h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My laptop has died, so I am in need of a new one. I've been offered a second-hand desktop (though it needs a monitor, keyboard and mouse buying fo it), so my home computing needs are taken care of, but I need something portable too.

The portable computer should be capable of word processing, playing music through headphones, connecting to the Internet wirelessly, and running Firefox. If at all possible it should not run Windows 7, and it must not run Vista. It should be large enough to type on for hours and small enough to carry in a rucksack. Long battery life would be a bonus.

The preferred price is as low as possible. I can't afford a new computer, but neither can I avoid the necessity.

The current best option is looking like a Linux netbook. Would the Researchers care to weigh in on the problem?

Although it seems it's also still possible to get XP netbooks, and XP is what I'm used to so I might go with that.

Get a samsung NC10; I think* you can still get them with Windows XP, the price I seem to recall has dropped as well since I got mine.
Its fast.... seriously I can't figure out how it manages to be so fast, given its processer must be one tenth or less of what I've got on my desktop; and its got 1 GB of #RAM as versus 4 GB on my desktop; it opens programs, like word and IE adn firefox quicker than my desktop does; the best I can guess is obviously you don't relaly have quite* so much software installed on it:
I have firefox, IE, MS office 2003 professional, every single media player which is free that I can be bothered to have, about half the harddrive is full of Mp3 files and audio books for listening to on the train/when I'm away.
The Wifi works better than the netgear WiFi card on my desktop.
The battery life is amazing... it really does seem to pretty-much be the companys given battery life; I easily get five hours from it; though I do tend to use the sound more than most people which I know drains the battery quicker....
Tons of harddrive space... and if your really worried about only having 1 GB RAM you can self fit a 2 GB replacement RAM card for about thirty quid (though all the bench mark tests didn't show any improvement in opperational speed from having more RAM: if anything it just means the battery gets used up quicker; I've not updated the RAM on mine).

The only thing to bear in mind, is that it doesn't have a CD drive; so installing software on to it, its either good to have an external CD drive; use an external USB backup harddrive (immage softward on to the external drive then install it from the ISO CD immage), or do what I keep meaing to do; and set the CD rom drive on my desktop as a 'drive' for the netbook to see over our WiFi network at home... Though actually now I've pretty much got all the software on it I want...

Of course, if your happy enough using linux; don't mind I guess extra fiddling about when moving files between open office and whatever your running on the desktop , then I think some of the linux options work out a bit cheaper....

The keyboard on the NC10 is great; the keys are basically full size, but a bit closer together; esp all the stuff on the right hand side as its hard up to the 'letter keys' etc...
Well I get on with the keyboard, as a touch typist I can quickly get up to 50 or more WMP; I'd be quicker but I don't really do as much typing on it as I thought I might... (It mainly gets used in the house as a portible machien to plug into the HiFi in my bedroom and stream internet radio or audio books etc)... Though when I've been away I use it more for typing and such like...

err,... its got bluetooh if your into such things, handy for quickly moving stuff onto the mobile and visa versa... the harddrive is a good size; but don't* go for the default setup that it wants you to have when you first turn it on; leave less* space for the primary partition; for installation of software programs, and then have a bigger secondary partition for all you music etc...

Some people Don't like the mouse pad thinggy on it; dunno I tunre dmine off and just u use keyboard shortcuts, its quicker than using a mouse anyow once you've remembered them all

quite good sound from the inbuilt speakers too; though a bit quiet and having it running with the volume up on full depletes the battery a bit quicker of course...

I might be biased though; lodger seems to like his netbook but he's gradually get more and more envious I got the NC10 as its got about three or four times the battery life of his machine... think his was the aspire 1 or something

The NCI (or is it MCI?) Wind I think has just dropped in price too; it was the second one on my shortlist a year ago when I was looking at getting a netbook; the NC10 won over on a cost benifit analyisis of them...
Not sure what has happened in teh past year with newer models; I know Samsung went to the lunatic asylem to seek advice and bought out stuff that just didn't 'get the point' in terms of netbooks as they just seemed to go larger and with less of waht you really want in an ultraportible

Just looked at the specs and they seem pretty standard to the netbooks I've been looking at, but the NC10 is a hundred quid more than the one I was considering, which unfortunately I can't justify. A netbook does seem to be the way to go - I don't need the power of a full laptop and it's much cheaper.

