My Netbook search and review

This is my Netbook review…

What’s a netbook? It’s a sub-notebook sized laptop, originally designed for net surfing. They are extremely portable, and usually sell in the US$200-$400 range.

I have been in the market for a netbook for well….the last 8 months. Every time I think I have identified the one I want, a better model comes out. This is especially true of ASUS, who seems to introduce a new model every other day.

I first saw the first tiny ASUS netbook more than a year ago, I imagined how nice it would be to be sitting on the beach in Bali or Phuket, sucking down beers (can’t make a martini at the beach without ice) and keeping up with my emails. In my profession, you are never really "on vacation". I typically get about 100 emails a day, and just ‘answering" an email from a cellphone is often not enough. I might have to open a spreadsheet or write a formal document while sitting on that beach, so that means running back to the hotel and opening the laptop. This rules out "Blackberry" type devices, and my Nokia smartphones as well. I need a real computer with a real keyboard and Microsoft Office. Anyway, the IPOD and cellphone will be there on the beach with me anyway…

I already have a full-sized Sony laptop already so I wanted something that was so inexpensive and portable that I wouldn’t mind carrying it along. Also, I figured that I spend about 20 hours a week either sitting in a plane, sitting in airports or waiting in a hotel lobby to go to the airport. I hate dragging out the big laptop and booting it up. A small netbook in standby mode would be very productive.

IDENTIFYING THE REQUIREMENT

When choosing any gadget, you need to first decide on what features you really need.

I decided to give in to the hidden desire for "cool-looking" as one of the criteria.

The danger is that you can get sucked into the "Apple Syndrome"…picking something because it looks good and seems to be popular, even if the functionality is limited. Case in point - The IPOD. Beautiful design, but poor function. Many people buy one just to "follow the crowd" and hope it will make them "popular". Some of these same people don’t even have music content to load on the machine…just wanna be seen with an Apple product.
It’s a big joke that people have IPOD’s with 160GB drives that are 1% full.

And the software is crap…that’s why I replaced the IPOD firmware with the free, open source ROCKBOX (www.rockbox.org). Goodbye ITunes s/w.

Anyway, back to Netbooks…

The other key criteria that I was looking for are:

Not bigger than the ASUS 901 series.

Windows XP pre-installed.

Should support Photoshop

At least 5 hours battery life

VGA output so I can use an external monitor (but not on the beach!)

Should be easy to upgrade, add memory, etc. without major disassembly of the computer

Today, all netbooks have the same basic features, which are built-in webcam, WiFi, Bluetooth and the Atom processor.

Additional, nice-to-have features would be :

battery life up to 9 hours (what they call "all-day computing" in the netbook world)

3G support - A place to insert a SIM card….nice, but not necessary, as I could just use a USB air card for a cellular connection. Sorry to my friends back in the US, but with the cellular provider monopoly there, you still can’t get this. In Thailand, I can walk into 7-11 with $5 and buy a SIM card for my phone or 3G laptop, plug it in and have internet, free incoming phone calls, international SMS … oh well, don’t get me started on the sorry state of wireless services in my home country…!

USB ports that can function as a charger for the phones and IPODs, even with the computer turned off.

Keyboard should be resistant to martini spills (just kidding!)

After months of evaluation, here is what I have come up with.

ASUS

The company that started it all. The ASUS 901 is so cute, and now comes with 3G support so you can use it where WiFi is not available. Also, a nice battery that gives more than 5 hours of life.

I have been following the ASUS S101 model for several months now, and I thought that this would be the one to get. It is almost as thin as a Mac Air, has all metal construction and a 64GB SSD drive, which makes it one of the most expensive netbooks. But the annoying factor is that it only comes with Linux. I would have to install Windows XP myself. It is very difficult to find a legal copy of XP here in Bangkok nowadays (pirated copies are in the stores at $3 but I want a legal copy) and Vista is crap. I have heard that Windows 7 Beta works ok on this platform, but I really don’t want to have to tinker for weeks to get all the drivers working on a new computer. Having a solid state drive is cool (like in a Mac Air) but it’s really not that important to me.

