Netbook recommendations?
 

I'm moving from a medium size house down to a 300 square foot apartment so I need to get rid of my desktop and go to something much smaller. I've been looking at netbooks since I don't game anymore and all it will be used for is Internet browsing, office apps, and occasionally video chat.
I have been looking at the 12 inch aver aspire 721 and the asus 1201pn. Does anyone have any experience with either of these or recommendations for others to look at? I'm probably going to blow away windows and go straight to ubuntu for speed and ease of use.

I have an HP Mini10. It's a little small and cramped. I use it for traveling but it is sometimes limiting because the software it comes with Windows Starter is very limiting. It's not impossible, but it has limitations. Using ubuntu, I have no experience in installing it, but I know that friends have gotten Linux, Win7, and OSX on a triple boot.

If you plan on using it in one spot, a nettop device might be a better option. With an LCD monitor the footprint isn't that much bigger, and it'll be much better for day-to-day use than a netbook. The problem is those cheesy little keyboards -- they're fine for occasional use, but you'll probably want a full size keyboard if you're going to be on it frequently.

If you really want a netbook, we can help you pick one. The question is, what's your budget? Are you just looking for something cheap? The low-end models are fine for browsing, but they won't handle heavy flash or high definition video too gracefully.

I like Toshiba Satellites. I've never used the netbooks, but their full size laptops are very nice.

I'm going to be carrying it around a lot, I'm moving into downtown Austin and going to be using it at work as well as home and around town. I have a budget of about $600 right now and need it to be pretty light as it will be carried a lot. Since the apartment is going to be so small there will be a lot of need to be outside.

I like the Asus Eee PC 1001p, as it was $299 the last time I checked.

I understand the desire for lightness, I'm just not sure that you'll want to use a netbook for a primary computer. They're not really designed for that kind of usage, and those cramped little keyboards can be a pain.

A full size laptop can be had for $600 with decent specs, and even at 5 or 6 lbs is pretty easy to cart around if you've got a bag for it.

If you're hellbent on a netbook and want a eee PC, I'd recommend the 1201pn over the 1001p. Those Ion gpu's are pretty powerful for what they are. You won't play the latest and greatest games on it, but it'll handle any video needs just fine.

Well, 300 square feet divided by 5 people is going to be incredibly small so space will be really important. I've been looking at the larger netbooks with the 92% keyboards both because of the size as well as the lower power requirements and heat of a normal laptop. I really don't need an optical drive for anything. Most of them do have hdmi out so I can hook them to a flatscreen if I need the screen real estate.

You're sharing 300 square feet with four other people?

I'm predicting the size of your laptop will be the least of your problems.

Yeah, will be me, the wife, and 3 kiddos. It will be cramped but most of the time will be spent out of the house rather than inside. There are three parks nearby and its right in the middle of downtown, so most of my online time will be at a local coffeeshop/juicebar. Battery life is going to be really important.

I've been looking into netbooks myself and the upcoming 1215n looks pretty nice:
Full Eee PC 1215N specs:

* 12.1-inch LED backlit display (1366×768 resolution)
* 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Atom D525 processor
* 2GB DDR3 RAM
* 250GB HDD (previously 320GB)
* NVIDIA ION 2 with Optimus technology
* 802.11b/g/n WiFi
* Bluetooth 3.0
* 1.3-megapixel webcam
* 2 USB 3.0 ports
* USB 2.0 Sleep’n’Charge port
* HDMI port
* VGA out
* SD/MMC card reader
* 6-cell battery
* Windows 7 Home Premium

Seems like it has all the latest ports and such but it's not out yet. It's supposed to run about $499.

I love my ASUS eeePC 900. I use it a lot. Right now my SO is using it a lot because all of his electronics decided to disappear or die within a week's time. It can go pretty much anywhere. It only gets about 3 hours of life when not plugged in, but that was enough for school. The smaller keyboard isn't that hard to get used to. I used my netbook for taking notes at university this last year, and so I was typing on it all the time. It's really not a big deal. What's weird is going back to the full keyboard after getting used to the reduced one :)

Even my eeePC 900 does all the things you want to do on a netbook, and quite well, I might add. When using it for school, it wasn't uncommon for me to be running an Internet browser (with video chat thanks to TFP :lol:) and multiple Office applications at the same time (PowerPoint, OneNote, and Word, typically). So if whatever you choose has better specs than the eeePC 900, you should be golden :)

Personally, while I have a laptop now, I'm looking to ditch it for a desktop and use the netbook as my portable computer. While my laptop is a 15.4" model, it is significantly heavier and more of a pain to haul around than the netbook. The netbook is smaller than most of my college textbooks, and lighter too.

I would recommend buying a RAM upgrade on the netbook. Most netbooks come with a GB of RAM and the upgrade to 2 GB is well worth the cost.

I have one word to say that will get me yelled out of this thread. That word is: iPad.

I think I have it narrowed down to 2. The Toshiba Satellite T215 with the dual core processor or the Acer Aspire One 721. Thoughts or recommendations? I need to get it asap or I would be tempted by the Asus 1215.

As just a view on brands, I love Toshiba and have a Toshiba netbook myself. That's just as a view on the brand themselves.

Ok, I ordered the Toshiba Satellite T215 dial core this morning. Will give a review once I get it.

I'm interested in getting a netbook for a specific application... main considerations are small form factor and battery life. The application is not particularly CPU/GPU intensive, so I'm not too concerned about speed or graphics. Ideally, it would have Win7 premium & run MS Office apps. A dual-boot linux option would also be nice, but again, my chief priorities are small size/long battery life.

I'd love to hear anyone's comments/experiences.

I'm a bit late jumping into this. I have a EeePC 1000HA and a Dell Vostro 1220. I love them both. The 1000HA is my truck computer. It's light and has good battery life (even after I upgraded to a 7200rpm drive). It has drawbacks. It's a single core Atom processor. It's slow. I'm OK with that. The Vostro. I have it with a core 2 duo and 4GB of RAM. It's a nice desktop replacement. I love them both for what they are. The Asus is great for GPS, web surfing on the road, updating and rebooting servers from the road. The Vostro is a pretty good replacement for my dual xeon quad core desktop with 10GB of RAM when I need to do real work from somewhere other then my desk or my home office. The Vostro is also my meeting computer at work. I love them both!

My wife has a Sony Vaio that for the most part she loves but I went the extra mile and got a MacBook and doubt I will ever go back to MicroSoft world and it's headaches again. I get plenty of those from her laptop issues and my work computers.

I have this one. Great keyboard and the battery is larger than say the Acer Aspire One D250 (my previous netbook) without sticking out or under the netbook. Being a N450 based machine power usage for the 1001p is also lower than the older N2xx based devices.