Which is the one you were considering, and with what opperating system?: I had one of the first EEPCs when they brought the first shipment into the UK: Had it about three weeks before it was dead... The build quality on the NC10 seems better than the EEEPC models I've seen (but I don't think I ever saw the most recent models they bought out). When I got my NC10 it was about the same price as most the other XP netbooks, Sure I saw one the other day on offer at a quid under £200 So migh tbe worth looking about... the wind I think I saw on offer too recently err probably Ebuyer or somewhere or novatek But budget useually is the deciding factor in such things... heck I'd have gone 2 X quadcore extreme on an I7 motherboard for my main PC if I had the just laying about getting in the way

I should have looked at that before I replied How weird, it seems the prices on most of the netbooks have actually gone right up they don't even seem to stock some like the wind and the NC10 anymore, and I think half of the others are slightly* differnt versions of the initial models... So its hard to tell prices from waht they were to where they are now as they're not quite* the same things

My Acer is lovely (if only it would connect to something) and was EUR 100 less than the Samsung.

However when I was researching netbooks, only the more expensive ones (like the lovely Samsung) were running on XP - all the others have Windows 7 (which is fine, btw)


Oh and I often use a mini mouse instead of the trackpad and it's fine (but keyboard shortcuts are always better)

Sorry to interject: but check out the "mac's" on ebay. My partner has a mac laptop from 2002, and is still - with a new battery- up and punctual. I'm now using a mac mini, and have an emac from 2003 that works just fine( I fried the modem(dial-up)-lightning strike -my fault ground wire for telephone was not secured correctly)
Limited computer knowledge (maybe)... but mac's are very well supported (Unix based for OSX apps. system).
What I find is, they do what you ask of them, don't fail and(from
my point of view, they just get what ones needs to be done without asking too many question, and there are no downloading of patches to fix glitches, upgrades yes but;
I suppose the choice all depends on wether one just wants a computer to preform the tasks at hand or if one likes/enjoy playing/problem solving the PC/micro soft game. Sorry I am "dah " biased.

A Mac is a possibility, but unfortunately the university runs on Windows (suprise suprise). And I feel guilty about it, but I want to stick with something I've used before - I'm used to Windows and I've used Linux enough to find my way around, but I've never used a Mac.

Ahh haa...
don't buy a netbook.
Not yet*.
Just talking to lodger this morning (who does tend to keep more uptodate than me as its his job to do so; I only really check stuff out when I'm in the market for a new something myself).
Now he's mentioned it, I vaguely remembere reading about it too:

when the netbook things first came along, MS limited the processors that could be used (somethign to do with their liciencing XP home and how they were doing that).

There will be, at some point fairly soon, a new bunch of netbooks out with increased/new processors; Of course I'm guessing these won't be cheap when they come out (which is rather missing the point of netbooks which were ment* to be the sub £200 machines....)

Anyhow, my guess is, companys selling netbooks have put the prices up a bit high at the moment, but when the new ones come out the current models oughta all be hitting the bargan bins and so the price oughta just shoot down

But I have no computer *now*!

I got from Dixons a "Acer Aspire One" netbook running XP three weeks ago for £199.99.

It is the bomb, I *love* it. And I think they still have them in stock.

FB

Ahh, that is the one my lodger has ; he is pretty enthrauled by it; but he still envys my battery life on the NC10 as its about twice or three times the battery life; though of course his netbook is a tad smaller I think than the NC10 and lighter by a few hundred grams

Have you consider renting? It is an option for test driving the various makes and models to find what really suits your needs.

Yeah, you can get a seven cell battery for it for about £30 if you know where to look.

But frankly I find 2 and 1/2 is generally enough and I dont really need any longer as I am rarely anywhere where I cant charge it for longer than that.

FB

Well, I have bought one, the make and model of which has immediately slipped from my mind. I can tell you what it is when it gets here. I bought it entirely based on price and having the standard specs that every netbook I saw is stated to have.