# Netbook for college: Need your Perspectives!

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by theJournalist (move over school!) on Wednesday, 18-Nov-2009 9:01:59

hello everyone,
after my great disappointment with the Lenovo g450 laptop, (well, understandable - I paid $425 for that thing), I'm really considering to buy a netbook. I'm a high school senior, so I don't have wads of cash - besides my social security, I haven't been able to find any other money-making oppertunities in the rural area I live in. So there is no chance of me spending $1200 for a high-end laptop.
I'm going to college in less than a year, but already my current thinkpad t60 laptop is going downhill - battery life has decreased since Last year when I began using it through classes and constantly unplugging/replugging it from class to class.
Netbooks, of course, are not as powerful - they have an intel atom processor, who's speed is said to be half of the actual clocked speed (a.k.a. a 1.6 GHz atom is like an 800 MHz "regular" CPU), but of course most netbooks have at least 8 hours of battery life now a days.
I want a netbook that has a home key, since I use the keyboard a lot. I'm not sure if any exist on the market, however - most netbooks I've seen have no home/end key, and some even don't contain a dedicated pageup/pagedown button.
So, by home key, I'm implying a dedicated key on the keyboard - not one which you hit with the FN key. On the keyboard's note, my preference would be a sheeklet-style keyboard - similar to the one found in laptops. From research, I gather that certain Toshiba nb205 models actually have this.
I'd also prefer the latest n280 CPU - while I know that n270s are cheaper, they are about a year behind the n280. I will also upgrade the ram to 2 GB and load Windows 7 home Premium, starter isn't that great.
One last thing. Any netbooks that aren't made out of cheap plastic? I know that defining "cheap plastic" differes from all perspectives here, but to me it implies plastic which isn't durable - it creeks, the screen latches always close the lid, ETC.
Thanks so much for providing your feedback! :) If you have any netbook experiences you wish to share, feel free t o do so!
With all due respect-
Tomi

## Post 2 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Wednesday, 18-Nov-2009 9:22:55

Just a few thoughts.
For Linovo I want to mention I got a Thinkpad X200 series for $850 and it is a fabulous machine, light, 12-inch aluminum finish and I am very impressed with it. I have heard some negative stories of some Linovo models but thisparticular machine is just brilliant.
As for netbooks you are sort of asking best of both worlds and it'll be hard to find what you need.
I am a stonch supported of Samsung NC netbooks. Mine runs XP though and has Intel Atom n270, butif you are truly using it for school you do not ever need anything more and you can probably get these for under $300 now.
There is a pg up and down but no home/end keys, though I have gotten used to it to the point where it feels almost orenatural to usethe fn key for this combination.
Asus has 11 inch netbooks which might have the keys you need and they come preloaded with Windows 7, so do Acer netbooks.
Not extremely helpful, I know, but I'll keep an ear out for actual netbook deals and post them if I see one thatmight work.

## Post 3 by season (the invisible soul) on Wednesday, 18-Nov-2009 17:59:15

to post1:
try look for asus netbook, in particular EEEPC 1005HA that come with 250GB with intel atom n280 1.66GHZ, and pre load with window 7 starter. if you want something stronger, you can always use the everytime upgreat to window7 home premium,.
amazon is selling in the price of anyware between 350 to 400, although i heard there's places elseware you can get it for 320 or something like that.
it come with full laptop keyboard, promising battery life of 10.5 continues hours, build in microphone and webcam, wireless, 10inch, and weigh around 2.8 to 3lbs.
some review suggest that if you completely off your screen, and off all the unnecessary program and hardware like luetooth, webcam, wireless, etc etc, it can push it till 12/13 hours of continues usage.
good luck

## Post 4 by season (the invisible soul) on Wednesday, 18-Nov-2009 18:04:53

oh yeah, another thing, regarding the worry you have for plustic casing, not too sure about other company, but asus does claim that they are scratch prove. and i believe they using the same type of matirial they use to manefectured apple macbooks, before apple discontinue the agreement with asus.
if you are serious about getting a netbook, personally, i won't go with Dell, and Hp or Sony. i'll stick with Asus, Lenovo, and Samsung. Asus will be my first coice considering they have good reviews on their baterry life and the over all performence.
cheers

## Post 5 by Nicky (And I aprove this message.) on Wednesday, 18-Nov-2009 19:04:12

I know this isn't what your asking for, maybe you could fine some way of getting it. But try out a pacmate of something like it. It has I believe 48 hours of battory power and is alot like a note taker but in stead of a screan it has the braille display. I am sure you know what I am talking about. If not then you should have a friendthat does.

## Post 6 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Wednesday, 18-Nov-2009 21:32:18

PacMate costs about 20 times as much as a netbook and has a tiny fraction of the memory and the processor speed, can only run certain programs etc, horrible idea, plus it is hardware for the blind. Actually, for some people it works fine and that's great but in this case I do not think it'd be good.
If you are a high school sr I would imagine college does not start till fall. Why not wait and see what happens in between. I thought AMD was about to launch an ultra mobile processor, a third company was going to weigh in (it has been a month since I read the article) and Windows 7 will take over all Microsoft machines, as it always has, so more and more choices of netbooks will have it built in.
By summer I am sure you will have a completely new range of net books which probably have better specs and are more affordable than today.
USB 3 is slowly beingintroduced, although Intel said they won´t natively support it until 2011, but Asus are launching the first motherboard with USB 3 specs, solid state drives are coing along nicely so you might have a chance at a decent size ssd in the summer, so as I see it, if you can wait, you should.

## Post 7 by theJournalist (move over school!) on Thursday, 19-Nov-2009 0:53:23

ok... :) Thanks for the opinions thus far.
I already have a Pacmate, the school paid for it - although it's an OK device, speed and such can tend to be a bit bad.
Nevertheless I came to my local microcenter tonight and looked at their netbooks.
I ended up buying one! It's the Toshiba 205 netbook n330. This one has a sheeklet-style keyboard (like the ones you see in a macbook) and actually it has a home/end/pageup/down key arrangement, though certainly it's not your six-pack key style. It's still good however.
This netbook has 9 hours of battery life, 250 GB of hdd, the intel atom n280 1.66 ghz, and Windows 7 Starter. Oh yeah, and 1o get the Windows 7 home premium upgrade, since it comes with the drilled-down starter version.
The other netbook which looked nice and didn't have a melded in keyboard was one of the Sony vios. The thing with most netbooks (and yes I saw the asus 1005 too there) is the keyboard - it is flushed into the surface of the machine. I have real long fingers, so for me a more evenly spaced out keyboard is the way to go. I'm also glad that I have a home key. I'll be reviewing this netbook in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Meanwhile, feel free to comment :)
with all the best-
Tomi
gigs of ram, which I'll prob update to the maximum 2. I might als

## Post 8 by forereel (Just posting.) on Saturday, 21-Nov-2009 1:47:56

If I were using it for college I'm old fashioned and would go with a laptop. Some are now coming with full keyboards even at the low price end, and more ram then a net book. Yes heavier, but for the long hall and comfort nicer. I view netbooks as something to do basic stuff on, but as stated if you had waited they'd probably improve. The one you have sounds nice however, but if you paid say 400 for it well 50 bucks more and you've got lots better machine. Smile.
Let us know how that machine works out.