My mom wants a netbook

tk149

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2002
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My mom wants a netbook. Once she has an idea fixed in her mind, there is no dissuading her. She is going to buy one on Black Friday come hell or highwater, regardless of how well it suits her needs.

I know very little about netbooks. Please help! :confused:

Uses: Websurfing, email, possibly YouTube/Hulu, iTunes, transferring digitial camera pictures. She wants to burn DVD's (for pictures) also, but I think I can talk her out of that since I suspect it would add a lot of weight. For some bizarre reason, my mom is insisting on Windows 7.

I did a tiny bit of research last night, and have some questions.

1. How fast is the Atom processor compared to an Athlon 1900+XP (This is what her desktop has).

2. Do netbooks use SSD's? If so, how fast are these compared to regular hard drives?

3. What kind of battery life can she expect if watching a streaming movie?

4. What the heck is Windows 7 "Starter"? The Best Buy salesgirl had no idea.

5. Is the AC adapter integrated or is there a separate heavy power brick?

6. Can she watch an HD movie on a netbook?

7. Any recommendations?
 

Cheeseplug

Senior member
Dec 16, 2008
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From all of the things she wants to do with it, she is asking for a laptop. The atom processor is pretty gimped and would have a very hard time running HD movies, most netbooks don't have optical drives and the battery life wont be good while watching movies, everything is focused on small form factor small system demands.

Windows 7 starter is a really stripped down version of windows seven used for netbooks and shipped in developing countries, no aero or anything like that, just the basic operating system.

I haven't been up to date on current netbooks, but I do own an Asus EEE 904ha, and it does well for me. Check out asus' offerings as well as from MSI and acer. you can probably even get a good deal on a refurbished dell.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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Netbooks don't come with DVD drives, and only play hulu / youtube at 480i or less unless you buy the $400 HP on the AnandTech front page that has an nvidia Ion.

For $400 you could get a dual-core laptop with DVD, 2-4 GB RAM, 250-320GB HD, basic ATI or nvidia graphics, HDMI port to connect to a TV, and that will play hulu smoothly at 720p.
 

tk149

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2002
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Netbooks don't come with DVD drives, and only play hulu / youtube at 480i or less unless you buy the $400 HP on the AnandTech front page that has an nvidia Ion.

For $400 you could get a dual-core laptop with DVD, 2-4 GB RAM, 250-320GB HD, basic ATI or nvidia graphics, HDMI port to connect to a TV, and that will play hulu smoothly at 720p.

She said she wanted a netbook. She's complaining that my dad's mid-size laptop is too big and heavy for traveling. Then she sent me links asking about two full-size laptops for sale on Black Friday. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the hint about AT's front page, I'll check it out.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
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Uses: Websurfing, email, possibly YouTube/Hulu, iTunes, transferring digitial camera pictures. She wants to burn DVD's (for pictures) also, but I think I can talk her out of that since I suspect it would add a lot of weight. For some bizarre reason, my mom is insisting on Windows 7.

I did a tiny bit of research last night, and have some questions.

1. How fast is the Atom processor compared to an Athlon 1900+XP (This is what her desktop has).

2. Do netbooks use SSD's? If so, how fast are these compared to regular hard drives?

3. What kind of battery life can she expect if watching a streaming movie?

4. What the heck is Windows 7 "Starter"? The Best Buy salesgirl had no idea.

5. Is the AC adapter integrated or is there a separate heavy power brick?

6. Can she watch an HD movie on a netbook?

7. Any recommendations?

1. Single core Atoms (what is in most netbooks) are probably a bit slower.

2. The really cheap netbooks with small 2-8GB SSDs have pretty bad performance because those SSDs were made to be cheap/small, not fast. Think of them as a USB thumb drive built-in. The more popular SSDs that enthusiasts talk about around here are the Intel/Indilinx units which cost more than an entire netbook and are crazy-fast.

3. Atom CPUs don't use much more power under load than when idling, so quoted battery life probably wouldn't differ by a huge amount.

4. It is a stripped down version of Windows 7 and does not have features such as the Aero interface, Media Center, etc. One strange limitation is that it won't allow you to change the wallpaper (there are workarounds). Another thing that was almost a limitation (until Microsoft decided to not do it right before it came out) was to limit the number of concurrently running applications to 3. Anyways, the takeaway from this is that "Starter" is meant to be cheap, stripped down and lightweight. Think of it as those cars the local Kia dealership advertises for $7999.99 which don't have A/C or even radios installed, but it runs and gets you places.

