Pros and Cons of Netbooks

[Castaras]

I'm considering getting a Netbook to go with my Desktop for work at school and (in the future) work at Uni. However, there's a few things I'm not sure on about Netbooks, which I'd like clarified before I go about finding one:

- How easy is it to type with the keyboards, and how easy is it to adjust from a desktop keyboard to a Netbook keyboard on a day to day basis? Are there any particular netbooks which are particularly good for having good keyboards for touch typing?

- What software do they use? Do they use versions of Microsoft Office or is it best to look into Openoffice etc.?

- I'm going to be doing a Maths degree, I'm guessing that a netbook isn't very good for taking quick equationy notes in a lecture? If so, would a netbook still be worth the cost for being able to type up projects etc?

- Netbooks are cheap, but should I be looking at a midprice netbook or are cheaper ones still decent? Are there any particularly good companies for netbooks?

Umm... and I'll probably think up of more questions later! :smallsmile:

[Sipex]

Netbooks are essentially smaller, weaker laptops. That said, they're amazing for writing (books/exams/notes/etc) just not so good at running games and such. The software would essentially be the same as a laptop but it really depends on what comes with the netbook.

[Mina Kobold]

Considering I have only had one netbook I unfortunately can only answer few of those questions.

- I found it pretty easy, didn't take long to get used to. :smallsmile:

- Mine came with Office, though you have to pay for it to work past the trial period of course. :/

- My Math teacher doesn't even allow computers as they are rarely able to write anything useful in his classes, and projects I do at home so... :smallredface:

- No idea. Sorry. :smallfrown:

[Etcetera]

My school did a trial of netbooks in lesson recently, and I found in class it's generally easier to take notes by hand. It's more of a problem when you need to take down diagrams, but when adding symbols or the like a keyboard is far lesson convenient. With time you'll get used to typing, but at the start it'll be a chore.

I bought a netbook from Dell, and now regret it immensely. Make sure you get one with good battery life (and more importantly, don't lose the charger like I did).

Most good netbooks tend to be in the £350-£400 range in my experience (this info is about half a year old), but you needn't invest in anything too powerful if you're using it mostly for work. I found HP and Toshiba laptops to be generally easier to use, although I only sampled one form each brand and the testing wasn't particularly scientifically rigorous.

[RS14]

- I'm going to be doing a Maths degree, I'm guessing that a netbook isn't very good for taking quick equationy notes in a lecture? If so, would a netbook still be worth the cost for being able to type up projects etc?

If you plan to types notes in your math lectures, you will want to typeset them in LaTeX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX). Anything else will be slower and incomplete. This is particularly true in Analysis and PDEs. Thus, a netbook will be just as capable as any other ordinary laptop.

Personally I use pencil and paper.

[Dr.Epic]

Netbooks are essentially smaller, weaker laptops. That said, they're amazing for writing (books/exams/notes/etc) just not so good at running games and such. The software would essentially be the same as a laptop but it really depends on what comes with the netbook.

Can someone give me a little more information about this? The description seems good but is there anything else note worth about them? I've never heard of a netbook and am curious about it.

[Sipex]

Er, that's it. It's just a smaller laptop with less processing power.

Think of it this way. You're buying a laptop from about 5 years ago except it's in great shape, very cheap and smaller than normal.

edit: maybe from 7 years ago

[Dr.Epic]

Er, that's it. It's just a smaller laptop with less processing power.

Think of it this way. You're buying a laptop from about 5 years ago except it's in great shape, very cheap and smaller than normal.

edit: maybe from 7 years ago

Oh. Cheaper eh? I do have a laptop, but I'm the type who like to watch something on his computer and at the same time work on something else so maybe I'll get one. How much cheaper though? I'm not going to pay all that much just to watch whatever on youtube and do some writing.

[Elder Tsofu]

Got a netbook for a year and a half now. (acer aspire one, XP)

They are convenient, portable and got a good batterlylife, if you want to get it (people around me with laptops go green when they after half a days work wonder if I'll ever put in the charger and then get to know the battery-time)
Oh, and get a good battery life - probably the most important thing on it for increasing portability.

