The wife wants to replace our older laptop (we have a Macbook that she uses mostly) with a netbook. Mainly, it would be used for surfing the net with not too terribly much else, though there may be some document work and such.

As I'm too lazy to see if this has been discussed before (I know that Mac vs PC has been in the laptop thread), anyone have any suggestions? Pros vs cons of a netbook vs. another laptop?

Thanks in advance.
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Will this be used at home or 'on the go' sort of thing?
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Big difference in netbooks and laptops is the cd drive. If you plan to use any cdsoftware don't get a netbook. I messed around with a netbook and I would rather have a laptop because of the need of a cd/dvd drive. :-)
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My mom just got one for under $300 and it's a great product. Minus the tiny keyboard (which takes some getting used to), it is just like a regular size laptop! Very quick if you're just using it for internet surfing

aj
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I did this...it took a little elbow grease but it was worth it in the end. I ended up with a "10 inch Macbook" for $330 (including Snow Leopard).

Overall I think the keyboard (as mentioned) takes some getting adjusted to, and the tiny trackpad is a little difficult. But for on the quick websurfing and simple document work you can't beat it.

http://gizmodo.com/5389166/how-to-ha...eopard-netbook
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The smaller keyboards do take some getting used to, but its not terrible. Newer netbooks have better keyboards these days, I have an older Asus model from before they got super popular. I never found the lack of a cd/dvd drive to be all that bothersome as I usually just download stuff off the net anyways.

I think they are great for what they are. Cheap and handy :-)
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I picked up an Acer last year that I've had good luck with.

The keyboard is a little small, but I got used to it quickly. I have the 6 cell battery pack so it can go most of the day without recharging.

The only downside is it has no DVD - you need an external CD/DVD if you want to download anything from a CD. When I first got it, I borrowed an external unit to download a bunch of software into it.

It's handy if I want to go out on the patio, light one up, and surf. It's also good for taking on trips, and on long drives the wife uses it to play games or work on documents.

A laptop is probably better for school or business, but for surfing or light work the size is great.

I got it from Amazon - at the time it was close to $350. I'm sure they've come down since then.
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Wouldn't be using it much for heavy work. Maybe some word processing, but it wouldn't be my main computer for that. I already don't use the DVD drive with the laptop I have, so lacking one of those would not be a huge deal to me.

Aldrin I love your idea there! I'll have to run that thought by Erin.

What about brands? Anyone have better luck with certain ones?
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I bought the kids netbooks off Woot and they came with an external cd drive and wireless mouse. The kids seem to like them, but I can't stand the small screen.
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Personally, I would spend the $100-150 more and get a decent laptop. Just my .02
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I have an Asus netbook and love it. It was last years highest rated Netbook on Cnet(good place to compare)Im not in school and do need to use it for work.
If I need to download anything I can just do that from the web.
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I also use a Netbook Asus 1000HE I believe a new model is now available. If you can deal with using an external CD drive if you need one and the smaller keyboard a netbook is perfect for web surfing and basic computer tasks. You could spend more and get a laptop but you lose the small package of a netbook.
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I have an Acer Netbook. Not sure which one, but it's a very recent model. The portability is nice but other than that it mostly sucks for me. It takes forever to boot up. Browsing is okay when used with a mouse. Battery life is about 2 hours even though it's supposed to be 3. The part that bugs me the most is the screen. Some of the stuff just doesn't fit on it.

If you want something small and portable to surf the web with, look into an ipad.
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I have a Toshiba NB205 that I am very happy with. Boots up quick, runs whatever I ask it to, and has very good battery life (advertised at 9 hours).
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I was never sold on the netbook fad. I tried one for three weeks and just couldn't get used to it. But, being in IT, I was also probably trying to do more with it than what was intended. As has been said, the small screen can take time to get used to and the lack of CD/DVD drive is annoying, especially when you want to load new software. I had to share the CD drive from another computer on my network and run the install files that way.

Especially with electronics, I wouldn't ever tell anyone to buy anything without trying it out first. Take a trip to Best Buy, CompUSA, or whatever your local b&m electronics store is and try typing on one for ten or fifteen minutes to see if you could get comfortable with it.

If you do decide to go with one, I think minimum requirements are: 60GB hard drive, 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor (pretty much standard on all of them), and 1 GB memory. But, like I said, I was only on it for three weeks, so there may be some varying opinion about what the bare minimum is.

HP and Asus have the highest reviews. Apple iPad doesn't currently support flash player, which can be a big part of some website's design. And as you would use this primarily for browsing, there no point in getting something that will fall short that way.

Good luck!
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I have an Netbook that I'm not happy with at all. It is very, very, slow, even after I added 1 Gig of RAM(Now has 2 GIGs RAM) It has an Atom Processor- that is supposedly the problem. I only use this for surfing the net and emails when traveling, so I can't really justify getting something better. I LOVE the size, however. If they ever make a fast netbook, I might be really tempted.

And all this after I tweaked it for the fastest possible performance. Still slower than molasses in wintertime!
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:-):-):-)

Loving my MacbookMini9
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Prob your OS slowing it down. I've seen plenty of atom netbooks fly when tweaked properly. I installed jolicloud on a friends asus 1005 and it gets a 13 second boot. Even my old asus 700 running the celeron processor gets a 26 second boot with ubuntu.
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If you can wait until this summer I would.

Netbooks are already dead, believe it or not, smartbooks are coming now. Same price, more power.
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Not so much the boot- it's the file swapping- that hard drive light goes on and stays on for a considerable length of time when I'm going from one email to another, opening a new web page, etc. etc. It uses Windows XP- it's an Asus EEE PC. It was worse with 1 GB RAM, but 2 has not helped that much- and one would think that 2 Gig RAM would really be enough to have a fast machine and not need the hard drive file swap so much!
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