[ja27]

Nothing's changing at the low end of the netbook lines because they're all still shipping with Windows XP or Windows 7 Starter, so the hardware has to be nearly crippled. Thanks, Microsoft.

But at the higher end there are some neat ones. I got an Asus 1201N, which has a dual-core Atom, real Windows 7, and HDMI out. Makes a decent travelling machine and can handle almost any media needs.

[nanairo]

Isn't that just an ultra-portable PC, rather than a netbook? I thought the whole point of a netbook is that it was very cheap but underpowered (though more than enough for the internet, hence its name).

[cubicle67]

Microsoft still sells XP to Netbook OEMs, but places hard (they don't change over time) limits on the hardware they can use

[Edit: can find very little on the XP limitations, apart from a 1Gb memory limit, but found the following conditions on using Win 7 Starter

* Screens cannot exceed 10.2 inches

* Maximum 1 GB of RAM

* Maximum 250 GB HDD or 64 SSD

* CPU must not exceed 2 GHz, and have a CPU thermal design power that is less than or equal to 15 W, not including the graphics and chipset.]

[ZeroGravitas]

You've basically just listed the specs for my new Samsung netbook. I'm really not sure how to feel about the fact that it's design was dictated by the fact that it shipped with Windows 7 starter.

It's one of the best things I've bought in a while, though some level of credit for that has to go to Ubuntu which I stuck on it shortly after getting it. I did actually give Windows 7 a go and think about dual-booting, as I thought they might work better with Flash and the touchscreen, the combination of which make this a good iPad alternative for my young son too.

I was somewhat relieved to find that both performed better under Ubuntu and various other annoyances with Windows 7 led to it getting wiped completely.

[jerf]

Honestly, what's the difference? I'd kill for a netbook's performance ten years ago, even if it was in a desktop form factor. I laugh at what is considered "underpowered" nowadays.

[zephyrfalcon]

That does seem to be the point of netbooks, although I never really understood the reasoning behind it. It's underpowered but you are supposed to surf the net with it? If there's one program that is a performance and memory hog, it's a web browser.

[elblanco]

They actually make pretty decent MS-Office machines and super portable dev boxes.

Or if you want to put together a cheapo NAS, a netbook, a couple USB hubs and a half dozen 1TB external HD's will serve as a pretty decent NAS for a fraction of the price with tons more capability.

Or as a little print server or cheapo box to test network junk on

Or a super portable slide presentation machine (with one of those pocket projectors) for doing pitches (bonus, you can also edit the slides on it!)

They're also small enough to open up all the way in coach on a plane, with space left over for a mouse and your drink so you can get some work done on a long flight (whether that be writing documentation, putting together presentations, hacking some code, or whatever else you want).

On vacations I use mine to offload photos from my camera, then I can go and sort and edit them while watching TV that night, and it's small enough to fit in every tiny hotel safe I've ever come across. Being able to do this has saved more than one traveling companion from disaster...folks who had left their laptops behind in lieu of a portable HD for offloading their pictures.

They're fast enough to play some old games (I like to play Sim City 4k on mine), but it plays lots of casual games like plants vs. zombies ok.

or watch some ripped movies, pretty much any ripped DVD will play fine on it (I also have an external drive I can hook up, but I usually leave that at home). I have usually a dozen or so movies on mine at any one time. I rarely turn the hotel TV on when I travel.

I also have about 10GB of old 78s ripped to mp3 on it for background music when I can't get on the web (http://78records.cdbpdx.com/).

It's fast enough to run emulators for anything <= SNES. For a while I had mine running as a portable Amiga, which was hot.

It's small enough I literally can't tell if it's in my backpack or not, and it's so small it takes up the same space as a book.

Oh, and I have a few thousand e-books on mine (and comics CBZ, CBRs).

And I have some music production software on it, it's good for most things so long as I don't rely on too many real-time effects or push the multi-channel stuff too hard. But I've cranked out a couple decent tunes on it.

It can, in a pinch, act as an emergency swap out for a main computer. My wife's computer died in an electrical storm, and for a couple weeks, she just hooked my netbook up to her monitor and ran it at 1680x1050 to get some MS-Office work done. She plugged a USB keyboard and mouse into the available slots and still had another left over for her thumb drive she drags back and forth to work. That basically saved her job over one particularly grueling project. It wasn't super speedy, but she got her work done.

I'd imagine taking it to school would be perfect because it's so small it fits on a regular student desk with space left over for a mouse.

You could probably travel with one of these https://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/c609/ and get some multi-monitor goodness from it while on the road.

Overall, I'd say it's probably the best $300 I've ever spent on a piece of consumer hardware. I do a ton of traveling and my netbook has literally been around the world with me half a dozen times. I've entirely stopped taking my regular laptop with me as I found I simply didn't use it and it felt super bulky in comparison (plus I couldn't figure out what to do with it when I was out of the hotel room since I couldn't fit it into a safe).

[patrickk]

Wow, what a great, comprehensive overview of what can be done with a netbook. I may have to look into utilising mine more.

I mainly use mine for web surfing when I can't be bothered using my main machine (duh) and also to download large files overnight. Sometimes I leave it on for a week at a time. Tip: put your netbook on top of a radiator, which draws the excess heat away from the underside of the netbook. (Obviously the radiator has to be turned off.) My Dell Mini 10V tends to get really hot if I don't.

Here's a great list of classic old PC games you can play on a netbook:

http://gamingbolt.com/100-games-to-play-on-your-netbook-or-h...

Google "netbook games" for further inspiration.

[elblanco]

> download large files overnight

Yeah, they draw really little power, especially with the screens turned off. If you need to transfer files, or have a system up sending keep-alive pings or something that doesn't require a bunch of computation, they're really ideal.

Great link btw!

[patrickk]

You're welcome ;-)

[_cbsz]

> If there's one program that is a performance and memory hog, it's Flash video.

FTFY, based on my experience with my Eee 1005HA. Web's fine, but the world hurts when I try to view Flash video. Doubling the RAM to 2 GB helped with everything else. To be fair, I haven't tried to view any other video on this thing...

[uxp]

> If there's one program that is a performance and memory hog, it's a program that consumes a lot of memory and CPU.

If we're getting into this dumb meme, then FTFY.

[_cbsz]

It's a cliched rhetorical device, not a meme.

[bayes]

Do you know what a meme is? How could a cliched rhetorical device not be one?

[chadgeidel]

Probably, but IMHO one key difference. A few years ago the "midrange" Ultraportable was like $1200. I just picked up a Toshiba T115D-S1125 w/11" screen, dual core athlon, radeon 3200, and Win7 x64 (2gb) for under $500

It's a great little machine and actually has pretty decent battery life as well.