I'm looking for a netbook for my mrs she broke my old laptop which i had 6 years i bought a macbook 3 years back and she's been using the laptop until recently when her hash bashy efforts have broken the hinges!

So for her xmas i've been thinking about gettin her a netbook as all she does is go online nothing more and she's been hinting for ages.

Anyway i have seen this for £200

Just wondered if anyone has one?? and what do you think of it, few of the reviews online say its great for the cash.

Dont wanna spend anymore than £200 as i've bought her a Kindle too and other womanly crap

They're good little laptops and fine for basic office and web/mail etc.

There isn't lots of power and don't try and run the big heavy AV tools on them or they will kill it.

I've had MS Security Essentials on one fine, although I have now upgraded it to 2GB RAM from 1GB.

Upgrade the RAM and disable the page file. Upgrade the spinny thing for a SSD asap if she is going to be moving around with it a lot, or using it on her lap. (The "G" sensors will temporarily stop read/write operations to avoid damaging the disk and so slow everything down it it isnt solidly planted).

Other than that, it is a good little machine.

Upgrade the RAM and disable the page file. Upgrade the spinny thing for a SSD asap if she is going to be moving around with it a lot, or using it on her lap. (The "G" sensors will temporarily stop read/write operations to avoid damaging the disk and so slow everything down it it isnt solidly planted).

Other than that, it is a good little machine.

I'd keep the page file if you want to run more than one thing at once and can't say that I feel the SSD is required.

I run my little netbook with everything I run on my big tower pc back home, the one with a quad cpu, and 4GB of Ram; right now, with 2Gb of Ram (and nearly 1GB free), I am running 12 back ground programs, including P2P software, an email program, a videochat program, and listening to some music using WMPC.

Yesterday I had two different video players open (but paused), as well as the music (dont ask why); a photo editing suite open to edit some .RAW files to post on a forum, Firefox, and I was playing a PC game AND running the same suite of background programs with no problems.

All with no page file.

Unless you are using some seriously memory hogging programs, like video editing, you dont need a page file, all it does is slow your computer down; have a page file and Windows will use it, regardless of the fact it doesnt need to.

As I said, an SSD can speed up the system a lot, but you see the biggest benefit if you are using the pc on the move; it has other advantages, such as lower power consumption and if it fails, you are still able to read the data, just not continue to write to it.

Also, with the flooding in Thailand, the wholesale prices of HDDs have quadrupled in the last couple of weeks, so expect the street prices to start rising fast, if they havent started already. Several laptop and PC makers have said they will run out of HDDs in a matter of weeks.

(if you didnt know, something like 80% of the worlds HDDs are made in Thailand these days, and most of the factories are currently under water)

I run my little netbook with everything I run on my big tower pc back home, the one with a quad cpu, and 4GB of Ram; right now, with 2Gb of Ram (and nearly 1GB free), I am running 12 back ground programs, including P2P software, an email program, a videochat program, and listening to some music using WMPC.

Yesterday I had two different video players open (but paused), as well as the music (dont ask why); a photo editing suite open to edit some .RAW files to post on a forum, Firefox, and I was playing a PC game AND running the same suite of background programs with no problems.

All with no page file.

Unless you are using some seriously memory hogging programs, like video editing, you dont need a page file, all it does is slow your computer down; have a page file and Windows will use it, regardless of the fact it doesnt need to.

As I said, an SSD can speed up the system a lot, but you see the biggest benefit if you are using the pc on the move; it has other advantages, such as lower power consumption and if it fails, you are still able to read the data, just not continue to write to it.

Also, with the flooding in Thailand, the wholesale prices of HDDs have quadrupled in the last couple of weeks, so expect the street prices to start rising fast, if they havent started already. Several laptop and PC makers have said they will run out of HDDs in a matter of weeks.

(if you didnt know, something like 80% of the worlds HDDs are made in Thailand these days, and most of the factories are currently under water)

I have an n145 (with win 7 starter) in front of me now and I'm using it. If you are using all you claim at the same time then I'm seriously surprised.

FWIW, the page file allows you to use more memory than you have, so for example if office is running and an AV tool and other tools then it will page stuff out to free up RAM.

It's up to you whether you think it's pointless, but with only 2GB, I'm afraid I'm of the opinion that it's not.

Oh and I know all about the flooding in Thailand, I used to work for the company that made a lot of the capital equipment and also used a huge number of the disks to make disk arrays. I don't think they're going to run out, as the channel was , from what I hear, mostly filled for the run up to Christmas.

Your 80% is a good way off also, but yes a good number are made in that part of the world.

So yes the prices are probably going to go up for the next 9 months or so, but what with the machine in question having already been built, it's not going to be an issue. Also, even if flash suddenly became super cheap to make, there isn't enough capacity to make enough flash to replace all the current disk storage in the world, never mind that going forward.

If you build a new shiny and very expensive plant are you going to make flash chips which sell for little, or processors which sell for a lot more in the plant? Usually the answer is make a few flash NAND chips to test the process, then make processor chips until they move on from that technology, then make flash or other things in the old plants.

On the power consumption, actually an HDD can be lower than a flash drive, it depends on the access profile. Flash has on or off, but an HDD has a variety of states in between.

