Ok, im gonna do some life on the road again so im needing to do away with this chunky big lappy and get somehting smaller which uses less battery etc. Anyone recommend a wee mini laptop which has plenty memory for tunes and stuff and isnt going to use too much battery or take 3 years to load a page. I think i will be going with vodaphone mobile broadband as the 3 network only works in 3g areas (doesnt work here but can get dial up vodaphone)

Not looking to spend a fortune but it must have wifi and be small and quite reliable and not use too much battery power. Ive been looking at all sorts online but dont have a clue what all the jargon means. I only bought this lappy here because it had the most stickers on it for the price!! Any help would be great.

Cheers in advance

Writing this on ACER aspire one, fenomenal stuff looks like mini laptop ,its easy maybe 1kg or a bit more.I like the touchpad too its easy to use from start.Practical stuff...

Dowside no CD,only UBSs battery works for 8 hours of work,

price round 300/350 euros

Firstly, 3G is a type of signal sent to mobile devices I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong). My nokia picks it up and I am on t-mobile, so I would imagine coverage will be fairly similar.

I, my brother and mum have been on Vodafone wireless broadband and its hit and miss at the best of times. Also the dial up broadband when no 3G signal is available is ssssssssssssssssssslllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.


How much we're you looking at spending? Personally I would go for something at the higher end of the market, purely because I don't believe these netbooks are upto the specs they should be at yet.

Having a look through things on PC world they are all very similar specs at the high end;

Sony Vaio VPCW11S1E/W

SAMSUNG N110

ACER 531

These all have 1GB RAM, 160GB harddrive and fairly similar processors, however the Samsung has a (apparently) 9 hour battery life, whereas the others are anywhere from 2.5hrs to 4.5hrs.

Also the price range of the above is £330 to £375 (online prices), and the Samsung came in at the low end of that. I had a samsung about 2 years ago. Had it for 5 years being thrown around in a backpack and chucked in the boot the car with all my tool. I put it through REAL hard work. It was on a building site for 2 years before it died. So perfect for being on the road.

If those are too pricey let me know and I'll recommend something else.

Also I wouldnt buy it from PC World unless the price is much better than anyone else. You'll go in to buy that and spend half and hour being sold a £1500 Sony Vaio laptop; or a spotty teen will recommend some high end desktop PC

Hope the above helps

Peace

Wife's got the little white acer one with linux on it, quite a useful little thing. Lasts a while as well.

2nd hand refurbished IBM X series every day of the week

whichever laptop you get, do get alll the RAM you can get installed. This drives up the price a bit, but pays for itself over time in being able to do more things at once as well as doing them quicker.

Samsung N11O is a good netbook to get although a bit expensive, it has about 10hours of battery life

If you want something cheaper the samsung nc10 is almost just as good.

I think most have only 1GB RAM in them. Haven't had a look at whether RAM upgrades are available to netbooks. Will need to get into the ports in the back and if you have such acces to the memory (you should have), I would expect there would be two slots. You can get 2x1GB ram or 2x2GB, however with Windows XP 32bit you can only run 3GB. Might be worth getting your hands on a copy of a 64bit op system to utilise the RAM. (Windows 7 is running good )

They are pretty much all the same machines with slight differences in screen type and battery life.

Peace

I have 8 gigs of RAM in my laptop, but it's certainly no mini. I use that and my gf's laptop (an hp). You really notice the lack of RAM on stuff like computer games and graphics intensive programs.

If you're running spreadsheets, extra RAM is nice as well.

wow cheers for the quick responses only took the dog a walk and came back to plenty of options.

i dont want to spend a huge a mount of cash and was considering buying a refurbished one.. would that be advisable? ive saw a couple of notebook type jobs for about 150-200 quid. ive already got 2 laptops (one cost me 800 quid and its needing someone what knows what to do with them) and cant justify having all that technology trying to fry my braincell! second hand would be good too but ebay seems to be full of people wanting the same thing so might stick a local ad in the paper..

i would prefer to be able to play cd's/burn them but if thats gonna be an arse i suppose i could rig up an external thingaby. Ive also heard laptops dont like being used on 12v as they need 18v or something and the power invertors cant give steady supply. Going to read a bit more into it all as im a fish out of water with technology stuff.

So for about 100-200 (if i need to i can go a little more but pref not) sheckles what does that get me? ive looked at all the suggestions above on ebay but they are all about 300 odd quid as ya say. I have a mountain of stuff to be buying just now but i feel this is needed. I see vodaphone are doing a mini laptop and dongle deal with 3gb for 25 quid a month. i was going to go pay as you go but im all confused now.

sorry for being such a retard but i know you lot know about these things and can save me buying a lemon.


