Netbook - need your recommendations

[smeatme]

Looking to buy a Netbook for my non-techie mother. Looking for something reliable, easy to use, fast, not too big hard drive all for under $300.

Thanks, Cole.

[BroncoBob]

Looking to buy a Netbook for my non-techie mother. Looking for something reliable, easy to use, fast, not too big hard drive all for under $300.

Thanks, Cole.

Check out your local AT&T store. I think they were like $199.00 with the package deal. Not really sure as I just glanced at them the other day.

[ldivinag]

dont...

i have a 10" model and the screen IS REALLY too small...

get her a 14" or even a 15".

[Bobula]

Check out your local AT&T store. I think they were like $199.00 with the package deal. Not really sure as I just glanced at them the other day.

That package deal involves a $50 a month air card.





I have a ASUS eee PC. Best money I've spent on a computer. 160 gb hard drive, intel atom proc, built in wireless N, 1 gig of ram. $288 shipped through b and H photography 5 months ago. Newegg or zipzoomfly.com usually have great deals.

[jmlivingston]

Kestryll has an Acer and he's raved about it here a few times. I've also seen good reviews on both it and the later model Asus's (earlier ones had slower cpu, and tiny monitor).

If you decide you want an Acer, let me know via PM. I've got access to them through their distribution channel.

John

[jammer2k]

I picked up a Dell Mini9 recently, it works great. I would recommend though that you don't upgrade the SSD via Dell but buy an aftermarket SSD for a fraction of the cost and about 4 times the performance. After spending 250 on the unit and another 100 on the drive I have a very fast and small computer for notes and whatnot in my classes

[rimfire17]

Look for refurb deals on the Dell's or Acer's. You can often get them for less than $300. If you're willing to spend just a bit more, I recommend the Acer that Costco sells. I have one of them and it works quite well.

[Nuuze]

I bought both the Acer One and Dell Mini 10. Like both! The Acer was $250 and the Dell was $350 at the time from Sams Club.

[Gregchico]

I have an 9 inch ASUS with the SSD and hate it. It is way too slow to even surf on.
I recommend a real (cheap) laptop instead of a netbook.

[supermario]

Walmart has the Acer for about $280. I have two of them for my daughters and they are great.

[SmurfinTactical]

Looking to buy a Netbook for my non-techie mother. Looking for something reliable, easy to use, fast, not too big hard drive all for under $300.

Thanks, Cole.

Ok first of all your not going to find a fast netbook, thats not what its for. They are for surfing the net, word documents etc, very simple single threaded applications. Now from my personal experience with them I would have to suggest either the HP line or the Acer line (HP and Acer are brands). Make sure you get the netbook with the N280 processor since it has a much longer battery life and its clocked sightly higher at 1.66ghz compared to the N270's 1.60ghz proc. I would not suggest a netbook for a non-techie, they also require an upgrade of ram which is simple enough for someone like me(Take into account now I build my own computers ) but for a non-techie it would be downright daunting.

But since your mother is not a techie I would actually suggest a laptop.

Since netbook screens are also rather small the norm screen size is 10.1 inches(thats measured diagonally btw) I would not suggest it for someone with bad eyesight.

Even better if your mom doesnt need a portable pc, just buy her a cheap desktop, I would suggest a desktop with an AMD proc because they are incredibly cost efficient.

[tay]

I have an ACER Aspire One, 8.9" screen.

It is great for surfing and Office products (word, excel and etc...).

However, when my mother(65+) uses it, she complains about the screen being too small.

Costco has some larger screen netbooks. Bring her to look at them inorder to determine if the screen is big enough.

[sorensen440]

I always just buy the cheapest laptop I can find (Usually frys) as I tend to drop them from time to time and have to buy a new one

[Can'thavenuthingood]

Something to think on is the screen size and eysight.

I'll be 60 in January and these 17 inch screens are way too damn small, I picked up a 19 inch Acer LCD monitor and now I can enlarge the text size to something I can read. Now I get up to 12 words per screen shot, a lot less scrolling.

I'd like to hook it up to my 47 inch Sammsung TV.

Vick

[Super Spy]

Don't buy a netbook....my Mom got one, hated it, tiny screen, slow, so she returned it. Look for a good deal on a 13" or 14" Laptop with a real CPU and decent memory....Think about aging eyesight and a tiny screen...bad combo