Finally, if a flash drive fails, you can't read the data any more than you can on an HDD that has failed.

It's down to the failure mode and those most common on an HDD are not fatal head crashes, but slow data loss. That means whatever is left can be read. Same goes for flash, if you get a sticky bit, then the rest can be read. Lose a chip or a controller and you've got nothing. That plus the high cell count MLC isn't as non-volatile as some people would like the world to believe.

Edited 10 November, 201114 yr by cheezemonkhai

well for £199 its a great little machine, i have ordered 2gb of ram for it and removed some pointless software which has sped it up ever so much, done the necessary updates etc and connected to wifi without issues so its just a case of opening up on xmas day and away she goes.

Thanks for the opinions guys

well for £199 its a great little machine, i have ordered 2gb of ram for it and removed some pointless software which has sped it up ever so much, done the necessary updates etc and connected to wifi without issues so its just a case of opening up on xmas day and away she goes.

Thanks for the opinions guys

It's a good little machine and I'm sure she'll be happy

It's probably as powerful as a laptop from 3 to 4 years ago, but it weighs nothing and lasts a full day of use. What's not to like

I got the 80% figure from the BBC, it may not be entirely accurate, but probably close; either Acer or Asus announced there were going to run out of HDDs in a couple of weeks, THAT story was picked up on several tech news websites, and several other makers have downgraded their shipping estimates due to shortages of HDDs. Vanilla boxes will be fine as they are built and shipped well in advance, but custom builds and DIYers will find HDD supplies running out much sooner, or have to pay a premium, bulk orders for 1TB drives (that is - Direct from the Fabs), have gone from about $25 per unit to over $80 as of last week

I am just going off for my morning Tai Chi session (it is 06:45 here), but when I get back in a few hours I will try to post a screen shot showing what I have running and how much RAM is free, as you think I am a liar. I have been switching off Page File since I had more than 1GB on XP boxes.

BTW Win7SE sucks, buy a license for HP or Ultimate (to stay legal), then download and use Tiny7, all the useless bloatware may be why you think you need a page file.

I got the 80% figure from the BBC, it may not be entirely accurate, but probably close; either Acer or Asus announced there were going to run out of HDDs in a couple of weeks, THAT story was picked up on several tech news websites, and several other makers have downgraded their shipping estimates due to shortages of HDDs. Vanilla boxes will be fine as they are built and shipped well in advance, but custom builds and DIYers will find HDD supplies running out much sooner, or have to pay a premium, bulk orders for 1TB drives (that is - Direct from the Fabs), have gone from about $25 per unit to over $80 as of last week

I am just going off for my morning Tai Chi session (it is 06:45 here), but when I get back in a few hours I will try to post a screen shot showing what I have running and how much RAM is free, as you think I am a liar. I have been switching off Page File since I had more than 1GB on XP boxes.

BTW Win7SE sucks, buy a license for HP or Ultimate (to stay legal), then download and use Tiny7, all the useless bloatware may be why you think you need a page file.

It's more like 50%.

I can assure you there are plenty of drives in the channel (including the bulk suppliers), so the only people who will be running out this side of the new year, are people who order in just enough, just in time and don't hold stock.

As for your bulk order prices, I'd love to know where you're getting them from.

I know the prices are hiking up for people who don't have their orders in already at a committed price, but at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world like people are making out.

At the end of the day, I quite frankly don't care what you're running on your netbook. If it makes you happy you do what you like.

My advice was given on the basis that I am what most people would consider to posses expert know expert in the field I am talking about.

To be fair, I don't actually see how this is contributing to the thread any more either.

Edited 14 November, 201114 yr by cheezemonkhai

i just think these netbooks look too fragile, i hope for your sake im wrong

ive used a few while browsing in comet while the misses shops and i have to say i like the ones i used, much more usefull than a £300+ tablet imho

The Samsungs feel more solid that the Acers, and even the Asu EeePC family, but the weakest parts of any laptop/netbook are the screen/screen hinges, followed by the keyboard and the HDD, so having an SSD eliminates one major weakness.

Why do you think Asus originally went down the SSD route, it was not because SSDs were cheaper!!!

If I did not already have a 901, I would buy a Samsung, although I would budget to replace the HDD and upgrade the memory ASAP, Asus lost the plot after the 900 series and followed the crowd in fitting mechanical drives, that is why I snapped up an "A" graded 901 refurb when they were offered for sale in October 2010.

It's more like 50%.

I can assure you there are plenty of drives in the channel (including the bulk suppliers), so the only people who will be running out this side of the new year, are people who order in just enough, just in time and don't hold stock.

As for your bulk order prices, I'd love to know where you're getting them from.

I know the prices are hiking up for people who don't have their orders in already at a committed price, but at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world like people are making out.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/11/09/dell_drives/

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/hdd_drought/

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/goldman_lowers_pc_sales_outlook/

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/11/14/barracuda_price_rise/

Cant be @rsed to go trawl through the BBC website to find the article saying 80%, but it was an article, not a news story, so they are supposed to check their facts.

Supposed to. Don't believe everything a hack writes, because a despair situation tends to help them get readership.

I still don't see this adding to the thread.

WRT the fragile comment, yes it's a little bit, but not that bad and quite solid.