5. Separate power brick. The nice thing about netbooks is that because they use so little power, the power "brick" is more like a power "candy bar." Basically size/weight is a function of how much power it needs to put out.

6. The quick answer is NO. The longer answer is MAYBE, which highly depends on drivers, CODEC, resolution, which Atom CPU (330 is dual core), which graphics (ION is capable on paper).

7. Look for one of those thin/light notebooks that use a CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) Intel CPU, preferably the dual core versions. Typically those at the 14.1" screen size level will have DVD burners built-in, and be powerful enough to watch HD streaming video.
 

taisingera

Golden Member
Dec 27, 2005
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If she didn't want to burn DVDs then one of the CULV laptops would have been good. But with a DVD drive you need at least 14" for it to be cheap <$600 or you could get 12-13" but that jacks the price up to $800+.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
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If she didn't want Windows 7 there are Dell D400-series 12.1" laptops with XP Pro for as low as $289 (refurb, buy.com) or ~300 from Dell Financial Services:
http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/
Note that "CDRW/DVD" means a DVD reader only (CD burner) while "DVDRW" means a DVD burner.

A coworker got a couple of D600-series (14.1") from DFS for a charity he works with and he said they were in very nice shape.
 

Winterpool

Senior member
Mar 1, 2008
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I'm extremely curious, from a marketing / cultural perspective, why your mum is set on a 'netbook'. As others have pointed out, it may not be the best piece of kit for her needs, especially given the one constant of all machines purporting to be 'netbooks' is the lack of an optical disc drive.

A budget might be helpful, especially to determine whether your mum would be better off with a netbook / CULV notebook v a very compact but proper (and more costly) notebook (12-13 inches), eg the ThinkPad X, MacBook Air, etc.

I've been looking at the netbook segment for a while, and I've personally decided on an 11.6-inch CULV notebook. The mass and form factor are, for practical purposes, equivalent to 10-inch netbooks, but their processing power can be a multiple of Atom for certain tasks. CULV processors are still 'Penryn' architecture. The 1.2 GHz dualcore Celeron SU2300s and 1.3 GHz 'Pentiums' are much much more capable than your standard 1.6 GHz netbook Atom. You also get 768 vertical pixels on an 11.6-inch screen v 600 on a typical netbook.

The CULV cpu and associated graphics (generally Intel GMA 4500MHD) are generally capable of decoding 1080 H.264 'HD' video. Flash was more problematic, but the forthcoming Flash Player 10.1 can take advantage of graphics processors. With 10.1 CULV netbooks are now capable of playing Hulu and YouTube smoothly at 720 res.

Edited: as CULV chips are 'proper' x64 cpus, their notebooks are currently being sold with Windows 7 Home Premium x64.

One could always get an external burner, but that obviously compromises portability. If burning 'on the go' is necessary, better to simply buy a 'real' notebook, most likely 13+ inches.
 
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Winterpool

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Mar 1, 2008
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REVIEWS

- Acer Aspire AS1410 (1.2 GHz Celeron SU2300): Liliputing; netbooked
(Note: the Gateway EC1435u is identical to the AS1410, though I think it looks a fair sight better than the Acer's cheap two-tone plastic design)

- Gateway EC1430u (1.3 GHz Pentium SU4100): Laptop
(Note: similar to Acer Timeline 1810TZ; physical design identical to EC1435u)

- ASUS UL20A (12-inch screen; 1.3 GHz Pentium SU7300 -- 1 MB more cache than the 4100): Liliputing
 
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tk149

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2002
7,253
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I'm extremely curious, from a marketing / cultural perspective, why your mum is set on a 'netbook'. As others have pointed out, it may not be the best piece of kit for her needs, especially given the one constant of all machines purporting to be 'netbooks' is the lack of an optical disc drive.

She probably saw my brother's netbook, and decided it looked cool. Also, she's complained that my dad's laptop is slow, heavy, and bulky. It's a mid-sized laptop that's a couple of years old, and it IS slow. She does do a lot of traveling.

**Thanks to everyone for all the replies**

I think that she probably could get along with a netbook since mostly she just reads email and views pictures of family and friends, but I have to make her understand that a netbook is not a desktop replacement.

Also, she can't figure out how to program the clock on a VCR, so maybe Windows 7 IS the way to go? She gets around in XP...sort of. I still don't think she really understands subdirectories. There's no way she's going to understand command lines.

She sent me links to laptops costing $400 and $800 on Black Friday. I'd guess that's her price range, but I'd rather she spent less.