Netbooks - how far have you taken yours ?

[Xunil]

Not referring to distance travelled, but have you pushed or challenged its capabilities ?

I love the battery life on my Samsung N210, bought last autumn. 7+ hours of real world use is nice to have on tap, but I wouldn't fancy doing a day's work in front of such a teeny machine too often...

So, mine arrived with 1GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive preloaded with Windows 7 Starter.

Windows 7 is a great OS, and I have no issues with it other than resource management. On such relatively modest hardware is wasn't exactly sprightly, but it was (and is) very capable.

So a quick order to Crucial got me a 2GB memory module, the maximum my netbook can take, and I bought a replacement hard drive of the same capacity as the original.

Out came the original memory and hard drive, in went the 2GB RAM module and the new hard drive.

Out came my genuine (gasp, shock horror) Windows XP Professional disk, which I built a bootable USB drive from; downloaded the hardware drivers from Samsung's website, and created some mountable ISO images of a bunch of applications I wanted.

Later that day...

Windows XP Pro, all Microsoft updates applied, IIS installed (for web app development) followed by:

Office 2003 (lighter on resources but still modern enough to be very capable)

NOD32 version 4 (small footprint and low resources antivirus software with great detection)

The Bat! (lightweight, flexible, powerful and secure email client)

FileZilla for FTP

Notepad++ for programming

Google Chrome (does there need to be any other browser ?)

TopStyle Pro 4 (CSS and web development editor)

XAMPP for PHP/MySQL web app dev

... a bunch of other fairly standard applications ...


... and ...



Adobe CS5 Master Collection

I shoved Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Photoshop in and they all run fine

I don't plan on doing any serious image editing or graphics handling on such a small machine, and I couldn't stand the thought of doing anything in Flash on such a small device, but it sure is nice to know that I can work with web and image files if I need to when I'm out and about and away from my office.

I will be using Dreamweaver quite a bit and it runs surprisingly quickly on the little netbook. Happy days.

Next Alpha Five went on for web and client/server application development. It ran fine.

I also shoved Microsoft Express Web and Database on there and was impressed that the whole stack ran OK.

I'll put the MS Express Phone layer in next, giving me a fully portable application development environment that should cover most of the platforms I tend to work on most of the time.

A few systems administration and network analysis tools and similar junk have also been installed and everything is scooting along very well thanks.

But wait ...



... that's not all ...

I partitioned the drive into 90GB (Windows and associated crap - sorry, I meant apps ), 100GB NTFS shared data partition, then 3GB SWAP, 40GB /, 2 GB /BOOT and 60GB /HOME, leaving the free space at the end in case I need to shift things around a little.

Ubuntu Linux 11.04 went onto that last partition set - I fought with Slackware for an hour or so and decided to put something on there that natively supported all of my netbook's hardware out of the box - I will revisit Slackware over the next week or two as and when time allows.

So, dual boot system for if (read when) Windows fails to load, my mainstream applications installed and running more than well enough to work productively with, a shared data partition that both Windows and Ubuntu can use.

If the iPad actually had decent text entry I wouldn't be faffing with my netbook like this but since it doesn't, I'm relegating it to delivering presentations and training in front of clients and keeping the netbook in active service as a flexible mobile programming and web dev machine.

I got fed up reading about how limited netbooks were in the performance stakes, so I wanted to push it a bit and see what happened. The limitation really is one of physical size - the keyboard is workable but a little cramped for long periods, as is the screen, but the point here is that you have many hours of battery capacity at your fingertips and good enough performance to productively work on the move.

Built in VGA out (without Windows 7 Starter's clone rather than extend limitation) three USB ports, built in webcam and microphone, audio and microphone jacks, camera card reader, boots up quickly and lasts for ages.

What's not to like ?



Anyone else out there ignoring the 'what you can't do' hype regarding netbooks and running proper software on them ?

 

[IanM]

Buy Macbook Air. Use it. Done.

The IPad is designed for the consumption of information, not generation, thus no keyboard.

 

[Xunil]

I have (had) a MacBook Air.

Don't like it.

Gave it to my mother, who also doesn't like it, but she uses it anyway

We're talking low price-point netbooks and what you can achieve with them which cannot be directly compared to anything with an Apple logo. I only mentioned the iPad as an example of why it utterly fails the brief, for me.

My iPhone stays in my study desk drawer - it's an undeniable commercial success despite being a poor product. My Android and Windows 7 phones offer more of what I need from a phone (stable performance, better battery life and no reception issues to speak of).

I have a MacBook and MacBook pro on the desk in front of me as I type this on my little netbook, a couple of Lenovo laptops, one Samsung laptop....

I am happy to go the Apple route under some circumstances - I make a realistic and informed decision not to, much of the time, in favour of Windows and Linux.

Apple offers me nothing worth bragging about but at a higher price. Doesn't stop me from buying and using them, but other than the HD screens they aren't better, and I don't fall into the fanboy or Apple wannabe categories either.

