The perfect Netbook

[dekadentwahoo]

I assume that people here are into "tech" and love gadgets, so I thought I might as well throw this question out on this forum.

In the summer time, I'll be in the market for a netbook, since I'll be headed to law school next fall, and want to preserve my Macbook Pro from the wear (maybe keep it as a dedicated computer for Boxee!) and leave it at my apartment.

I've looked around saw many netbooks that are able to run OS-X to some level or another. I've read about it but I cannot keep up to date as to how far people have gone to enable all the features, keep it stable, etc.

So my question is, what is the best netbook out there that is able to run OS-X and have the most features (i.e. Ethernet, sound, flash card slots, wireless, etc.) enabled? I'm kind of leaning towards a Lenovo, but I've seen instances of the HP netbook, or the Dell Mini 9 running OS-X.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

[gr8npwrfl]

I run the MSI Wind Netbook and I love it!

It has the 10 inch screen and the largest keyboards of all the netbooks. I can still touch type on it !.

I run Windows XP, OS X 10.5.6, and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. All peripherals run in all OS's. Wireless, Camera, Ehternet, bluetooth, and touchpad.

I upgraded the touchpad so even two finger scrolling and mouse gestures even work ! I upgraded the hard drive to 500 gig and I have a nine cell battery and get in excess of 6 hours.

I purchased mine off Ebay and Paid $349.00 for it.

The one other thing I love is the manafacturer supports turbo mode and I can run the system at 2.2 gig instead of the 1.6 gig factory. I can turn this on and off with a function key.

Just my two cents but I am very happy with the system and was online with my wireless broadband to post this message from the netbook. I will never go back to a full size notebook to carry arround.

[dekadentwahoo]

Thanks for the information. I don't know all the new brands out there, but is MSI it's own company? Or are they under ASUS or Acer? Just wondering because the only laptops I've ever had were a Toshiba (had for 4 years, but only solidly worked for 1 year) and my current MacBook Pro which is now 3 years old and still kicking. I'm not really a brand whore, but I'd like to stick to something that will definitely last for light, but every day use.

[bmoura]

I run the MSI Wind Netbook and I love it!

It has the 10 inch screen and the largest keyboards of all the netbooks. I can still touch type on it !.

I run Windows XP, OS X 10.5.6, and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. All peripherals run in all OS's. Wireless, Camera, Ehternet, bluetooth, and touchpad.

I upgraded the touchpad so even two finger scrolling and mouse gestures even work ! I upgraded the hard drive to 500 gig and I have a nine cell battery and get in excess of 6 hours.

I purchased mine off Ebay and Paid $349.00 for it.

The one other thing I love is the manafacturer supports turbo mode and I can run the system at 2.2 gig instead of the 1.6 gig factory. I can turn this on and off with a function key.

Just my two cents but I am very happy with the system and was online with my wireless broadband to post this message from the netbook. I will never go back to a full size notebook to carry arround.

The MSI Wind is a good one. I've also had good experiences with the Samsung NC-10.

[gr8npwrfl]

MSI is a Taiwan based company that has built very high quality motherboards for years. The Netbooks they are building are great quality also.

You can get them at Tiger Direct or Ebay or many other places on line. You will just have to make calls to your local stores to find if they stock them.

By the way I also own the Acer Aspire, but the difference int he 8.9 versus 10 inch screen is a big factor.

[Xerobull]

I bought my wife a Dell Mini 9 for Christmas. She's currently wrapping up her masters in literature, so as you can imagine there is a LOT of typing. Her issue- it's too small to be a practical laptop. She loves it to browse the internet and to do some IMing, but she has to switch back to her old 15-inch laptop when she does coursework. The screen is just too small. A friend asked us about it the other day and she recommended at least a 12-inch screen for practical use.

Another issue that I have with it is that the keyboard is too damn small. She's got pretty petite hands so it's not an issue for her, but I have fairly big hands and have to hunt and peck because my hands keep going off of the home keys. It may be something that I would get used to, but it was enough to turn me off to using it even just to check my email.

