Mini Laptops-Still Slow?

[astro]

@Mangetout

Yeah, it seems that generally, netbook specs tend to promise number of cells = number of hours. In reality, it tends to be max out at more like 75% of that, less with intensive use.

If it’s just web surfing you can often get close to the advertised 5-6 hour up time with a newish 6 cell battery. If you’re playing movies etc. then maybe half that or less. The modified low clocked celeron units (vs the Atom units) are typically much hungrier power-wise in real world use.

[gazpacho]

@beowulff

Unless you are a hobbit, Netbooks make pretty poor word processors. The keyboard is just too cramped. I know that people will be all of this, claiming that they can type just fine on their tiny keyboard, but IMHO, a small laptop (like a 13") is a much better machine. I have a Dell Mini-9, and it’s a neat little machine, but it’s little more than a toy for me.

Dell seems to agree with you. They no longer make the mini-9. They make the mini-10 which they advertise as having a 93% full sized keyboard. I also have the Mini-9 and I would not like to do much typing on it.

[TastesLikeBurning]

@astro

What’s the battery life with that Celeron onboard vs the Atom?

I have no idea what the battery life is versus the atom as I don’t have an atom.

I haven’t produced a spreadsheet of average battery life and not likely to, but I can say I certainly haven’t noticed that it needs regular recharging. The question of the OP was relating to netbooks still being considered slow, and my post was to simply point out that there are more options filtering through that this doesn’t have to be the case. Another criticism mentioned in this thread is about cramped keyboards which again is only if you can’t be bothered looking out for the netbooks that do actually come with a full size keyboard, such as the Acer.

[Mangetout]

@gazpacho

Dell seems to agree with you. They no longer make the mini-9. They make the mini-10 which they advertise as having a 93% full sized keyboard. I also have the Mini-9 and I would not like to do much typing on it.

I’ve seen the Mini-10 and it has got one of the best keyboards I’ve seen on a netbook - it has flat square keys - a bit like the current iMac keyboards.

Personally, I don’t find my netbook keyboard cramped, as much as a bit awkward - the right shift key isn’t where my fingers are expecting it to be, the Home and End keys are secondary functions on the cursor arrow keys (which are too small) - stuff like that. The main Qwerty part isn’t too bad.

It’s OK for email and message board posting, but I still wouldn’t like use it for extended periods of solid typing - some of that is the size and layout, some is just because I tend to use the thing on my knee in an armchair.

[handsomeharry]

Thanks, everybody, for the info.
I’ll just stick with my big clunker.

hh

[RandomLetters]

@Iggins

If you can, I’d suggest getting a netbook with an ION graphics processor. By giving up a little battery life, you can get some additional performance for Flash and some games…

http://www.ionnetbook.com/

Ion is still crippled by the Atom CPU; even Half Life 2, a 6 year old game, isn’t playable using Ion + Atom. I would recommend spending a bit more and getting a small notebook with a Celeron or one of AMD’s processors. There are plenty of 11.6" of notebooks with those chips for under $500.