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

My trusty netbook has died. A moment of respectful silence please.

*

OK. So now I need a replacement. My requirements are the usual stuff with wireless and MS office (don't all roll your eyes, I have a shedload of stuff that I still need to access etc etc etc).

I definitely don't want an iAnything.

I use it primarily to access the internets and for writing essays etc. That means a keyboard is a must. I don't care if it has a touchscreen or not (probably I'd prefer it not to have one unless it can be used as a tablet)

An SD slot and more than 3 USB thingys would also be great.

I prefer something up to 12" because* it fits nicely in my handbag.

So - any ideas?**

* be QUIET in the cheap seats
** and since I am not Mrs George Soros I am price-sensitive too

Price sensitive is such a relative term...

Where do you do most of your writing? If you can have a removable keyboard i.e. a tablet and a keyboard you may get a really good reading device plus a way of doing proper typing. Wonky surfaces make that hard but writing on desks is fine.

However, removable keyboards - even the most svelte of them - are bigger than 12" laptops. The handbag is a good size restriction and I love the fact that it is now a reasonable one.

Depends on the handbag...

http://retaildesignblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Christian-Dior-giant-lady-handbag.jpg

Can't go far wrong with these things:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-X101CH-10-1-inch-Netbook-Pink/dp/B00A15DDNU/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1377594127&sr=8-7&keywords=netbook

My netbook died in June. I didn't use it as much as I used to, but it was handy to take on holiday and I used to do some writing on my lap in front of the telly when I was too tired to sit at the desk.

Before I took the plunge for a tablet I bought a bluetooth keyboard and use it with my smart phone. I do little enough that it works for me, but getting a tablet just for that seemed a bit excessive. I use Google Drive with it, which is weird seeing it appear on the laptop screen at the same time but works for what I want.

Coud you get a tablet and use it with a bluetooth keyboard? I was looking at the 10" size, but for what I need it seemed excessive when I can get by with my smart phone.

but I don't actually want a tablet, I have a smartphone for the stuff I want that for (twitter and gps mostly) and i read on my old-school Kindle. I don't like reading so much on something with a backlight (I am in front of a monitor all day as it is) - partly because they are heavy and partly because they make my eyes tired.

I do my writing either sitting on the sofa, sitting at the dining table, sitting in one of our meeting rooms and occasionally in the garden. The netbook worked out really well - a tablet with a removable keyboard would probably be as good but the ones I've seen have been too expensive.

I really really like the lenovo yoga (which doesn't fit my handbag, so I'm glad to see that Dior have a solution for that...)

Thanks for the tip, Hoo. I'll check that one out.

oh and look, it's pink. Just right for girls!!!

sorry to spam but SQUEEEE there are pink accessories to go with it (sadly nothing with glitter ribbons or fluffy bits)

Argos have a netbook in the right colour - a big plus: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5089019.htm

Isn't that what glue's for?

Deb

[Picks up book, turns page, and reads. No keyboard needed, no awkward techniques to learn, no ulcers in stomach from worrying whether anything appropriate *and* affordable can be found.]



Modern technology has much to recommend it, and yet.....

The most technologically advanced person I ever met was a co-worker who had the bad luck of having her home computer crash. She found it agonizing to reconstruct everything she had before. After scolding me for not being as advanced as she thought I should be, she admitted that she was overdependent on computers.

Well, I am too, when you think about it. I don't bother to hang onto the paper telephone books that Verizon delivers to my doorstep every day. I just go online and get phone numbers from an online source. I pay a lot of bills online. And so forth, and so on.

Many young people apparently can't write anything longhand any more. They do everything with their gadgets. Most can manage a rudimentary form of printing.

So, by all means find a great netbook. Just keep in the back of your mind this idea: Things happen. Having alternatives [including non-technological ones] makes sense. Your local supermarket has only about three days' worth of food [that's an average], so any emergency that lasts much more than three days will have some people worrying about how to find anything to eat. So far, we haven't had massive collapses of telecommunications networks from the solar storms that were supposed to have been to severe this summer. That's luck. It could have been worse.

Be well.

You do have candles for power outages, right?

[Sorry, the phone books come every year, not every day. I should probably quit while I'm ahead. ]

Just chuckling at the phrase "old-school Kindle".

The very oldest, earliest, ante-diluvian Kindles - the ones so incredibly old that people might not even recognise them as Kindles, due to their odd, angular lines, keyboards, and white cases, came out less than six years ago, were only available in the US, sold out in less than six hours and didn't become available again for five months.

By "old school", I assume you mean non-backlit, non-touch-sensitive - i.e. more than two years old. "old school". Ha!

that's the one, I have the 3G keyboard one, it's fabulous - especially in direct sunlight

I have an Acer Aspire One D257 with 1 GB memory and 250 GB HDD storage (the sticker telling me all this is still on it). It has 3 USB ports and other ones I don't really use. It's smaller than my copy of Private Eye but the keyboard is big enough to touch type.

It has a multi gesture touch pad which I think I've managed to switch off because it really used to annoy me. But I might just have got used to it.

It came from Argos and was around £180 about two years ago. It is still my favourite thing even though it doesn't like playing videos (it might be overheating because of cack under the keyboard).

It didn't come with MS suite. But we had a spare licence after buying Nod's laptop so I was able to install it anyway.

It is of course almost certainly unavailable now. But whatever the current model is might meet your needs.

Mol

I've not had to look at new laptops for ever and ever as my Samsung NC10 is still managing to survive reagular slips off my lap and/or bed, when I doze off reading audio books (streamed ) on it...
It has a keyboard so one can type properly, enough volume to hear stuff without needing an extra bag to carry speakers, and enough HD space for most things unless you wanted every moovie on it in the world... its slow and underpowered, probably for games, but at about the same spec RAm/processer as my new phone, its totally fine for the internet and streaming audio and stuff, and plenty fine for MS office err whatever old version I have.... 2003 , which I use a fair bit on it .
I'm guessing its not been made since... way bakc, but there must be something comparable that just fits such a purpose theseday...
Battery life still good, used to last all day when I used it for actual* work work, err circa 2007/8 keybaords fast for typing on too... better than this old PC one Not sure if they still do anything simular though, but I've laways found it reliable...

When I bought my netbook way back when it was 2legs' experiences with the Samsung NC10 that made me run off to the shop to buy one of those. In the event the salesman sold me the Acer Aspire One with which I've been very happy (I think it's the one Mol described)

There is an updated version of that one on Amazon for around EUR 250,- so if I can't find anything similar in real shops at the weekend I may go for one of those. (I quite like the touchpad thingy)