EDIT- FORGOT TO SAY, IVE ONLY EVER USED WINDOWS SO NOT SURE ABOUT TRYING TO LEARN ANOTHER TYPE OF RUNNING SYSTEM

I'm using an Acer Aspire One with window xp and boy is it slow! The lack of CD drive is a pain in the arse as well, but for £230 i cant complain. I so should have taken my brothers advice who is a computer wiz and invested in an apple mac, they've come a long way and the best thing is they are renound for rarely ever crashing and never really getting a virsus.

GT.

I would say definately buy a refurb but make sure its from a reputable company. My brother picked up a new laptop the other day and the guys in front of him we're buying refurbed Acers. Well by the time my brother was served the three guys were back in for a refund as there were panels hanging off the refurbs.

Within you're price range you're probably looking at either :

Toshiba NB100-12A, Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz, 120GB HD, 8.9" TFT , XP Home

Acer Aspire 1 A150 blue Atom N270 1.6Ghz 512MB 120GB 8.9" screen camera XP Home (which is still £250 - but you might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere) (check if you can put more RAM in, as 512mb is well behind the times!)


Whatever you do avoid these:

Z-Arianet 7" Minibook with Windows CE

Elonex VOIP Netbook LNX-CEWS72 VIA 1.2GHz 1GB 30GB 7" screen


The Vodafone deal you are looking at I would personally go with the Samsung over the Dell, but thats as I feel Dell's need customising on their site to you're specs to make them worthwhile. And that ends up extremely expensive for what you get. And as I said above the Samsungs can usually take some hammer, so good if you're on the road. Also worth mentioning on Overclockers the Samsung is £300 and only netbook on that site with 5 star ratings.

Also I think its £30 per month for the Vodafone deals on 3Gb connection, £25 for 1Gb (on their website at least), and thats on a 24 month contract.....which works out at £720 in total!

Check the following sites for refurbs or otherdeals:
Microdirect
Aria
Overclockers

Summing things up and without putting you're hand too deep into you're pocket I would do some research into free Wi-Fi connectivity (places like Starchucks and McShitdonalds, and service stations often have free WiFi access), and pickup a netbook yourself. Also I think T-Mobile run some sort of Wi-Fi hotspot service, not sure on the coverage tho. Do you mind me asking where you will be on the road?

Not sure on the whole power invertors front however I do know my brothers friend was running a laptop in his wagon with no problems, using some type of invertor. Best advice, get something thats more expensive or with great reviews so you don't fry you're netbook.

Let me know what you think and if you need further info

Peace

E2A: LG GE20NU10 20x DVDRW/RAM external Drive is £35 on Aria, should sort any lack of disc drives out for ya!

why a mini laptop?
they dont take up much room!
i got a dell inspiron 8100 old an bit chunky but
goes for ages (two batteries) two cd drives and you can pick refurbs up for £100!

Joeperry- thanks alot for your help fella youve wrote more than you needed to im gonna start living in my van again. getting itchy feet stuck in a house just now so not entirely sure where to go.. Ireland for a bit prob then down to France i reckons. Dont have a clue apart from its time for pastures new!

I really want a mini lappy because they use less power, i can carry one a small bag without looking like a student and it will be easier to stash away out the road of thieves. i have a couple of big lappys as i said earlier but they are just too big to get about with. Going to keep my eyes peeled on the bay for some good deals on the models mentioned above. if anyone sees anything cheap give me a wee hola with the item number would ya?

thanks again for all your help i like the look of the samsung ones so gonna try get a cheap one of them i think. we will see...

At those prices, I'd say that refurb is the only option for you. But if you're willing to spend a little more you could afford an Asus Eee - you can get them new from around £230 and they'd be perfectly suitable for web-browsing, email, watching movies on etc..

I used the Asus EEE 1000H Netbook for a couple weeks and almost wanted to put it through the wall daily! The battery life is decent but they showed it off big time as a 7hr, which was bollocks (unless you have brightness on lowest and don't use wireless I assume) but the key thing that did my head in was the touchpad, the buttons were ridiculously stiff and I kept hitting wrong buttons and keys so often, especially when just trying to scroll or something. Am used to my laptops admittedly but didn't think it would be that irritating

They do the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE now, which has a better keyboard, better battery and faster processor - it comes with 1GB, but you can upgrade it easily and cheaply to 2GB - it also has a 160GB hard drive.

