Picking a Netbook laptop computer

I've been watching the new category of small cheap laptop computers since they first came out. Watching, but not buying. The time, however, may have come to take the plunge.

One of the few Netbooks* I've actually used was the first Asus EEE. It was an amazing machine, small, cheap, light, sturdy and reasonably fast. It sparked my interest in the emerging new hardware category. But, it wasn't amazing enough to get me to buy it. The keyboard and the screen were just too small.

The flood of subsequent Netbook models have all seemed to have a fatal flaw, to me at least.

Sometimes the flaw was the operating system. I can't understand why every hardware company feels the need to create a customized version of Linux. What's wrong with the popular distros? Then too, some of these underpowered laptops ship with Vista, which, to me, is a mistake on multiple levels.

Often, the flaw is the price. A big part of the appeal of the original Asus EEE was the low price. HP is perhaps the biggest offender here, their Mini-Note 2133 KR948UT came out at $949 and just had its price reduced to $789.

Sometimes the flaw was the processor. From what I've read, waiting for the Atom processor was the way to go. This ruled out a slew of early models, but now there are many Atom based models to chose from.

In part the flaws probably stemmed from the hardware manufacturers not understanding their target audience.

In July, I attended The Last HOPE hacker conference where I was surrounded not only by techies, but by many ultra small, ultra light laptop computers. At one point someone sitting next to me was using an Asus EEE to sniff the WiFi traffic in the room. That machine certainly wasn't running the factory-installed operating system.

Sometimes the flaw is the hard disk. I long for a laptop that can be bounced around while running without risking severe damage to the hard disk. In other words, I'd prefer a solid state hard disk (SSD) rather than a traditional rotating platter model.

But hardware vendors seem married to the idea that more storage is better than less storage. When the incremental cost is trivial, this may be true, but SSDs are expensive. Thus large capacity SSDs come with large price tags. Here too, I think they mis-judged their audience.

A Netbook class machine is often a second computer rather than a primary one. Thus, it doesn't need gobs of gigabytes. Six or eight gigabytes would be fine by me. Anyone needing more storage space should be able to stick a memory card inside the machine. Those of us looking for a secondary machine shouldn't be burdened with features meant for a primary computer.

I'm not the only one struggling to pick a specific machine. In Building the perfect Netbook CNETer Dan Ackerman says "... we found that none of these Netbooks hit all the benchmarks we were looking for-- some were underpowered, some had terrible batteries, and others simply cost too much for what should be almost an impulse purchase."

So where does that leave those of us trying to settle on a particular cheap, small, light-weight secondary computer?

On paper, I agree with CNET's recommendation of the Acer Aspire One as the best combination of features and prices. I say "on paper" because I haven't actually used one. The new Lenovo Netbooks may be even better, but they are not yet available.

The problem with the Aspire One is picking a model, each entails compromises. More on that next time.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

[jimswofford]

Is it just me, or do these mini-laptops look a lot like the Palm Foleo? Linux operating systems, limited capabilities, lower prices. Is it just a bad idea, or did Palm pull it too soon?

[mhinnewyork]

Some run Linux, some run XP Home, some run Vista. I don't think any run XP Professional, but that's due to Microsoft not the hardware manufacturers. I think these netbook class machines will be popular, but no one can predict the future. Palm may indeed have pulled it too soon, but then again, finding the right mix of features and pricing is difficult. I'm sure many more of these new machines will fail than will succeed. Michael Horowitz

[frasercrane]

As a solid state physicist, I think you should know that solid state devices including SSD have their own set of problems. It is way too simplistic to say no moving parts, ergo better. True, only in that one specific respect. What you should be comparing is failure rates and longevity on similar use machines. You make a statement and back it up with vapordata.

[mhinnewyork]

If you have something to add, then please do rather than knocking me. I am aware of the pros/cons of SSDs and purposely left out claims like faster speed or better battery life because those issues are complicated. One issue that is not complicated though is that an SSD based machine can be moved around while in use whereas this is a bad thing to do with a traditional hard disk. As for failure rates, I would be skeptical of any failure rate stats from any hardware vendor. That said, they both tend to fail in bits and pieces rather than a single massive failure. Michael Horowitz

[Forked_Tongue]

What I don't understand is the logic of using even an ssd (they're the most expensive storage option for a budget netbook, just plain silly), they should consider using some of the various flash memory options all of which are all much cheaper options and all are under $55 (just look at pricewatch, http://www.pricewatch.com/flash_card_memory/) for about 16gb of storage, like sd, cf, or even usb even if they have to encase it by the netbook housing. In fact they could actually make it the best of both worlds, they could even include a laptop harddrive as well if they feel customers would like the storage capacity (this will help Windows paging for the low amount of memory provided with these netbooks) though to me a smarter approach is to carry extra usb pendrives and back it later at home on a file server or usb high capacity harddrive. These netbooks are supposed to be the child's laptop or the backup laptop, it's not supposed to lightning quick, expensive, primary usage, or even cutting edge it's supposed to be for the vacation trip, lecture note taking, or even stored in the trunk of the car for impulse usage. It defeats it's purpose if it's trying to compete price wise against the lower end 15" dual core entry level laptops, most people will be highly disappointed in it otherwise.

[jreese44]

I need to buy a netbook now I can't wait for Dell! I was honing in on the EEE, but not sure what to do. The machine is for a 16 year old high school kid to save docs, take notes on in class, etc. Any suggestions?