Which notebook/netbook for traveling?

[IBJanky]

I've been thinking of getting an ultraportable device that I can take with me while traveling/vacation.

I have a laptop at home now, but at just about 6lbs, it can be pretty heavy to lug around. Been was checking out the latest offerings by different manufacturers and this caught my eye:

Asus Eee PC 1215N

I'm not going to be playing much games on it , or use it for any CPU intensive programs. All it's going to be used for is internet surfing, email, facebook, saving/uploading pictures from my camera, and some music/movies.

Comes with a dual core Atom processor, Nvidia ION II graphics, and 2GB of ram. I like the fact that it's pretty light (3.2 lbs.)

Worth it for $484 shipped?

Or should I just get this instead:

Acer Aspire AS1551-5448

Seems to have much better specs and for only peanuts more. Size and weight are pretty much the same too. Probably on difference is a shorter battery life for the Acer model, which is not that big of a deal.

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

myke

 

[ed21x]

get the acer. the 1215's ion2 is dogged by a 1x pcie connection which gives it worse performance than the first generation ion netbooks. Add to that, the amd k325 or 625 processors blow any atom out of the water, and is paired with an above average integrated card by ati.

for example: 1551 running sc2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCltVvzOBE

 

[Emulex]

get a used macbook air. i picked one up for $650 with 2 years of applecare left.

nice 13.3" lcd. great support. osx or win7. crappy batter life lol. but damn is she a fine looking 'top

 

[PingSpike]

get the acer. the 1215's ion2 is dogged by a 1x pcie connection which gives it worse performance than the first generation ion netbooks. Add to that, the amd k325 or 625 processors blow any atom out of the water, and is paired with an above average integrated card by ati.

for example: 1551 running sc2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCltVvzOBE

I didn't know about that pci-e 1x thing! Bleh, I smell intel on that one. Intel has done its best to avoid offering a netbook with decent graphics power. The ion was the stronger 3D game machine even when paired with the shitty old atoms. But AMDs new platform with the 4225 has almost as good of 3D and the new chips have improved battery life a lot it seems. There was a real hole for the light 3D netbook that AMD is the only one really filling now.

Of course, the ION + CULV combination would be the best but it doesn't look like Intel wants that one to happen. That's probably because it seems like Intels i3 notebooks have alright graphics finally...but they're a lot more expensive than the AMD side.

 

[Zap]

Intels i3 notebooks have alright graphics finally...but they're a lot more expensive than the AMD side.

Actually not that much more, if you compare to the more expensive AMD offerings such as the K625.

 

[Bateluer]

OP, you could also take a look at the Toshiba T215D machine. Its an 11.6in device, K325 and 4225 IGP based, 480 at Newegg.

I'd avoid the Atom based machines, unless you have a high desire for that battery life. Performance isn't going to be there though.

 

[PingSpike]

Actually not that much more, if you compare to the more expensive AMD offerings such as the K625.

Honestly, now that I'm looking on newegg I can't even find any i3 systems with 11-12" screens. And the 13" start at $600. I'll admit that the cpu in those is going to have more cpu power than the sub $500 1.3ghz AMDs...but they aren't really the same thing either.

Edit: It does look like in the 13.3 they're about the same price with the k625. It seems like if you're after that form factor the i3 might be a better bet since the 2.26ghz i3 should walk all over the 1.5ghz amd.

 

[wpcoe]

I recently bought an i3-380UM Acer Travelmate TM8172T with an 11.6" screen for about US$795 here in Thailand. It came with 320GB HDD and 2GB RAM (which I upgraded to 4GB), and I'm quite pleased with it.

It's a current close twin to the Acer Timeline 1830's which still seem scarce to find, and both of them are the newer sister of the Acer Timeline 1810 series which I think is easer to find in the US.

I'm biased, as I just retired an aging Acer Travelmate 3004, which was a sturdy trooper. When I bought it 5 years ago, I was impressed not only with its performance, but with features which at the time were ahead of the crowd: gigabit ethernet and FireWire, with 3 USB ports, all in a nice, small (12.1") form factor.

 

[Bateluer]

Honestly, now that I'm looking on newegg I can't even find any i3 systems with 11-12" screens. And the 13" start at $600. I'll admit that the cpu in those is going to have more cpu power than the sub $500 1.3ghz AMDs...but they aren't really the same thing either.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...namitedata.com

i3, 11.6in, Acer 1830T

 

[Zap]

Honestly, now that I'm looking on newegg I can't even find any i3 systems with 11-12" screens. And the 13" start at $600. I'll admit that the cpu in those is going to have more cpu power than the sub $500 1.3ghz AMDs...but they aren't really the same thing either.

Newegg isn't the only game in town. Here are three offerings that are in-stock.

Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-3721 11.6-Inch Laptop $699 (free shipping, sold by Amazon)
Core i5 430UM, pretty much loaded, 3.1 pounds and 8 hour battery life.

Same thing at Tiger Direct but no free shipping. However, sometimes you can get some type of cashback. For instance going through Shop Discover (you must have a Discover Card, obviously) can net 5% cashback at Tiger Direct.

