A netbook for less than $150?

Yeah those books are cool...Im really wanting one of those..I think they are gonna be big...

Yeah, I got a Dell Mini 9 last year...sort of a Xmas present to myself.

The thing's pretty neat.

Dell Inspiron Mini 910 Netbook, Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GBRAM, 8GB Solid State HDD, Windows XP Home Ultra Lite::Laptops::Europc.co.uk

Can't beat your one for the price, though, Paul.

Steve

Only one? You didn't buy a dozen for resale?

Paul, I have the Samsung 10" Netbook, it is amazing, never use anything else. 2Gb of RAM, 160GB hard disk, dual processor, 8 to 9 hour battery. It is great. Bought mine in HK but the Samsung has a set price worldwide.

This looks really tempting. Looks like they are $129 for a shot time. I just don't know about getting one with Linux.

Thanks Paul i need one myself so i will check it out.

kind regards


sam
X

Paul, I have no idea how long the battery last, that is the claim of Samsung.

I haven't used it for more than 4 hours on the battery. When I did it was using Skype and also wifi. I was downloading lots of different things, and working on Open Office and Word at the time. My battery has never gone below 63% so I guess they might be right with the 8 - 9 hour time.

The standard came with 1 GB Ram, but the place I bought in HK upgraded to 2 GB.

The battery is a 6 cell one which is supposed to last 8 to 9 hours.

It comes with XP but nothing else.

It has a dual processor, so I have my basic C drive which is 20 GB which has some of the standard software added to that. But I use mainly the D drive for everything else.

It took me a day to move all my software from my old machine to this one, and I use it all the time now.

The keyboard is 93% the size of a normal keyboard. The weight is just over a kilo. The keyboard has been coated with something which is supposed to stop any nasty germs from lurking. It is Eco Friendly, has an international warrenty.

Samsung released the NC10 in Jan worldwide, and it come in Cream (mine), black, blue or pink.

There are a couple of new versions just out, don't really know much about them

I checked the ASUS EEE against the Samsung and decided to go for the Samsung.

BTW we have a pile of review articles which Rob wrote about netbooks on www.boysbach.com which is our site

I just mentioned this offer to Rob and he wants to know if any of you have taken up the $0.99 offer for a netbook

The $0.99 Netbook has arrived, on Sprint | The Toybox | ZDNet.com (direct link)

That's a great find! I have an ASUS Eee PC 1000HA and love it but I've been looking for something a little smaller to take on a bike tour and this may fit the bill.

I actually want to make some money so that I can get the polar opposite. I want a super duper gaming type Alienware rig.

I also have a 250GB portable hard disk, which I use for my backup so if the 160GB isn't enough space then my portable comes into play.

One thing I really like about the Samsung is the fact the keyboard is 93% the size of a normal keyboard, and I can still type around 110 wpm without any problems. I don't like some of the netbooks which have smaller keyboards.

Most shops and websites don't say it's a dual processor. Samsung wasn't sure if they would use a dual, and when we got mine it was.

The Samsung comes with a camera built in, mic, speakers, 3 USB, 3in1 reader card,

NC10 10.2-inch netbook - Blue NC10-14GB - netbook - mobile computing | SAMSUNG direct link to Samsung's information about it

I went to the merchant website through Chuck's page and found that the offer is until end of July 2009.

But one thing that puts me off is the very tiny 4GB solid state HDD.

I think that your friend is in Geeks affiliate program and there are affiliate links on that page. It's all good though. I have nothing against profit motive.

It's smart. I should start building pages like that for my Geeks affiliate links too. (light bulb on)

Yeah, so I bought a copy of Mac OS Leopard to install on my Dell.

Strictly speaking, that breaks Apples TOS, but it's somewhat of a growing trend within the tech community...and Apple aren't doing much, if anything, to discourage it.

Runs. Like. A. Dream.

The thing boots in, like, 15 seconds. It's rock solid, and really snappy.

Steve

In November it'll be two years since I got my eeePC and it's hard to beat for what it does ! The WiFi has incredible range and it travels very easily. I have the 4G Solid state drive and a 16Gb SD card so 20gigs of storage is plenty. I upgraded to 2Gb ram and it boots fast and runs flawlessly. I've since bought my girlfriend one and she likes hers, too ! (it's pink)
I may get a 10" next but I'm looking for a price drop this fall before I do. Asus makes a great little netbook, they started the trend and still bring quality products out.
My 2 cents.

How does video look on it.

You Tube, Hulu, etc.

Thanks
Tony

I just ordered one - you have to order through the red
Geeks checkout button, sign-up if you don't have an
account (I didn't), enter the promo code, then you can
pay with Paypal or whatever. The process was confusing.

Good deal though. We've been talking about getting one
of these.

i have the dell mini 10 with xp on it - i probably use it more than my desktop and xps laptop now, it goes everywhere with me! lol

i got it with 8gb solid state drive, just loaded basic software on it - word/excel/photoshop/dreamweaver/firefox - i bought a 16gb SD card for it and use that as my my docs folder and love it

im probably gonna give this to the missus and get myself another one with built in broadband wireless and 16gb SSD

the battery life is awesome i get around 6 to 8hrs depending on what im doing

also gotoexpress has been extremely handy on this too - i have it set up to remote access about 3 different machines

I have an Asus, although one of the earlier 700 models.

