook / netbook

xirokx · 20 Jan 2011 at 09:32

hi guys,

im going backing soon and need a notebook / netbook that is lightweight but reliable and will be used for;

- surfing net using wifi
- watching videos
- putting my pictures on from camera
- emails and writing letters and keeping spreadsheets
- perhaps a blog also

budget is upto £500 tops

all help would be appreciated

cheers

olivier renault · 20 Jan 2011 at 12:29

Lenovo x120e. Coming out mid january

Or just a regular netbook. £200. a 2GB upgrade is recommended usually, but the Toshiba at OcUK is good.

xirokx · 20 Jan 2011 at 19:14

the toshiba from OCUK looks esp after a 2gb RAM upgrade

do you know the release date for the lenovo that looks very juicy indeed with the 4gb RAM and solid state hdd I believe it will be expensive though for these features perhaps double of the toshiba..

olivier renault · 20 Jan 2011 at 20:12

At least. They start at $400, which means £400. That's minimum spec, and I don't think they'll have a SSD at that price point.

The Tosh is your regular netbook, with an upgraded processor (marginal), good battery life, and feature you may not necessary need (bluetooth). One of the main gripes I have with netbooks is screen resolution, not so much processor power, which should be adequate for word processing and the rest.

Netbooks are pretty straight forward, they all share the same tech. And they are available in local retailers as well. The main difference in netbooks are battery life, keyboard and mousepad feel. Some come with 6 cells battery (around 6 hours+), some with poorer batteries (4 hours).

For your needs, they seem to fit the bill. You can probably find one around £200, I don't think it would be worth spending more, except maybe a 2GB upgrade. Some Dells aren't that easy on that front (1011), but for most the operation is simple.

Internaut · 23 Jan 2011 at 18:25

Netbooks are too small and fiddly for my liking. However, I would recommend an Acer laptop like this ACER AS5742G which is 15.6" has an Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM and 500GB Disk on Windows 7 and ATI RadeonHD 5470 512 MB. Though it will use your full budget to £499.99

I bought a laptop very similar to that from Comet recently and it cost around £379.99 (slightly lower spec) but I can't seem to find it - however I can see that this laptop is from the same family line and has the same shell - these are much more thinner and lighter compared to the previous bulkier Acer's I've gone through. If you don't like the small size of netbooks I think this is the next best thing in the form of a laptop.