As some of you may have noticed, I'm slightly obsessed with my Aspire One netbook, and actually, with netbooks in general. They are great little devices, more powerful than you'd give them credit for upon first encounter. And, but that might just be me, netbooks are what laptops should have been from day one: truly portable. El Reg has put together a buyer's guide for today's netbooks, and while the guide is generally spot-on with its assessments, it does present some odd choices here and there. Read on for some of my own thoughts grown out of experience.
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Member since:2007-04-12
What do you define as "laughable"? My Mini-note has a 7400RPM 120 gb HD. That's a far cry from my first NEC laptop's HD capacity.
I don't want something 2" larger, this fits in my backpack that way I don't have to carry two carry-ons on the plane thank you.
Just because it doen't fit your needs doesn't mean it won't fit other peoples needs.
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:2006-01-04
Of course you'll never buy one. Theese small machines are not meant to replace a real laptop/desktop! Nobody wants to play high demanding games on these machine.
They offer a small, robust, lightweight and cheap way of getting your email/browsing/video/etc. on the go.
I do research in physics where I develop and implement models which runs on big clusters. You could argue that the cluster is way too heavy to cary home, but then that's not it was designed for!
And I could laught at the CPU in your machine and ask you why you bought your laptop with such a ridiculous cpu... But I wont 
Each product is meant to fulfil a specific need. I remeber hearing similar critics over the XO. What people did not got was that the XO was there to fulfil other needs than run photoshop. I don't need a 3GHz processor on any of my laptop. Can you really make the difference between 1.6GHz and 2.0GHz? Also, don't forget that 98% of the time the CPU is idle...
I have a big laptop, more a desktop replacement, which I carry each weekend coming back to my home town. My back is begining to hurt after a couple of month of this. I want to watch movies in the bus, but the 15" beast is a pain to get out of the bag when I'm in the bus. So I'm eagerly waiting to buy an Eee 901.
I know I wont run my big simulations on it: I have my cluster for that. For big code developpment, I have my main desktop on even my laptop. But for the go, these are the perfect machines. Again, specific products for specific needs.
I do have critics on "SCC"s to. I'd love to see touchscreen on them (I saw some kit on ebay for the eee), but maybe more interesting, beeing able to flip completly the screen. It would reduce the size it occupies when watching movies for example (like in a bus...) and with a touchscreen it would be great. But then I'm dreaming
Anyone heard if the new Intel SSD is faster then the one in these and if some models are expecting to have it?
Member since:2006-03-28
So that is your option, and you might be alone with your opinion. I use 15.4", 12", and will surely buy netbook. Why? Because I want to have all-around-PC with me, and no, SmartPhone or PDA does not do the job.
It is like with my photogear. I have DSLR, then compact, but also ultra slim Ixus, which I always carry with me. So - netbook is different device for different purposes, and imo many ppl will buy one ...
Member since:
2005-07-11
As a personal preference, I would never buy a netbook. You can barely type, see, or store anything on these tiny machines. You are already carrying a small laptop so why not increase it 2 inches more? The current storage is pathetic! The CPU power is laffable!
When they get netbooks or whatever they call them these days to have decent SSD storage and good CPU/GPU power. I might consider them.
Finally, with these specs why should I pay $300+? I wouldnt pay 100 for such devices.