"NETBOOKS"...aka Mini Laptops....

[beth119]

Anyone have one? I want to know EVERYTHING about it. LOL.

I am in the market for 3 of them.

1 for me to keep in my purse (spend SOOO much time WAITING places, it would be nice)...

And 1 for each of my 2 boys for Christmas. They are 7 & 8. I thought they would be a good introduction to owning their own computers....

[PammyLou]

I too would appreciate any info on these new netbooks! Verizon is currently offering a deal at $199 but the catch is that you must sign a 2 yr contract with them for their internet service. The lowest price for very limited internet connection time is not realistic for me so I'd have to go with the higher monthly pkg which is $59. Too much.

I just checked on Consumer Reports (CR) web site & it appears that most are selling retail at between $280 to $400. CR is not recommending any of them & on a scale of zero to 100, none are rated over 50 - & most a lot less! Might be a good idea to hold off awhile until they come up with a better netbook! And if not, there's sure to be some deals just prior to Christmas!:shrug7:

[couponwitch]

I want one... I am gonna buy a Dell. they are wonderfully build and they stand behind their products. The last Dell I had went around the world with me...It was great. I have a HP 17" laptop right now... never again will I buy an HP. The internet card has gone out twice in three years.... I finally just bought a peripheral USB wireless adapter.

[Lurkergirl]

We have been thinking of these also .At&t is offering them for 199.00 but I don't know much about them .

[nekogoddess007]

since i work for At&T, ill be honest: DO NOT GET THE ASPIRE. go for the dell mini netbook. its not as buggy, its made better, and it is priced well.

[MrsAlias]

Wait!!

A friend of mine got one of these about 2 months ago.. after just 1 week it broke. My hubby is a computer guy, so she gave it to us to fix.. here is the problem..

Long story short.. the computer had a main file go corrupt, so it would no longer boot up. Fine, follow the on screen directions .. 1) insert windows boot up disk..

There is NO disk drive!! No where to put anything in!!

My hubby was able to create the program to fix hers, and use a jump to install it.. but it did it again 2 days later!!

Do he called HP, who said "yeah, we know" GEE THANKS!!

They asked us to send it back and they will "fix" it and mail it back..

I would not buy one of these.. not yet at least.

There are lots of blogs and reviews about it as well, everyone is having the same problem.

[beth119]

So far, it seems the DELL's and ACERS are getting the best reviews...

[marysuzannej]

We have two Acer Minis and we LOVE them. We mostly take them when we travel, we don't use them every day. In my opinion they're a little bit too big too keep in a purse, especially since for safety you'd probably want to keep them in a case, which bulks them up a bit more. For carrying in a purse, BlackBerry or iPhone is still the way to go (again, in my opinion). I use my BlackBerry for internet on the go.

We've had our Minis for about 6 months. One is an early version -- my husband's. It is noticeably slower than mine, which is a bit newer. But they both connect to the Internet perfectly and run all of the software I've put on them (including Office, antivirus & firewall, and a few other things). We can connect to our wireless printer at home and have had no trouble with any wireless hotspot at hotels, restauarants, airports, etc., so far.

The "no disk drive" problem is easily solved: pick up a USB external CD burner! We paid about $35 for a DVD-burning external drive and it works easily for both of them, for loading software mostly. Same goes for a mouse - you can choose to connect one (USB) or you can just use the built-in fingerpad.

The battery holds about a 3-hour charge and the units do recharge while plugged in and in use (they recharage faster while plugged in and turned off).

The only thing annoying about them, to me, is the tiny key size. If you need to do a lot of typing it can get tedious.

We paid $219 for my husband's and $249 for mine (about 6 months ago -- I think that the versions we have are down a bit in price since then).

** a super bonus for couponers: when I need extra copies of some printable coupons, I fire up my mini and print off 2 more!! then my husband's, and that's 2 more!

[foggierbard9]

My brother has one from Sony and it is super slow and very buggy. He has had it for 6 mos. If you try to surf the net it takes forever for anything to load, and typing on it is very annoying. You type a sentence and it takes 30 sec for it to show up on the screen.

[extechy]

Comcast actually had a deal where you get the Dell model free for signing up for their services. I think it's over now. I took advantage of the deal but I haven't gotten my Netbook just yet. I'm giving it to my oldest daughter but I'm interested in one for myself now, too.