Lower end i3 for $100 less

Hmmm, guess these do end up a bit more than the really low end stuff (Pentium SU4100, Celeron ULV 573, AMD K125, AMD K325). However, they are price competitive with the higher end CULVs like the K625, K655, SU9300, SU9400 and SU7300.

 

[IBJanky]

I actually saw the Acer 1830 series online and have been reading good things about it. I'll probably end up getting the i3 version. I have no need to pay the extra $100 for the i5 version since it will not be used for any heavy computing.

$599 from Amazon:

Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-3927 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

myke

 

[Zap]

There are some differences besides the CPU that the extra $100 pays for, such as an extra GB RAM, higher capacity HDD and integrated BlueTooth.

 

[IBJanky]

There are some differences besides the CPU that the extra $100 pays for, such as an extra GB RAM, higher capacity HDD and integrated BlueTooth.

HDD doesnt matter to me, I'm gonna slap in an SSD anyway.

1GB of extra RAM is no big deal. I can always just pop in a 2GB stick later on (ram prices are going down again) to make it 4GB.

I've never used Bluetooth, nor do I have the need for it.

myke

 

[PingSpike]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834115822

$450 with free ship for a Athlon II Neo dual core 1.3, 3GB of ram, 250gb HDD. The battery is 4400mAh so that is meh of course. But that is a $150 difference to the i3 one, which I think is very significant. The CULV versus the original neos the graphics performance was a little better but not the price or battery life. The Nile platform has graphics power and is cheaper and it seems like the battery life is more in line with intel too.

Obviously different people have different needs. I don't really consider any of these to be CPU power houses myself, but I'd say AMD has a more even graphics cpu power match up then intel and wins on price (in this size at least).

Personally, I don't need blue tooth and anything above 80gb seems like enough for a little laptop like this for my needs. Even the ram is kind of meh to me after 2GB. I bet intel stills wins with battery life though, certainly when paired against that 4400mAh unit.

Certainly some better options then last time around.

 

[Zap]

The Nile platform ... seems like the battery life is more in line with intel too.

Not quite there. Very close though. The only real problem is that the battery life is incredibly variable. Intel chips have a fairly high minimum MHz. Don't know about the new Core i3/i5 UM chips, but the older CULV chips had a minimum speed of 1.2GHz, so even a 1.3GHz chip like the SU4100 or SU7300 will merely clock down 100MHz in idle. In my testing with my SU4100, the voltage also stayed exactly the same. Thus, they usually always got near maximum battery life under most usage unless you were hammering it at full CPU load. The AMD chips, however, clock down to 800MHz (stock clocks are 1.3GHz, 1.5GHz and 1.7GHz) and voltage drops sharply as well. You can only get maximum battery life at those low clocks, however the clocks go back up to full speed seemingly anytime you do anything. This is like the Intel, but instead of a 100MHz and zero voltage difference, you are looking at a potential 900MHz and around 0.3v difference. Thus, battery life is severely impacted. I wish there was an easy way to force the CPU to stay at the lowest settings (playing around with RM Clock and CrystalCPU are on my to do list), but without that, the "quoted" battery life cannot be depended on.

 

[PingSpike]

Yeah, that makes sense. Battery life is really hard to measure between units.

I really like the ~12" size though. I was checking out some machines at costco the other day and man, its surprising how big 15.6 is in comparison. Not to mention the weight.

 

[oogabooga]

get the acer. the 1215's ion2 is dogged by a 1x pcie connection which gives it worse performance than the first generation ion netbooks. Add to that, the amd k325 or 625 processors blow any atom out of the water, and is paired with an above average integrated card by ati.

for example: 1551 running sc2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCltVvzOBE

Other than gaming is the 1x PCi-E going to be an issue for anything?

I was pretty set on the 1215N until learning about the 1x PCI-E and the 32-bit memory addressing. It's making me think about it a little more.

I have pretty similar needs as the OP. My laptop is dieing. It's a T2060, some horrible AMD discrete chipset. All I do is browse the web and play low-def video files off of it (720p Playback is choppy from local files). Essentially something basic for web, office, would be nice if it could run an XP VM since I have an old program for work that still requires XP, video playback (flash/local), and on the side-gaming.

In reality I don't really need the performance for gaming - I'm not likely to game on the netbook (I have a nice desktop), but it'd still have been nice to know I could bust it out to play some games to kill some time if need be. SC2, TF2, Torchlight, CS:S are what I'd probably spend time playing on it.

The CPU is probably on par with the T2060 my laptop currently uses, and the graphics are certainly better than what I have. Even though it's performance leaves something to be desired in the gaming department, the size seems to give me what I want.

Battery life is kinda important to me. My laptop gets 1 hour at best, most of the time 30 minutes so it always has to be plugged in. Getting 4+ hours would be really and something I want which I think the 1215N can get. I'd love to be able to go study at a starbucks or library and sit there without having to worry about plugging in for a couple of hours.