Picking a netbook

[aaab]

1. What is your budget?
I'm not going to put a budget here as I am from New Zealand. I'm mainly just looking for a model to buy, I will find out where to buy it here.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
10", I will consider up to 12.1" but I would prefer 10"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Ideally at least 1280x800

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable

5. How much battery life do you need?
4 hours minimum

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
No games

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
80 gigs should be heaps. Ideally a SSD

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Nope

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
As long as possible. No specific time

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
None required

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I'll consider any brand

13. What country do you live in?
New Zealand

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Needs to run linux x86

 

[hpfreak]

aaab, when you said you needed your netbook to run Linux, do you need to come preinstalled with it? Or the capabilities of running it? I assure you any Windows notebook you purchase- a Unix based OS will be capable of running on it also.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230364
This laptop should be fine, the only thing though.. It does not have an SSD. It's hard to find a netbook that has an SSD because there is no reason for there to be one really... The performance boost on that low-powered netbook CPU will be much less notable compared to a desktop.. or a powerful laptop.

Good luck finding one though,

 

[jsrudd]

The performance boost on that low-powered netbook CPU will be much less notable compared to a desktop.. or a powerful laptop.

I've added an SSD to both a desktop and a Netbook and found the increase in speed in the netbook much more noticeable. The netbook went from unusable to alright. The desktop went from fast to really fast.

Keep in mind that you can always just buy an SSD and add it yourself.

 

[aaab]

Thanks hpfreak!

Na I don't need it to come preinstalled. I just don't want anything with an ARM CPU..


I would have thought that the SSD would increase battery life, and have less chance of failing. Most netbooks I've found come with 320gb drives, which is quite overkill for what I need, I wouldn't have thought that it would cost that much more to replace it with a 60GB SSD.

How does the AMD E-450 compare with the intel atom? I haven't been able to find benchmarks.

 

[hpfreak]

It depends on the Intel CPU. Do you have a specific model in mind?

Thanks,

 

[rolltide101x]

http/www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=AMD+E-450+APU

 

[hpfreak]

Thanks rolltide,
Based on those benchmarks, there is one Intel Atom CPU that was faster than the E-350. The D2700, if you prefer a laptop with one of those CPUs, we can check for one.


Thanks,

 

[aaab]

How about the Atom N455?

 

[hpfreak]

The E-350 is much better than the Atom N455.

 

[rolltide101x]

http/www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+N455+%40+1.66GHz

 

[aaab]

Was just looking at this,


http/www.sony.co.nz/product/sve11116fg

How does this compare to the one you listed? FYI stuff costs a bit more in NZ. So the sony one is only $150-$200 more expensive than the asus

 

[rolltide101x]

It is somewhat more powerful but the battery life would be worse. I doubt it would last 4 hours

 

[aaab]

Best answer selected by aaab.