Thread: Netbooks

Originally Posted by WileECyte

My wife has an HP laptop and it's very solidly built and she's quite happy with it. Like Civil says, it's all about what you plan on doing with it.

See, your two stories are different from mine. I have two HP laptops in my house that were purchased within the last year, and both have had to have their motherboards replaced twice, among various other components (a GPU once, CD drive another, and a HD as well). We get a HUGE amount of warranty work/repairs for HP computers compared to other brands. Only other that even comes close to such a bad rep is Gateway.

We did the numbers once, it was something like 30% of what we get from HP we either see again for hardware repairs or being returned (the software they put on there is just HORRENDOUS).

dont do it just get a reg laptop

My wife contemplated a netbook at one point but ended up getting a full laptop and then a kindle for the reason she wanted the netbook size (e-book reading). My wife's dell is solid and she hasn't had a problem with it. It can run a few fairly old games and browser games, but it isn't the top end gaming laptop.

My best friend has an EeePC that he bought because he only wanted something that was wireless and could get him on the net for normal web use. We contemplated putting linux on it, but he wanted the familiarity of windows (*shrug*). It works great and is fast, but he doesn't put anything on it and keeps his desktop for gaming and anything else that isn't just cruising the web.

That said, if your mom is using it for work, get a regular laptop so that there is more space and a full size keyboard. The Eeepc was a little small for my friend and any major typing starts to get tiring in such a small space.

Originally Posted by Phyrelight

I know people that have HP laptops and they worked great for years and never had a problem. I have known people that have had an HP and it broke 3 times in the first year. I can tell you one thing I noticed between the two groups. The ones that died so often were the entry level "frys special". The higher end models didn't have problems. That being said, I have never owned an HP and I wouldn't (mainly because I hate their past where they used lots of proprietary parts). On the positive side at least HP stands behind their product and fixes it.

Actually, both the ones I have here are pretty high end models. I do know most stuff over 3-4 years old in HP is still pretty good, because that was when they still used Asus parts.

A friend of mine has one of the Asus netbooks, and it works pretty well for taking notes, and typing things up. For bigger projects and coding though, he uses his normal laptop.

I bought a used Dell netbook just over a year ago and I have been very happy with it. Mine has 1 GB of RAM and a 16 GB SSD.
It came with WinXP, but I used my Microsoft Technet Plus (again, I cannot tell you guys what a value this is) to put Win7 Starter edition on it and the thing just screams. It is very limited in functionality, but it is very fast on the web and it is awesome for traveling. We travel a lot and we used to take a 17" Alienware everywhere and it got heavy, fast. We moved all our data that we would need while traveling online and just take the little book. The little netbook can play HD video files and the battery lasts halfway through a transatlantic flight. I put the movies on a USB stick. At home, the whole family uses it all the time for quick net searches. I am sure an iPad would do all that too, but the netbook was very cheap and gets the job done.