They are great!

You should be able to do most of the "normal" stuff an Internet Marketer needs to do with the pre-installed software...

Browsing the Warrior Forum endlessly - Firefox, baby! (I'm not sure all of the plug-ins work on Linux, though... but many of them do.)

Writing your latest ebooks and reports - Open Office, baby! Ditch the Office. Also, you can put Open Office on your Windows computer, too - all for free!

Reading all my PDF reports - Adobe Reader is there, too.

For John Taylor and Paul Myers to exchange continual references to alchoholic beverages - there's Skype!

Some Windows programs will also work under something called Wine (not the alcoholic beverage) which basically simulates the Windows operating system.

Installing programs isn't the easiest thing in the world, but 90% of what you'll want to do is already there.

I have an Acer AspireOne and LOVE it. I can not imagine doing IM without that little netbook! I write most of my niche blog posts on the train to and from work every day! LOL

Bev,
Which external drive are you using? I bought the 1TB Western Digital World Book to work with my Asus EEEPC, but it never acted right so I returned it.

Love my lil 10" netbook, though. Got it a couple of months ago on sale at Best Buy while my laptop went in for repairs. 160G hard drive, WinXP Home Edition, 1G RAM. It's so much more portable than my 17" and came with a nice carrybag, too.

So what do you do tomorrow -- buy another one? I think I want my computers lasting longer than 24 hours...

I have found full size laptops on CraigsList for $200 to $250 almost every week.

You can try it before you buy ... Very safe

It's pretty amazing how inexpensive laptops have become.

I remember that my first laptop cost 1 grand in 2004.

An HP Pavilion Laptop with an AMD 1 GHZ processor. It was a good laptop, it ran all the way up until last year.

The equivalent laptop with similar specs would probably be around 200 dollars now. (they don't even make it anymore)

Just in a period of 5 years the hardware drops around 80%.

Buying a used laptop is RISKY! And NOBODY will let you try it out first, ESPECIALLY not for a month or so. Refurbished ones are supposed to be tested, fixed, and given SOME kind of warranty.

Sully,

Around 1996 or so I paid $400 for memory SURE, I knew it should have cost $25 and was a SCAM, but I NEEDED the memory annd nobody seemed to offer it for less. I won't even say how much memory it was. NOW, it sounds STUPID!

LCD displays used to cost a FORTUNE! I remember when a 160GB laptop drive would have cost $640 or more!

Steve

I got a cute lil Targus case as part of the sale on my netbook. I was surprised that this EEEPC has WiFi, a built-in mic and an external mic port, plus a buil-in webcam and a card reader. It doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, but it has 4 USB 2.0 ports and 2 Firewire. I got a free optical mouse, too. Now they give a 32G thumbdrive, I think. I'd rather that, but other than a memory upgrade, I'm happy.

I've even watched downloaded movies and played Second Life on it, but the graphics card isn't as good for Second Life as my "real" laptop.

I just wanted something to fill the gap while "Baby" was being fixed, but now I'm in love with "Lil Baby". I never go near the desktop anymore. That's strictly for my teenagers. LOL

Everyone who sees the netbook goes, "Awwwwww..."

My nontechy friend is getting a netbook as a part of changing from cable to Fios. She's waiting for the install now, then they apparently send her a coupon for the netbook.

I bought 3 for the kids. We'll see how it goes.

TomG.

I got an Asus EEE PC. I take it with me whenever I travel. Regular-sized notebooks are just too bulky to carry and too cumbersome whenever I pass security at the airport.

I got mine for over $200 and that was last year.

Ok. I bought one of these Asus 900s last week.
It came via Fedex. We played with it over the weekend.

The keyboard is small. Typing speed will suffer. The
little touchpad makes it tricky to maneuver the cursor
around accurately.

The display is 1024 pixels wide. Most websites display
handsomely with no sideways scrolling. Very cool.

The 1024 display is also small. That means you get your
face closer to it than you might to a laptop. Moving the
cursor around is tricky because everything is small -
so navigation is slower.

The OS that it comes with - Linux in a version for the
EEE called Xandros - well, in my eee it has a problem.
The installation of Open Office in the machine does not
work at all. I haven't yet figured out how to fix it
or repair the installation.

I don't know Linux. This is my first Linux machine.

That being said, the GUI of the Xandros OS is very
intuitive and easy to learn. For simple stuff like getting
online and doing email and playing the cute little games
in the machine it's all very straightforward. You turn
it on and it works.

Because Open Office on the eee is broken, I downloaded
EasyPeasy, a Xubuntu version for netbooks. I put EasyPeasy
on a USB memory stick and I can easily boot to it instead.

Easy Peasy has a version of Open Office in it that works
fine. The games are not as nice and it's less "idiot proof"
than Xandros, which basically hides Linux from you. EasyPeasy
fully acknowledges that it IS Linux. It is not for non-learners,
but the GUI for doing all the basic internet stuff is pretty
intuitive.

Verdict:
Cool little machine. Broken OS came on it. Alternate OS
easy to dual-boot to from a USB stick.

Hard to do any real writing on. Cool for email, internet
browsing. Cool to let the kids entertain themselves with.

It's easy to carry. No motors in it so the battery lasts
a while. Jumps on a local wireless connection without much
trouble.

I'd like to know if the coming Google OS will run on this.
That might be really cool.