So my advice to you would be to find the one you want at a brick & mortar store with liberal return policies and try it out for a week. If you like it, keep it. If not, you can just take it back.

Good luck!

[turbo]

hej. really tough question if you ask me. i mean at least, the definition of THE perfect netbook always depends on the user. i am looking for the perfect one since years and the range of possibilities drives me crazy...when i found my perfect netbook i promise to tell you :D

[vitadellajan]

Personally, I like Sony the most, go get it and compare the price here: http://shopping.yahoo.com/s:Laptops:156638-Notebook%20Type=Netbook:4168-Brand=sony
Or, if you believe in your luck, you can join the lucky draw here for totally FREE for the Sony Netbook: http://www.dsstyles.com/

[ampmarfly]

I've just read a review from gizmodo.com and find a review on a very nice and elegant iPhone case there by dsstyles.com, they seem to have a xmas lucky draw promotion there too.

[pastajohnny]

The Sony netbooks are classy and powerful but unfortunately they are quite expensive. I have a Samsung NC20 (http://www.netbooklaptopreviews.com/netbook-reviews/samsung-nc20/) netbook and I really like it. The screen size is fine with 12inch and the 160GB HDD more than big enough for my requirements. I don't know if there was a perfect netbook for me since you can always find some features that could be improved.

[wrx1]

I am currently running a dell mini9 with a dual boot of osx 10.6.1 and win7. I am building a mini 10v for a friend and doing the same thing (osx and win7). I have been running my mini for about a year now, and short of doing a re-format to re-install the latest and greatest OS (upgrade for 10.5 and win7 RC), I have not had one issue. All the features of both os's and the netbook work fine (wireless, wired, bluetooth, SD card slot, SSD, sleep, etc). And now with the 10v for well under $300, that will be my next netbook.

Russ

[ShUrl-k]

hey everyone, I'll be going to Perfect North on Sunday this week if anyone is down to go. There will be three of us that have all been boarding for years so the pace will be up/down/up/down/up/down. Not a day to go if you have never been.

[triffle]

Hey Everyone...

Well My two girls (3 and 1 year olds) have dropped my ASUS F3KA one to many times... The Hinge is busted up and I am afraid that if I open the close the lid to many times I will have a non-functioning laptop... Well my geeky wife (she wont admit it though) thought, it would be good to get a new laptop/netbook for christmas... She went out and found an Acer Aspire AS1410... 1.2 dual core CULV Processor (Intel Celeron SU2300), 2 GB DDR2 667 RAM, 160 GB HD, INTEL GMA 4500 MHD graphics, VGA/HDMI, HD Sound, Wireless b/g/n, and Window 7... Really looking forward to try out boxee on that... From my research it should be pretty awesome Netbook, but it will probably struggle to do HD flash (hulu youtube, standard def should be fine)...

Maybe I will finally get a response on this form also... (i'll check myslef).

http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=12755

Well I will post when I get it

[triffle]

Hey Everyone,

Like I said in the previous post... My wife did pretty good on this one. I had to remove a good bit of crapware off of the machine and set it up to my liking. But so far I am pretty pleased with this device.

Windows 7 Home Premium feels surprisingly responsive, even on Power Saver mode. I am able to watch Hulu with almost no problems what so ever. Some of their HD content may loose a frame everyonce in a while (could possibly be the network?), but it is still very watchable, Youtube isnt an issue what so ever, even the HD content....

Boxee 9.14 (latest), is pretty awesome. I have not had a chance to test out all of the different video formats yet. But the higher production networks - Revision3... run really really good. So far so good. No issues what so ever, good easy install, picked up my shares on the first try? This version of the Alpha on Win7 is really nice... Its still early, but boxee has not crashed on this yet. (why the heck did I say that next time I open boxee....*crash*, :D hopefully not)

The 11.6 inch screen is pretty easy on the eyes to watch say on the coffee table, and really nice in your lap. Sound ... mmmm, leaves a little left to be desired, but i guess just as good if not better than other netbooks out on the market. Battery Life is really freakin sweet on this. 7+ hours on Power Saver Mode 4 hours on balanced. (my other laptop has about an hour and twenty min). Web Cam, HDMI, VGA, 3 USB, 5 in 1 mem card reader, oh Full Size Keyboard... the backspace is a little small, but i think I'll get used to it.... really quite. I am really impressed.