After years spent using both platforms I am happy with my choices and what I can do with/on either.

Samsung N210:

£210 (approx)
* 7 hours realistic battery life (tested)
* Runs the software I want it to run
* Direct support for all versions of Exchange and the vast majority of standard corporate networks that I work in

MacBook Air 11 inch:

£850 (approx)
* Up to 5 hours claimed battery life (7 for the larger model)
* Doesn't run most of the software I want natively
* No native support for Exchange 2003 and only OWA or IMAP support for more recent versions. Jiggery pokery required for proper access to the majority of standard corporate networks that I work in

4 times the price to not be able to run my preferred apps in the environments I tend to work in.

Hmmmmm...


Ignoring the cost/battery life issues, if I can't run Alpha Five or MS development studio apps the machine is useless to me in my daily job and out of office hours remote support.

It's pointless arguing the case for dual boot to allow the Apple to run Windows natively and as for virtualising Windows on a Mac through Parallels or VMWare Fusion , so what's the point ?

Netbooks: an imperfect solution to a set of problems not yet solved by anything else

 

[cbr6fs]

Your a better man than me.

I bought a Netbook to leave in my car for tuning, i just got more and more frustrated with it.
Small screen, ap's not fitting to the native resolution, slowwwwww etc etc.

I dislike it THAT much it's in the back of the garage and i use my full sized lappy again.

Apart from that specific application i personally find my Desire HD ergonomics easier to type and do anything on.
Anything that needs more than a few lines though i boot up the PC or laptop.

I keep looking at these android tablet things, but i'm not really sure i could be bothered to take one with me (anywhere i wouldn't be prepared to take my laptop at least) and we're over run with PC's and laptops at home, plus the tuning software doesn't support Android so i think it'd probably go the same way as the Netbook.

 

[Barn Owl]

Thrown c. 30m.

After I'd bought the youngest one and on her reccomendation.

I'm computer illiterate.

 

[dwardo]

Its a shame you couldnt keep windows 7 but you really had no choice with a 2Gb limit. NOD was a good choice too very rescource light.
The netbooks are not something i have considered for my self but i have been impressed by the ones i have configured for customers.

I dont seem to have a need for one yet, my phone is android and i use "pocket cloud" which is a stunning TS App that i use to connect back to my main machine and do anything i need from there. I have a laptop in my workshop which again TS`s (is that a word?) back to my main machine upstairs and also provides iplayer access Plus i dont mind it getting covered in dust and last night antler dust

 

[jungle_re]

Dell netbook £250 + copy of OS X from apple store £25 add 2 hours of time and a few internet helps and you have a Hackingtosh. Excellent computers just dont use mine now as a new MBP has taken its place

It good fun to do and runs so much quicker than windows 7

 

[Xunil]

Dell netbook £250 + copy of OS X from apple store £25 add 2 hours of time and a few internet helps and you have a Hackingtosh. Excellent computers just dont use mine now as a new MBP has taken its place

It good fun to do and runs so much quicker than windows 7

And it doesn't run the software I need it to, which is why I set the netbook up like this to begin with...

 

[sam_acw]

Got my wife a Asus Eee PC last year and she uses it for everything. It's the biggest screen option - 12" and is her only computer. She's no tech fan so it's all as standard but with a USB DVD drive too. I'll probably get one towards the end of the year as my antique Dell inspiron has soldiered on for 5 years with only 256k of RAM but is getting to the point where it takes more and more creativity to do anything on it!

 

[sandbender]

A client lent me a Netbook of some kind, although I'm not sure which, it used what I presume was a version of linux modified for use on a netbook, I thought it was appalling. But I do like the idea of a very small mobile PC with something aproaching a proper sized keyboard so I may try one out again at somepoint.

I need nothing special from a computer. Something that runs Google chrome, lets me access my gmail, opens and closes google documents and that doesn't take five minutes to boot up will do the trick, I do like a nice keyboard though.

I think all of the Microsoft OS's look ugly and clunky, I liked the look of the Apple OS's up until 'Tiger', from 'Leopard' onwards they became too showy, too much glitz. I like the look of Ubuntu, restrained, easy on the eye and mostly in the background. The upcoming Google OS may be too limiting, I'll have a look when its out.

I have another machine running Ubuntu which backs everything up and occasionally asks me to back up to a DVD.

I would never buy a Macbook air, if I was going to buy a new Apple laptop I'd get a proper Macbook, The reliabilty of SSD drives worries me and I can manage the extra kilogram or so.

The Macbook Pro that sits in the kitchen is the very last Apple product I will own, they are no longer the company they were (or that I imagined them to be).

My most hacked piece of hardware was an Apple 'Pismo' laptop, probably the most long lived, used and abused laptop I have owned. Bigger hard drives, an upgraded processor, two internal batteries that gave twice the life of the original two and more. Eleven years old, hundreds of construction sites and many many thousands of miles later it still works.