I had no problems adjusting to the keyboard, but then I have a netbook in the larger dimensions which didn't use a reduced-size keyboard. Newer netbooks seem to use these horrible flat keys though.
The small screen might take a little time to adapt to (and fiddling around with programs so you get maximum amount of free screen regarding toolbars)

What they come with depends, as with everything else. I use office 2010 without problem on mine, just finished my master thesis on it as a matter of fact, and are able to run simulation programs like adapt5 and BioDMET on it. (the latter is a bit slow though)
I had Office 2003 installed earlier and it ran smoothly as well.
What I haven't done is enormous statistics calculations and databases in excel, so I can't say anything on performance there.

Taking notes, they work for it but personally I prefer paper when taking notes (especially when I have to take notes of something in the alphabet)

[leakingpen]

I used to work for Logitech. A lot of people bought netbooks to use with webcams for video chat. Most netbooks will NOT run realtime video chat. AT ALL. just fyi.

[valadil]

- How easy is it to type with the keyboards, and how easy is it to adjust from a desktop keyboard to a Netbook keyboard on a day to day basis?
Depends on you and depends on the netbook. I can't type on my wife's netbook. It fits her hands perfectly though. If I wanted a netbook I'd choose it based on the keyboard. I'm fussy though.



- What software do they use? Do they use versions of Microsoft Office or is it best to look into Openoffice etc.?

I find netbooks sluggish so I shy away from bloaty software. If you like Office you can use Office of course.



- I'm going to be doing a Maths degree, I'm guessing that a netbook isn't very good for taking quick equationy notes in a lecture?


A netbook will be no better or worse than any other machine when it comes to taking notes. Latex is a decent suggestion, but learning it is definitely a time sink. Personally I prefer pen and paper for math notes. Would you consider supplementing your netbook with a wacom tablet, allowing you to draw symbols and shapes?



- Netbooks are cheap, but should I be looking at a midprice netbook or are cheaper ones still decent? Are there any particularly good companies for netbooks?


I hear good things about ASUS, but I personally hate them as a company. The nice thing about a netbook is that it's not an investment. You could buy a new one every year or two if it doesn't work out. This is not a viable option with full sized laptops. For this reason I'm less concerned with the brand than the keyboard.

One downside to most of the ones I've seen is that they run Windows 7 Starter. This is the version of Win7 that doesn't let you run more than 3 applications at a time or even change the desktop background. It is designed to sell real copies of Win 7. Personally I'd just throw linux on it, but that's not an option for everyone. I don't know if any manufacturers sell netbooks with a Win7 that isn't Starter, but it's worth looking into.

[Ponce]

If you are doing a degree in mathematics, you are almost definitely going to want to take your notes on paper.

I love netbooks, however, I find they are much more viable than lugging a laptop around. The prices are great too. I would suggest buying an ASUS.

[Sipex]

Oh. Cheaper eh? I do have a laptop, but I'm the type who like to watch something on his computer and at the same time work on something else so maybe I'll get one. How much cheaper though? I'm not going to pay all that much just to watch whatever on youtube and do some writing.

You're probably better off getting another monitor unless your current laptop couldn't handle the work load. Otherwise I've seen netbooks range from $200 to about $800 (canadian pricing).

[Etcetera]

One downside to most of the ones I've seen is that they run Windows 7 Starter. This is the version of Win7 that doesn't let you run more than 3 applications at a time or even change the desktop background. It is designed to sell real copies of Win 7. Personally I'd just throw linux on it, but that's not an option for everyone. I don't know if any manufacturers sell netbooks with a Win7 that isn't Starter, but it's worth looking into.

This is a very good point. Windows 7 starter is irritating as hell when you realise quite how basic it is, especially since the next level up costs about £70.

[Syka]

I was going to get a netbook for portability/battery life, but after trying out a friend's netbook and talking to some techies, it became pretty clear that a full-size laptop was more up my alley. I just tend to have several applications running at a time, along with several internet windows, and maybe some music.

I got a 5lb Asus that averages about 5-7 hours battery life...depending on what I'm doing. I've never seen it read less than 7 hours at full charge (dependent upon how often I've been running it on battery power recently). It's a full size laptop though, and I much prefer it to any netbook I've ever used. Because it is slim, despite being on a pound lighter than my old Dell, it feels much more portable than a 'typical' laptop.