If I was using one as a second, portable machine, I would probably get one with a solid-state flash drive instead of a traditional magnetic platter one - alright, you pay the price in size, like 32GB as opposed to 160GB, ¿but how much space do you really need on your 2nd machine whilst you're out and about? You can fit a load of movies/TV in 32GB and more books than you could ever read. Also, if you really did need more storage, USB flash drives are dirt cheap and huge these days.

Solid-state drives are good because they drain a whole lot less battery, and they're a lot more rugged as they have no moving parts.

No worries matey, happy to help.

Ireland and then France Get the fishing gear in the van mate!!! Hope you have a good one

(Grow room in the van...hmmmmmm )

Peace

I chopped in an XPS M1730 for a advent 4213 netbook and after the initial teething problems of typing on a smaller keyboard, the small screen and that i couldnt do as much as i could with the xps for traveling its ideal. I run it in the car off a cheapo inverter no problems aswel. It does everything i need it to (internet, watching movies, music, office) the webcam works quite well in low light conditions and the built in hsdpa/3g modem saves me having a dongle for it.

Battery life after nearly a year of daily heavy use is still a realistic 4 hrs with the screen on a reasonable setting watchinga movie. Everything still works as it should got a lot tougher hinges than the samsung netbooks

comes with a 160gb hdd and 1gb of ram and a power cable. What more do you need?

currently their on e-bay at BIN for a used one at 165.

Aye I'd second the solid-states, prices are starting to get better too.. I got a nice new hard-drive for my dell inspiron last summer, after a month it fucked up (admittedly due to me smacking it in rage after a level of the godfather went wrong ) but then 2 months later after I get it repaired, I'm climbing onto my bed - takes a tiny knock (hardly even noticeable) but it's fucked again!! To be fair though, you can batter some of them but then some of the tiniest of knocks can mess it up. Solidstate though... makes me drool (what a nerd)

32GB solid-state HDD go for roundabout £90 these days.

Couldn't agree more... got two of'em outta necessity, and it's made a huge difference... course my other lappy is 5 years old...

There are no internals, but plenty of plugs to add externals, with three usb ports one can adequately over come the lack of internal drives... And a savvy shopper can have a pretty sweet setup for under 600 USD (tax and all), which should include the additional externals HD, and a burner drive... The only thing is if your on dsl and your using the "budget speed" (like me) surfing can be a bit tedious...

¿Isn't that a function of your DSL line though, and not of the machine itself?

¿Do you run a Linux distro on yours like the one some of them come with, or a 3rd party one like Ubuntu Netbook Remix, or are you just running XP?

all I know is my home connection is the slowest DLS line AT&T offers, but when I bring it into the office ... I got smoking speeds by comparison.... But after that last post I thought it could possibly be my router... have had some problems with it since i swaped it out for a new Belkin router...


E2a: I'm running xp on it...

E2AA: yah it's the dsl line/connection and not the machine, but patience and technology mix about as well as potassium and water do, so I thought it was worth a mention (may save a notebook from a wall or something )

¿What is the supposed speed of the package that you're on at home?

You should look into the modem/router and find out what the numbers are for your Line Noise, Signal Attenuation etc., as it may be down to having a dirty connection.

¿Are you sure that you have all the mictofilters properly installed on every socket that has a phone in it as well as the modem?

Hey scribbs it's a "dry" DSL line so no phone lines in my house other than DSL... as far as the filters and stuff go I guess I should look into a bit of tweaking... Given the fact that I set-up most of it I'd say that any of the settings on the router would be the default settings that they are dialed into fresh outta the box...

You should still have a microfilter between the modem and the socket.

The Line Noise, Signal Attenuation etc., figures that I mentioned aren't really 'settings' in the router - they're measurements taken by the router of the state of your phone line and the connection from the DSLAM at the phone company.

If the wires are old and/or damaged they can lead to a slow unreliable DSL connection with a lot of signal loss etc..

You can go into the router and see what it reports these figures as, and then look up on the net what the acceptable ranges for them are, and if they're out of whack then you can get in touch with your ISP/phone company and see about getting something done about it.

This is all by-the-by though if the package you're currently on is just really lame to start with.

¿What are the upload and download speeds that your DSL package is supposed to be providing you with?

Thanks for that scribbs ... we'll be looking into it tonight

E2a:768k I should cough up the extra 20 a month for 1.5m

or go back to my special coax modem