Netbooks As A Notebook Alternative

We’re seeing great interest in netbooks from “basic productivity” users who appreciate their portability and the fact that they can be had with XP (about the only system an end-user can buy with XP preinstalled).

Of our non-technical users I know of two with Acer Aspire Ones (Linux, used as a sophisticated PDA) and two retired ladies with Toshibas (XP, replacing conventional laptops).

People are waking up to the fact that they don’t really use their CD-ROM drive, and if your eyes are OK a 9″ screen is fine.

Although I have a personal XP laptop, and a dual-core Vista machine in the office, the computer I’m using the most is this HP 2133 with Ubuntu.

I was considering a netbook late last year. The display size wasn’t too much of an issue with me, having heard from others whose eyes were even “older”. However, I was concerned about the keyboard size, although when I met up with a friend with an MSI Wind, he said the size wasn’t too bad, it was the feel that he had an issue with. IMHO, a touch-sensitive tablet is the way to go. I remember Palm’s Graffiti, and how I took to it in maybe 15 minutes. And navigation using a stylus on an 8.9″ screen is I believe orders of magnitude easier than even a mouse, let alone a trackpad or trackpoint. That’s why I was looking at Gigabyte’s M912 netbook — 8.9″ touch-sensitive screen which pivots to transform the thing into a tablet PC. That’s also why I’m looking at a similar offering from MSI. Either could be a complement to this 14″ ThinkPad SL400.

I have been waiting for the netbooks to become available at reasonable prices for the size and portability. I need to keep up on the email for my business and a notebook is just too big to use in the car. The smaller netbook is just the right size.

I bought an Asus Eee pc 900HA a few weeks ago and I love it. No more dragging around my weighty T60. This little baby slips into my handbag and I don’t even notice it’s there.

And I’ve had no trouble adapting to the small keyboard. I switch back and forth between it and the standard-size keyboard on my T60 without a hitch.

After I wrote about my pleasure with it on my blog, at least five readers bought one and they love it too - mostly people age 60-plus, like me.

One small complaint: in shrinking the keyboard, Asus placed the arrowup key between question mark/slash key and the Shift key. It’s hard to remember to reach a little further to the right for the Shift so the page I’m working on too often is moving up when I want it to be still.

Compared to the Shift key, one hardly ever uses the uparrow key. This was a poor design decision.

But other than that, I couldn’t be happier, and the price is certainly right.

I bought an Acer netbook to replace my
aging palm I love it easy to carry,
and batt life not bad get 3hrs on a 3cell planing to get a 6or8 cell my age 62

I recently bought a acer one, and love it for portable information access. I’m a software designer by trade, with a full-sized desktop at home for gaming. However, when we travel to our parents or are hanging out downstairs with our 2 year old daughter, my wife and I would often have issues with joint computer access of our laptop. Therefore, I purchased the acer for the following reasons:
1) One of the most readable screens for it’s size
2) I can hold it in one hand while typing/scrolling with the other. This is is important when a 2 year old sets their eye on the new ‘toy’.
3) A keyboard that feels almost like a full sized one for touch typing. I’ve only had a handful of typos using it. My one gripe is that the Home/End buttons require a function key to use. This means highlighting a line of text or URL to replace requires a 3 fingered strike of the Shift, Function, and PgUp/PgDwn keys.

i also wouldn’t recommend it for any sort of portable gaming rig, other than Flash games, and even some Flash games suffer some slow down.

All in all, a great little package if you want to have portable access to the web and web content.

I am looking for statistic data of using netbooks in Europe. Can you help me ?

For people seeking very basic word processing, e-mail and network browsing these netbooks can be useful. The not-so-geek who wants a simple, inexpensive and portable machine may desire one. Such a device may be more practical than some e-mail client for older individuals not more computer savvy. Compared to th HP ventured device, it would seem more practical should one desire junk e-mails to be disposed rather than consuming toner and paper or to store something in digital form to share with others or retransmit. As such, a device like this might work for somebody’s grandma. The screen is certainly likely to be easier to read than that of a smart phone. And the keyboard may be easier than non-touchscreen smart phones as well. The size is reasonable for travel, especially in an era of limited baggage without penalties.
The geek is less likely to be so thrilled with such machines other than using some shell-based non GUI Linux distro with less processor requirements and less screen viewing space needed.
I see the netbook market as being for somebody rather set on a small travel appliance or with cold feet about getting a more ‘butch’ machine.

We purchased four netbooks for our loaner pool at work. They all run linux. They have been a tremendous hit. Most who borrow them request them the next time.

There has not been a single question about the operating system. People just pick it up and use it. If that’s not a huge statement about usability, I don’t know what is. All four units now run an Ubuntu variant. Don’t be frightened by linux: the graphical interface has been made so easy that anyone can use it.

I highly recommend the EEE 1000’s. Although they’re all too small for me, they’re pretty useful and very portable for work. We have one Dell but I can’t stand the keyboard. Open Office can be set to save to MS Office format by default. There’s no reason NOT to get one. Enterprises are starting to notice this.