If you want a midrange, some Toshiba Satellites are basically a hybrid laptop/netbook. I had one for about a month (technical difficulties resulted in a return), but it was just about 13 inches, 3.8 pounds, and had a six hour battery life. It was the portability/battery life of a netbook in a bigger body. It was the only laptop/netbook hybrid I ever found, though.

[Ceric]

I got a netbook (10.1" screen, Acer Aspire One) at the beginning of this school year and I like it a lot. The keyboard's small and my family members sometimes complain about how cramped it feels, but I'm used to it (to the point that regular keyboards feel weird :smalltongue: It takes about a minute of mistyping before I adjust but it's not a real difficulty).

Definite pros are size/weight and battery life. I can bring it to class every day, work in the library for hours, charge it overnight, and never worry about low battery.

(That said, I don't use it during lecture to take notes. I have mostly math and science classes where I don't know how to type equations and the like. The desks in lecture halls aren't big enough to conveniently hold a laptop and a piece of paper, even if it's only a netbook. Also, the desks are designed for pen-and-paper writing, so they're slightly higher than a keyboard should be and make my arms and wrists hurt.)

I use Microsoft Office currently.

Since this is the only computer I have with me, I also bought a wireless USB mouse and a computer monitor. They stay in my dorm room and make the netbook a lot more comfortable to use, but you probably won't need this if you already have a desktop.

Videos lag a lot, though. I can't even watch HD videos on Facebook.

Windows 7 Starter was mentioned, so I'll say that I haven't found any problems with it yet. However, I don't think I've ever run more than Chrome, Word, Excel, iTunes and possibly Notepad all at the same time. An average of 5 internet tabs at any given time, though; hey, it's a netbook :smallcool: (Bought and installed a 2G RAM, if that makes a difference. For the amount I saved by getting a netbook instead of a full laptop, it was still way worth it.)

[Castaras]

If you plan to types notes in your math lectures, you will want to typeset them in LaTeX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX). Anything else will be slower and incomplete. This is particularly true in Analysis and PDEs. Thus, a netbook will be just as capable as any other ordinary laptop.

Personally I use pencil and paper.


If you are doing a degree in mathematics, you are almost definitely going to want to take your notes on paper.


Huh, never knew about this software. I personally prefer pen and paper note taking too, but my handwriting is so atrocious when notetaking that if I leave the notes a day or three then I can't understand what I've written. So was more thinking of a way of copying up notes so that they're easily legible. With this software, would probably be very viable. Hrum.


They are convenient, portable and got a good batterlylife, if you want to get it (people around me with laptops go green when they after half a days work wonder if I'll ever put in the charger and then get to know the battery-time)
Oh, and get a good battery life - probably the most important thing on it for increasing portability.

I had no problems adjusting to the keyboard, but then I have a netbook in the larger dimensions which didn't use a reduced-size keyboard. Newer netbooks seem to use these horrible flat keys though.
The small screen might take a little time to adapt to (and fiddling around with programs so you get maximum amount of free screen regarding toolbars)



I used to work for Logitech. A lot of people bought netbooks to use with webcams for video chat. Most netbooks will NOT run realtime video chat. AT ALL. just fyi.

Not wanting to do anything other than work on the netbook. Fun shizzle will stay on the desktop. Separate out the fun and the work, in a way.


Depends on you and depends on the netbook. I can't type on my wife's netbook. It fits her hands perfectly though. If I wanted a netbook I'd choose it based on the keyboard. I'm fussy though.
I'm going to use a broad generalisation and guess that you have large hands and your wife has small hands? If so, then it looks like Netbook keyboards will be fine for me (tiny delicate hands, woohoo!)



A netbook will be no better or worse than any other machine when it comes to taking notes. Latex is a decent suggestion, but learning it is definitely a time sink. Personally I prefer pen and paper for math notes. Would you consider supplementing your netbook with a wacom tablet, allowing you to draw symbols and shapes?

I've got a Trust tablet (like Wacom, but £30ish rather than £100ish) that I currently use for drawing. If Tablets work with netbooks just as well as laptops then that'd be another big point in the favour of the netbook idea.



One downside to most of the ones I've seen is that they run Windows 7 Starter. This is the version of Win7 that doesn't let you run more than 3 applications at a time or even change the desktop background. It is designed to sell real copies of Win 7. Personally I'd just throw linux on it, but that's not an option for everyone. I don't know if any manufacturers sell netbooks with a Win7 that isn't Starter, but it's worth looking into.

