Tiny PCs - experiences?

[h3g3l]

As you guys may remember, I've been looking for some sort of an ultra-portable to take with me to coffee shops and conferences to surf the web, do email, read articles, and give presentations.

I had before been looking at the EeePC, but now I would like to broaden the search a bit.

I would ideally like to run OSX on this machine, as Keynote is incredible for presentations, and a lot of the other tasks are served fine by the software. I also have licenses to the software and really need a system that "just runs" and is transparent so that I can get on and just do work.

I'm looking at the Dell Vostro A90 netbook now. The price is right, it seems quite hackable and also seems to have a community behind it. The A90 also seems to have more metal on the inside, so it hopefully won't be as fragile as the EeePCs seem to be.

I'm now also looking at the MSI Wind machines, mainly thanks to Sawaa's nudge in the other thread.

Looking around, the MSI Wind seems to have issues (mainly WiFi, although there are reports of a leaked driver for OSX, also audio/mic jacks) under OSX while the Dell is more fully supported "out of the box".

Thoughts?

 

[Talula]

I've got an EeePC.

They're great. They're the perfect size for taking on trains and buses, and to coffee shops, and just generally browsing. For some reason mine is also amazing with Skype, compared to my real computer, so I use it for that too.

I certainly would not recommend it for a 'proper' computer, though. It has very little memory space, although it does make up for that by having like 4 USB ports.

So yeh, I don't have much experience with any of the other ones you mentioned, but I can say my EeePC is pretty awesome!

 

[h3g3l]

I've got an EeePC.

They're great. They're the perfect size for taking on trains and buses, and to coffee shops, and just generally browsing. For some reason mine is also amazing with Skype, compared to my real computer, so I use it for that too.

I certainly would not recommend it for a 'proper' computer, though. It has very little memory space, although it does make up for that by having like 4 USB ports.

So yeh, I don't have much experience with any of the other ones you mentioned, but I can say my EeePC is pretty awesome!

Thanks, Talula!

Out of curiosity, do you know your geekbench score? I understand that scores of about 900 are pretty normal for netbooks (2GB RAM in the link). My score from my iBook G4 (mid-2005, PPC processor) is 646 (eek!). I seem to have taken a beating from the third-party memory I installed; the actual processor figures are around 715. Either way, it's time for something newer on the OSX side of things for me, I think.

 

[Plasgoot]

I've got a samsung NC10, and I really like it !

I chose this one because of the specs (160GB drive, 1GB memory easy to upgrade to 2 GB, good keyboard ) and especially because of the very good battery life.
It comes standard with Windows XP, but I just installed Windows 7 on it. Working fantastic without any issues.
No Experience with OSX, but I did see some forums ( i think it was a mac forum) mentioning installing OSX on an netbook, so might be possible.

EDIT - just do a google search for OSX NC10 or MSI Wind , there's a good article on this on wired.com !

 

[timmahtherebel]

Netbooks? I don't suggest buying one. I had one and the processors can barely do anything except basic browsing. Not the mention the ones with any reasonable hard-drive space are still using IDE 4200RPM drives.


I owned an HP Netbook, and returned it because it was slow and sporadic. The Windows Version ran on netbooks is also a scaled down version and does not include everything that the full version does.

Intel Atom is terrible. They do sell mini laptops though, try Tigerdirect.com

 

[chevre]

That's kind of the point of a Netbook. They're low-power, high battery life, small machines designed for carrying around and doing things like surfing the web, email, and lightweight work like word processing. Oh, and they're (generally) cheap.

I'm sure h3g3l is already well aware of these things .

 

[BabyWolf]

I'm personally not a fan of tiny machines. They tend to have more than their share of problems compared to larger laptops, as well as being a lot less convenient to use. The golden price range for laptops has typically been around $1200. Anything less usually won't make you happy. Yeah, it may "technically" do everything you need, but you're going to hate it.

 

[timmahtherebel]

The battery life IS TERRIBLE... I'd be lucky to get 2 hours out of that thing!

 

[Wzrd]

I love my EEE901. Its lightweight and I get 5-8 hours battery life on a full charge.

 

[Plasgoot]

With a 6-cell battery my netbook runs for about 4 to 7 hours, depending on applications running. And, like I said, it is running Windows 7 with aero. HDD scores 5.4 in the experience index (processor 2.2, graphics 2.0, gaming 3.0, memory 4.5)
Of course, there are better alternatives when you want to do video encoding or play PC games, but it works great for browsing the internet, MSN, watching video etc. That's why they call it a NETbook.
Depends on the type of netbook you buy and the money you invest.

 

[element]

Netbooks? I don't suggest buying one. I had one and the processors can barely do anything except basic browsing. Not the mention the ones with any reasonable hard-drive space are still using IDE 4200RPM drives.


I owned an HP Netbook, and returned it because it was slow and sporadic. The Windows Version ran on netbooks is also a scaled down version and does not include everything that the full version does.

Intel Atom is terrible. They do sell mini laptops though, try Tigerdirect.com

I'm gonna have to disagree with most of this post. My Aspire One, with the CoreAVC codec, can even play 720p HD video no problem, and it came with a 160GB 5400RPM HD, which is just fine. It ran XP Home with no issues at all, and I honestly never had any performance problems with it. I also got easily 6 hours of battery life on a charge. I sold it, though, because I wasn't using it, since I already have a MacBook Pro and a Thinkpad Z60t.

There're rumors floating about that Apple's going to launch a 10" notebook (or netbook) this summer, and while that has the potential of being expensive, it also has the potential of being completely awesome in terms of design. If you're not down for that, I'd probably go with the Dell, though, since as you've said, it pretty much runs OS X out of the box.

 

[Fire2box]

I can't justify buying a 300 dollar netbook when for 100-200 dollars more I can get a laptop that's just as good as my PC here, without the 8800GT of course.

----------------
Now playing: MarkySpark - Tranquility Piano (ID: 167578)
via FoxyTunes

 

[ajsco]

If you could get the money I would really recommend the Dell XPS 1330.