If I have problems I will post... Wonder how beta will do on this? Come on CES!!!

[PLODAYARRODAY]

Tip:

Check the keyboard layout before you buy. Many swap the location of the FN and CTRL keys, which makes it tricky to type if you have more than one computer. We were going to get the Dell, but they put the FN key at the end, where the CTRL key usually is, and it always messes me up.

We picked up the Acer Aspire One and its been great so far.

[triffle]

Tip:

Check the keyboard layout before you buy. Many swap the location of the FN and CTRL keys, which makes it tricky to type if you have more than one computer. We were going to get the Dell, but they put the FN key at the end, where the CTRL key usually is, and it always messes me up.

Great Point... Also check out the right shift key, some netbooks have a half size shift key. And whats worse, the up arrow could possibly be to the left of the shift key. So when ever you are typing and you go to capitalize a letter you go up to the row above and start typing there.... Not so hot... The Acer Aspire 1410 has a pretty large shift key. The up arrow is below the shift key so this does not cause a problem....

I thought I ran into a problem during my testing... I started to notice horrible network performance in boxee and in win7...(This is the first wireless N device that I've owned, i still think g is pretty good). I was loosing about a third of my pings to my gateway; a wireless router (2.4Ghz Linksys RangePlus b/g/draft n Router). At first I was checking my router's in/out logs, and all of my settings....nothing worked until I turned off 802.11n draft.

Did a little googlin and found out the "good neighbor/bad neighbor policy".... What pretty much happens is that any other 2.4Ghz wireless draft n network in the range that does not have a specific "good neighbor algorithm" or you don't have the "good neighbor algorithm"; the two routers will fight for the bandwidth at that frequency/channel. (This is really just wireless interference...). 802.11n has double the channel width, 40Mhz instead of 20Mhz, but 40Mhz takes up a good bit of specturm on a pariticular channel. Most routers will "auto" channels to 6. Right smack in the middle of the all the channels 1-11.

So now to the good neighbor/bad neighbor.... There is a really easy fix to this.
1. walk out the door.
2. walk to the neighbors house.
3. Knock on the door.
4. Once someone answers the door, you say "Hey [name], is your internet slow lately?
5.
a. If [name] responds yes, tell him/her that yours is too, and that you know how to fix it.
b. If [name] says no, just tell them "sorry [name], see you later', and walk to the other neighbor's house, then go back to step 2.
6.Ask [name], to login to their admin account on their router. (help'em out if they don't know how, and don't look at their password:o)
7. Go to the wireless configuration page (each brand will be a little different) and find the channel settings, change this to channel 1.
8.
a. If your on [name]'s laptop, disconnect from [name]'s network, and connect to your network. Log into your router and go back to step 7 but use channel 11. (Disconnect from your network and clear internet history off of [name]'s laptop.)
b. If you don't have connectivity to your network, tell [name] thanks, and walk back to your house then go to step 6. But on your router, then on to step 7, but use channel 11.

If all has went well, we will be good neighbors with our own end of the spectrum and not dropping pings to your gateway. If not, sounds like a good time to replace or see if there is any new firmware for your router.

But you could be a bad neighbor... (Call the cops on me again while I have a get together.:mad:..LOL).

Whoa!!! got a little side tracked, Let me know if you want me to move this...sorry

[newcolour]

We picked up the Acer Aspire One and its been great so far.

Do you have any idea about performance of boxee on the aspire one? I just got it and it does not play so good some content (youtube...). I am about to open a thread on the forum, but if you have any idea I am more than willing to try.

Cheers,
S.

[darel60]

Hi everyone..
I bought new asus eee notebook two days back and i need some good looking skin on it. So i have searched a lot regarding this and came through a website http://www.decalskin.com/ , Is this website is really good in providing eee pc skins?