Starter? Yuck. Would definitely be fine with learning Linux for the purposes of the netbook.


I was going to get a netbook for portability/battery life, but after trying out a friend's netbook and talking to some techies, it became pretty clear that a full-size laptop was more up my alley. I just tend to have several applications running at a time, along with several internet windows, and maybe some music.

Hrum. That is a big point. Anyone else who can give some info on the multitasking capabilities? I normally have on my desktop, when working, one Firefox window, the document I'm working on, and Windows Media Player. Would this be too much for a netbook to handle easily?


Edit:



Windows 7 Starter was mentioned, so I'll say that I haven't found any problems with it yet. However, I don't think I've ever run more than Chrome, Word, Excel, iTunes and possibly Notepad all at the same time. An average of 5 internet tabs at any given time, though; hey, it's a netbook :smallcool: (Bought and installed a 2G RAM, if that makes a difference. For the amount I saved by getting a netbook instead of a full laptop, it was still way worth it.)

Ah, this answers my previous question. Hmm, okay.

So far, definitely going to look into getting netbooks. Thanks very much for the advice everybody, if anyone has any extra I'll certainly take it. :smallbiggrin:

[Elder Tsofu]

I use opera and usually spotify/winamp/itunes in addition to word and excel (or lately a statistics program) - but they're probably interchangable with your browser and the media player. No problem.
Large films might be a bother though.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I have a netbook (Asus eeePC 1000HE) which I bought about a 1.25 years ago for precisely the reasons described. All in all, it's got some drawbacks, but for what it's worth it's a great little piece of equipment.

Let's see.. Pros:
+ Small, fairly light (mine's heavier than an average netbook because it came with a 6-cell battery vs. an average 4 cell), but it's still significantly lighter than anything short of a $1200 Macbook Pro.
+ Long battery life. After a year of almost daily use I still easily get 6 hours from it, at the beginning it was 8.5 (rated at 9). Work anytime, anywhere and don't worry about your power running out.
+ Convenient. Chuck it in your bag and go
+ Expendable. Sure, it sucks if you lose it, but for some reason it feels more expendable than a regular laptop, leading to me using it more and taking it more places
+ Cheap. I paid $450 CDN, now similar ones can be found for less than $300.
+ Awesome for notes as long as you don't have lots of diagrams. Fortunately, I get Powerpoint lectures from most profs anyway and taking notes is mostly there to help me memorize better.

Cons:
- Small screen, fine for Word but sucks if you're trying to use Excel, Powerpoint (if you read lecture slides without turning on the actual presentation) and occasionally, Internet. Takes some getting used to.
- Sluggish. Now, I realize part of this is because it's pretty old, part of it is because I never restart it (and keep it in standby mode all the time) and part of it is because I installed Windows 7 on it (it came with XP), but it's still slowish
- On the same topic, videos streamed from the Internet (even Youtube) will lag and stutter. As in, computer lag and stutter, not slow connection lag and stutter.
- Mine has crappy Wi-Fi. Took a lot of fiddling with the drivers to finally fix. Although this is probably non generalizable to other makers/models

Other notes:
- Keyboard I honestly don't mind. Took me about a month to get the hang of it but now I'm just as comfortable with either one. And I actually miss some netbook keyboard features, like a very conveniently situated PgUp, PgDn, End, Home, etc, buttons. Although it does help that my hands are pretty small for a dude.
- Most netbooks will only have 1-3 USB ports so won't serve as a desktop replacement

PS: install 2 GB of RAM asap if it didn't come with it. Makes a huge difference.

[valadil]

PS: install 2 GB of RAM asap if it didn't come with it. Makes a huge difference.

PS expanded: buy the netbook with the smallest amount of RAM available and then upgrade to capacity.

[Ceric]

Cons:
- Small screen, fine for Word but sucks if you're trying to use Excel, Powerpoint (if you read lecture slides without turning on the actual presentation) and occasionally, Internet. Takes some getting used to.
Oh, I forgot about this! On my netbook screen, on Excel, it is outright impossible to display the equation and R-squared of a regression line because the checkboxes to turn them on go off the bottom of the screen. I need to plug into my desktop monitor to do that. :smallannoyed:

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m53/nightmaj/Blog/ExcelRegressionSmall.png
The small screen

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m53/nightmaj/Blog/ExcelRegressionLarge.png
The larger screen

[drakir_nosslin]

Another option is a Macbook Air. While it's a bit bigger than a normal notebook, it weighs next to nothing and has great battery life (up to 7 hrs on the 13'' one).

