Ultra cheap Netbooks?

[TW]Fox · 14 May 2009 at 10:13

Hi guys,

Know absolutely nothing about these (I still think the way to portable computing Nirvania is my Dell D620 and 4 batteries

) but the GF wants one.

Very, very budget oriented, basically I am after the cheapest netbook around with Windows XP. Spec doesnt matter, it needs to browse the internet and do MSN and have Wifi. Thats it. Obviously I dont want to pay £X for a completely crap one if there is a better one for £10 more, but price is the main issue here.

So guys - whats the best cheapo?

I have a spare XP Retail license - can you install this easily on the cheaper Linux models?

a1ex2001 · 14 May 2009 at 10:18

Acer Aspire One, get the Linux version with a proper hard disk and install a spare windows license that I'm sure you have lying around the house.

[TW]Fox · 14 May 2009 at 10:26

Sounds good, out of interest whats the battery life like? I've seen it quoted as 3 hours, seems a bit... low to me? My Core2Duo T7700 Dell manages that with a WXGA screen :confused:

MTA99 · 14 May 2009 at 10:37

With wifi on its closer to 2hrs. The reason I guess is the battery is tiny, around the size of 3 C-Cells. You can get bigger 3rd party batteries from the bay but you're looking at an extra £40-50 which is almost half as much again as the netbook itself.

ally · 14 May 2009 at 12:12

the thing is with netbooks, i kinda want to wait til the atom goes dual core, think it wud be a big improvement on the current ones

[TW]Fox · 14 May 2009 at 12:23

Some of them have an 8Gb SSD drive. Are these to be avoided?

[TW]Fox · 14 May 2009 at 13:04

OcUK dont sell them and all the places that do I've never heard of and am loathe to order from

[TW]Fox · 14 May 2009 at 13:09

What is the difference between an A150L and an A150AW? According to Wiki there isnt an A150AW but it seems to exist..

Do the Linux ones have a Windows Key on the keyboard?

randal · 14 May 2009 at 13:13

[TW]Fox;14073173 said:
I have a spare XP Retail license - can you install this easily on the cheaper Linux models?

I think the Netbooks run embedded XP, so not sure if the standard XP licence would be applicable to that product.

geuben · 14 May 2009 at 13:18

[TW]Fox;14073173 said:
What is the difference between an A150L and an A150AW? According to Wiki there isnt an A150AW but it seems to exist..

Do the Linux ones have a Windows Key on the keyboard?

Mine has a key acts as the windows key when XP is installed, not sure what symbol it has on it though (might be a house).

randal24 said:
I think the Netbooks run embedded XP, so not sure if the standard XP licence would be applicable to that product.

I think you are mistaken, I installed a retail version of standard XP on mine, works fine.

Fox, The SSDs in the acer ones are supposed to be naff, really slow, especially when you install XP due to the continued swapping. There is a little hack file that stops the OS writing to the SSD all the time, but you have to manually write these changes before shut down (can be done with a shortcut). I got a 120gb one from a supermarket for £150, turned out to actually have a 160gb 2.5inch drive in it (as did everyone elses at the time).

randal · 14 May 2009 at 13:20

geuben said:
I think you are mistaken, I installed a retail version of standard XP on mine, works fine.

Using the key on the underside of the machine with a retail copy of the OS?

geuben · 14 May 2009 at 13:21

randal24 said:
Using the key on the underside of the machine with a retail copy of the OS?

Nope, I had a linux version, I used a key I had spare.

MikeHunt79 · 14 May 2009 at 13:26

Can the Samsung one be had for under £200? That's supposed to be pretty good... I'm tempted to pick up a cheap netbook also...

That said, I can do web browsing and MSN on my phone, it's just a little more fiddly...

geuben · 14 May 2009 at 13:30

MikeHunt79 said:
Can the Samsung one be had for under £200? That's supposed to be pretty good... I'm tempted to pick up a cheap netbook also...

That said, I can do web browsing and MSN on my phone, it's just a little more fiddly...

The NC10? I think that's more like £300. £200 is definitely the limit to what I would pay for a netbook (at least at 8.9inch 1.6Ghz atom one), I still think mine was a steal at £150.

[TW]Fox · 14 May 2009 at 13:34

randal24 said:
I think the Netbooks run embedded XP, so not sure if the standard XP licence would be applicable to that product.

I am going to buy a Linux one as I have a spare, legitimate XP Retail key as I now run Vista on my main machine. So the licensing isn't an issue.

"andy" · 14 May 2009 at 23:03

certain high street chains usually sell refurbished acers and msi winds for cheap enough.

the ones with the small SSD arent usually recommended because theyre a bit slow but for web browsing then i dont see how it would matter too much

datawrite · 14 May 2009 at 23:18

Winds / Advent are really nice machines. I have one and it is superb! Upgraded the ram to 2gig. Put Win 7 on and it is extremely good! I would stay clear of an SSD Netbook. Mechanical everytime at the mo!

Snow-Munki · 15 May 2009 at 10:39

[TW]Fox;14073412 said:
I am going to buy a Linux one as I have a spare, legitimate XP Retail key as I now run Vista on my main machine. So the licensing isn't an issue.

I recently bought the Acer Aspre one Linux from a supermarket when it was on offer for £130.

Been using it pretty much every day since, I installed TinyXP which is basically XP with a load of things removed to make the install as small as possible. runs pretty well for general internet and watching movies.

I'd say battery life is about 2 1/2 hours at best, not great but definately portable.

Ev0 · 15 May 2009 at 23:29

They don't run an embedded version of XP, they run XP home usually.

How much you wanting to spend, toying with the idea of selling mine and getting one of those Dell mini 10s with the high res screen

Explosivo · 16 May 2009 at 10:54

i think the atom is dual core
well my aspire one has cpu 0 and cpu 1