Last weekend I gave up on the S101 and decided on the ASUS 1002HA, which is metal like the S101 but has a 160GB hard drive and XP pre-installed.

I also looked at the latest version of the ASUS 1000 series, the 1000HG. It has the super 8000mAH battery that should let it fly for more than 9 hours (!) and a place to plug in a SIM card for 3G support. Wow! It also has a "chicklet-style" keyboard like the Macs (in Thailand, the stores have mistakenly printed their brochures to say it’s a "chocolate-style" keyboard!). But the 1000 is just so chunky-looking and still has that EEEPC plastic toy appearance….even though the quality has been confirmed.

TOSHIBA

Toshiba was late to the market with their netbook offering.Their NB100 looked like my 2001 Toshiba laptop shrunk down to a netbook size. Also, the battery lasts only 2 hours.

But now they are releasing this month the NB200, which may be a killer. It has all the usual netbook features, but has a 9-hour battery and a 160 GB hard disk with an accelerometer. and it looks very classy. It’s USB ports can be used to charge your phone or IPOD even if the computer is turned off, which is nice.

So right now, i’m waiting for the NB200 to appear in Bangkok.

Some other models that I had evaluated…

HP

HP’s original 2133 netbook looked great, but used a Celeron processor and was so hot on the bottom that you could iron your clothes with it. Most stores have them turned off in their showrooms for that reason. And to really kill it, it came with Vista pre-installed which made to perform like maple syrup. They are coming out with an Atom/ 2140 model that looks pretty good, but I can’t help remembering all the problems my colleagues have had with their HP and Compac notebooks over the years. They just seemed to fall apart. However, the keyboard on the HP’s is probably the best of all netbooks.

LENOVO

The Lenovo S10 and S9 are really good looking but the battery life is below average. If it weren’t for that, I probably would have one for the S9.

SAMSUNG

The NC-10 is famous for its battery life, but i’m not convinced about the build quality.

MSI

One of the original netbook leaders, but 2 hour battery life !

ACER

I have heard that you have to dis-assemble the computer (and void the warranty) just to upgrade the memory from 1 Gb to 2 GB. Also, I heard that the battery life is not that impressive.

FUJITSU

Their entry looks too plastic and toy-like. Usually I respect Fujitsu because they still manufacture in Japan.

Because they are so cheap, I have decided to get two netbooks..one for the real requirement, and one to play with (and maybe the "beach" model). Some of the original netbooks with small 20 GB SSD drives and Linux are getting really cheap…less that 7000 baht (about US $200).
If they get REALLY cheap (just before they are discontinued), I may get one and install Windows 7 (free evaluation from Microsoft until June 2010) or an optimized version of XP.
There are free utilities that lets you strip many unnecessary features from XP to a final installation size of only 700 MB and 20 second boot up time! The SSD drives are solid state so their are no moving parts. This would be almost a disposable netbook. Also, the ASUS models let you plug in an SD card with becomes part of the logical C drive. For example, the computer has a 20 GB SSD (basically flash memory) which appears as the C: drive. But if you plug in a 16 GB SD card (included free with the 901 model), you C: drive now appears as 36 GB. You can get 32 or even 64 GB SD cards nowadays, but 36 GB is more than enough for a netbook.

On the "beach" model, I may even stay with Linux (to avoid the world of viruses) and use the free Linux Office alternatives for Excel and Word.

I looked at some of the websites of US retailers…looks like they are still trying to dump the unpopular models on the public (The Asus 900, which doesn’t have the Atom processor, or HP models with Vista (yuk!).

Vista is so terrible in a netbook that many computers are shipped with a XP "downgrade" pre-installed !

As usual, Asia is the place to get the latest and best hi-tech gadgets. 

Source: Asiacamera