[Elder Tsofu]

Oh, I forgot about this! On my netbook screen, on Excel, it is outright impossible to display the equation and R-squared of a regression line because the checkboxes to turn them on go off the bottom of the screen. I need to plug into my desktop monitor to do that. :smallannoyed:

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m53/nightmaj/Blog/ExcelRegressionSmall.png
The small screen

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m53/nightmaj/Blog/ExcelRegressionLarge.png
The larger screen

What size do you have?
Mine is a 10.1 inch and displays the whole box, with a fair bit of margin.
(I don't think the fact that I use XP instead of win7(?) does have anything to do with it)

Otherwise I recommend trying to rotate the screen. ctrl+alt+right arrow will shift the screen on some pc's so the top is in the right edge and the bottom is in the left side. Using the arrow up key returns it to normal.
This will give you quite some hight but a slightly narrow screen - like a reading plate really (I usually read pdf's this way as a matter of fact - its like holding an enormous Nintendo DS - just make sure the fan is pointing up)

If your pc can't shift the screen (like mine) then I recommend the program iRotate. It is a free program which enables you to do exactly the above (its a really small program too). Try and google it - I've used it for half a year and yet have to notice anything horrible with it.

And if you don't have an external mouse this will include some mild thinking to get the pointer to move in the direction you want (as the touchpad doesn't turn 90 degrees as the screen does)

Oh, and I find it best to have the start-bar at the bottom of the screen on automatic hiding, gives ~ 1 cm extra of screen-height.

[Snow Leopard]

Another option is a Macbook Air. While it's a bit bigger than a normal notebook, it weighs next to nothing and has great battery life (up to 7 hrs on the 13'' one).

Of course you have to spend at least 999 Euros, but the MCA is more powerful indeed.

I have an Acer Aspire One (10.1") and it is great to watch tv series or to write some docs when I commute. Moreover I use it during my holiday trips, as a storage unit for my photos (it has a 160 GB Hdd and the files from my reflex fills the SD card very quickly) or to surf the net.

Obviously, the LCD has poor quality and the power under the hood is low. In fact, I plan to buy a MacBook Pro when the next refresh comes out because I need a good quality LCD to adjust my photos using Lightroom.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Of course cheapest Macbooks (Pro or Air, regular ones suck and aren't worth considering since they're essentially regular laptops with MacOS installed) are also about 3-4 times the price of an average netbook, so...

But if given the choice, I'd go with Pro. Air is super light (like 1.5 pounds light) but it's not very powerful for the price and it overheats like crazy, to the point where keeping it on your lap is very uncomfortable. Pro, on the other hand... same weight as a netbook (3ish pounds, still very mobile) but significantly better performance than Air, usually better battery life and no problems like overheating. Cost is more or less similar...

[Ceric]

What size do you have?
Mine is a 10.1 inch and displays the whole box, with a fair bit of margin.
(I don't think the fact that I use XP instead of win7(?) does have anything to do with it)

Otherwise I recommend trying to rotate the screen. ctrl+alt+right arrow will shift the screen on some pc's so the top is in the right edge and the bottom is in the left side. Using the arrow up key returns it to normal.
This will give you quite some hight but a slightly narrow screen - like a reading plate really (I usually read pdf's this way as a matter of fact - its like holding an enormous Nintendo DS - just make sure the fan is pointing up)

If your pc can't shift the screen (like mine) then I recommend the program iRotate. It is a free program which enables you to do exactly the above (its a really small program too). Try and google it - I've used it for half a year and yet have to notice anything horrible with it.

And if you don't have an external mouse this will include some mild thinking to get the pointer to move in the direction you want (as the touchpad doesn't turn 90 degrees as the screen does)

Oh, and I find it best to have the start-bar at the bottom of the screen on automatic hiding, gives ~ 1 cm extra of screen-height.

Mine's 10.1" too. Hmm, the ctrl+alt+right arrow doesn't work for me so I'll look into that program.