As some readers might already know from my Twitter postings, I bought an Acer netbook this evening. Judging by the replies on Twitter there is some interest in my decision process so I'll highlight some of the factors that influenced my decision.
I don't make very much money and therefore don't have very much money to spend so price was a key consideration for me. Netbooks met my criteria for being relatively inexpensive (although anytime I spend more than $50 it's a major purchase in my mind). After researching them on the web, asking for comments on Twitter, and emails with people I trust, I was 90% certain that I wanted an Acer. Three stores in my area Radio Shack, Staples, and Walmart carry the Acer so I set out this afternoon to test the Acer and find my best deal. (Notice the being thrifty pattern developing). After trying the Acer I was sure I wanted to purchase it. But, then I stopped into Best Buy. Best Buy was running a sale on the base model Toshiba Satellite. For $50 more than I had planned to spend I could have bought the Toshiba with a 15" screen and DVD drive. That was where my shopping trip got confusing.
At the end of the day I bought the Acer Aspire One. I have a computer (Macbook) when school is in session that is provided by the district/ state. But during the summer I'm relegated to my very old Gateway at home. I wanted the Netbook to serve as my on-the-go blogging tool and web surfing tool. The Acer Aspire One with the 10" display seemed to be perfect for that. The Toshiba Satellite on sale at Best Buy was a much bigger machine in screen size and weight. Approximately 97% of what I do with a computer is done in the cloud, not on the computer itself. Getting the bigger Toshiba and spending $50 more was not something I could justify when I considered my original intent for a small, light blogging tool.
If you're considering buying a netbook for your personal use or your child's use here are a few things to consider.
1. If you don't have any other computer to use, a netbook might not be what you want. The 10" screen is a little too small to see the entire field of some websites and programs.
2. If, like me, most of what you do is online then a netbook could be a good choice for you.
3. For some people the size of the keyboard is a consideration. This wasn't a consideration for me because I never learned to type properly and have a "speed hunt and peck" technique.
4. To get the most out of your netbook you may want to consider stripping away any unneccesary programs that come installed on your netbook.
I've had my Acer for only a few hours now and so far I am happy with it. I've already written two blog posts with it. I will update this post tomorrow evening after I've had a full day of working with it.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Netbook vs. Cheap Notebook Decision
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12 comments:
We bought 24 Aspire One's at my school this year. I liked it, and while it could never be my main workstation, it was enough for cloud computing. The built in webcam and screen quality help it stand out in a crowded field.
I agree with stripping the bloatware off, and trying multiple browsers and portable apps helps too. The trick is to find the right mods that work for your usage and not expect performance to be perfect out of the box.
Good luck with the new toy,
Ty Yost
I like my netbook for writing anywhere.
I had to set it (and my regular notebook) up with internet explorer at school, and firefox at home so I won't need to change the firewall settings everytime I go to school. Firefox gets me on everywhere else with no prob (mcdonald's, library, reststops on the highway, home) but our school has a 'special' firewall.
I mostly use the netbook because it's size allows it to be truly portable. Plus, I can spotify while I type (again, everywhere by home).
I looked at the Acer and decided to get the HP Mini instead. The netbooks are the same size however the keyboard on the HP Mini is as easy to use as a regular keyboard for those of us who type a lot and type fast. I highly recommend the HP mini for anyone who has to do a lot of typing on the netbook.
I bought an Asus netbook & am loving it. I was surprised at how quickly I have adjusted to the 10 inch screen. I went with the Asus even though I am a long term HP user, because of the larger hard drive. We plan to bring it on vacation as a convenient way of viewing (and weeding!) my husband's digital photos. I will TRY to resist checking my email, since I want to truly "get away from it all" =)
Glad to hear you're enjoying the Acer. I have one in my classroom from their Seed Program. It's the 8.9" screen and you can certainly tell a difference. I have an MSI Wind myself and absolutely love it. I've actually gone in and turned it into a multi-OS machine. I dual boot XP and OSX (Hackintosh) and can boot a couple different Linux distributions from flash drives. It's amazing for showing off some of the feature sets of other operating systems. I love the portability and have not had major problems with programs I couldn't run. Good call on steering away from the Toshiba. A friend of mine has a very similar model and has burnt up two hard drives in just under a year due to it running so hot. I look forward to reading more about your experience!
I have had an Aspire One since Christmas (my husband bought it for me) and I love it! I use it just as much as my Dell Inspiron. However you could say I probably use it more since it is more portable...it fits into my over sized purse easily!! Love it!
I'm still using the ACER from the seed demo program and I love it! I have noticed that a few sites I frequent (OK - Facebook) wont always show me everything I need to see, so I guess and tab - then enter and it's worked. I plan on keeping it when the demo is over. I think it's a great little computer!
Don't forget that you can pair the netbook with a monitor/keyboard/mouse when you are at home to give you a larger screen and keyboard.
That's what I do with my Macbook when I'm at home. I hook it up to a 23" Acer LCD that I got for $160 and a wireless keyboard/mouse that I picked up at Walmart for ~$25.
I also have a 7 port USB hub at home that always has my scanner, keyboard/mouse dongle, iPod cable, and printer plugged in so I only have to plug in one USB cable.
When you're using it with the built in screen, F11 to switch to full screen mode really helps get more information to fit on the screen.
Each of my daughters got one for Christmas last year. I think the portability is the best feature for the kids - very easy to throw in the purse or book bag and then to whip it out to use. Daughter #1 is taking hers to college in the fall as her only computer. A big drawback (for her) though, is the absence of an optical drive. We work around that with a thumb drive - I load cd/dvd info onto it and then move it to her Acer. Yeah, it's a little inconvenient, but the advantages greatly outweigh that problem. I love that it runs XP Pro, it has a 120GB hard drive and 1GB RAM.
Several students and teachers at school have purchased this netbook after seeing my daughters's machines and they all have great things to say about them. Personally, my tired old eyes need a larger screen, and I don't care for the clicker on it, but if that's all I had, I'd still be pretty darn happy!
I researched both the Acer and Asus EeePC 1000HE and decided on the Asus. The Asus has a 9.5 hour battery and I love it...only have to hook up once a day for charging. Good for web browsing and email which is what I do during the summer. Also wanted a longer battery for conferences...now I won't have to hunt for an outlet.
I have recently moved our entire one-to-one program over to ASUS 1000HE netbooks. When testing these machines I found that none of the programs our students use had a problem running on these machines. I personally have XP Pro, Photoshop CS3, InDesign CS3 and Premiere Pro loaded and running smoothly with 1gb of RAM. People out there that complain about the "speed" of the netbooks need to remember in the not so distant past we were ecstatic to be running 1.6 processors. I agree the screens are a bit small but to solve this problem we are mounting 17" LCD's to each station in the computer lab where most of the hardcore desktop publishing happens.
I would love to hear an update on your use of the netbook. I will search your posts.
BrentRJones [at] google's gmail
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