Quiet in here but advice re new note/net book

[paulbds]

Hi, Quiet in this part of the forum
Anyway, my Advent needs replacing
I am looking for a replacement net/notebook

I have my eye on the new ....

Lenovo Ideapad S205 11.6 inch Notebook (AMD E350, RAM 2GB, HDD 250GB, Windows 7 Home Premium) - Black

for the grand price of £309

Seems quite good price, don't need 3G as I can use my WiFi.
Not too keen ona Dual Atom based unit but want something with a dcent spc

Anything elese i should be looking at?
TIA
Paul

[Ben]

Cobwebs and everything; netbooks have certainly lost their shine as far as market-watching goes, but they must still be shifting in reasonable numbers.

The Lenovo site describes this one as "fashionably cool" - how can you go wrong! :p

Looks good to me... a slice above a netbook almost. There are some on Amazon for half the price but typically with half the spec ;) I'm not a massive netbook fan, but for £300+ I'd hope it buys a decent computer.

What will you be using it for?

[paulbds]

Thanks for the reply so far
Useage will include, word docs and small spreadsheets, travelling UK and Ireland on work/holiday/surfing and can check video cam at home
I already have an ipad 1 (Jailbroken) and very pleased with it but I do miss the keyboard
Oh, and watching TV via Sling media which is unreliable on the ipad and £££ expensive (I have the slingbox pro and not the HD version)
I forgot to add that I have £75 Amazon vouchers from my Credit Card company tha will help take the sting out of the purchase.
I am also waiting to see if the much rumored new MBA is being launched nect month with the new Lion OS
I am a PC man, and essentially still am, but since my Wife and kids have had Mac's and I have the ipad, I must confess I am quite pleas:ped with the Apple range but not a fanboy just yet:eek:

[Ben]

I didn't want to mention the MBA given that it's more than slightly in excess of your budget but... beautiful machines, the quintessential modern laptop to be sure. Lets hope it's a good revision, I'd rather like a new one myself... but I want backlit keys :p

[Hands0n]

Netbooks still have a place as a modest laptop, and Windows 7 certainly runs in a Netbook, unlike its predecessor Vista. I have Windows 7 running in both an old Advent (with built in 3G) and a Samsung NC10 (that has a gorgeous keyboard).

Given that they all run pretty much the same my only real advice is to go for one that you are comfortable with, regardless of price. For me that means a keyboard that I can actually type on, which is why the Advent hardly sees the light of day. It was great to have the built-in 3G but almost useless to me, a trained touch typist. The Samsung NC10, by contrast, is near-perfect as a Netbook can be. The keyboard is delightful, and with good feedback and "feel". And now that WiFi tethering is the norm [for me] I have no use for these little devices to have built in 3G.

I am committed to the keyboard, using touchscreen is okay but difficult for long keyboard use. So I am now eagerly searching the Interwebs for a keyboard/doc for my Asus Eee Pad Transformer which will essentially turn it into a touchscreen laptop :D

[Ben]

For the 'built in' 3G - is it seamless at connecting and switching between 3G and WiFi like an iPad, or is network operator software involved? If it's the latter then I'd tether every time, lol.

[Hands0n]

The Advent switching between 3G and WiFi wasn't quite seamless as it is in the iPad/iPhone world. The Netbook used a 3G "Connect" client software to control the 3G connection. But you had to start it off manually. It would not automatically wander off WiFi and on to 3G and vice versa. That particular domain is with Apple and Android right now.

[paulbds]

Well, took the plunge and went for this model from Amazon @ £344 in free p&P

Acer Aspire One 753 11.6 inch HD Netbook (Intel Celeron U3600, 4GB, 500GB, Bluetooth, Webcam, 6hrs battery life, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3XUSB, HDMI and VGA out)

I need both the VGA and HDMI for giving dental presentations as not all departments have HDMI projectors at present.

Saw it in Costco (Chester) but was £40 more expensive but it had a 2 year warranty (Incidentally, they have a 90 day, absolutley no quibble returns policy)

it's not a bad spec for the price and I have a 7 day cooling off period should I decide to have a bout of buyers remorse!

I have decided against a MBA for the time being as they are quite fragile (for my use being carted around various clinics and sites) and I really need the HD space (music collection)

Thanks for the advice.

Paul
OT - on a different note bought the new Apple TV from John Lewis Clearnace sale in Trafford Centre - for the grand sum of £71 which seemed a bargin and I have 28 days to play with it. Anyone played with one - I guess I will have to jailbreak it to max it out:)

[Ben]

Why the hell would an Apple TV be in clearance? How odd. Great device, love mine.

Quick comment on the MacBook Air and fragility. Dropped mine onto a marble floor from a pretty decent height and it's still fine - a plastic laptop probably would've been in about 50 pieces ;)

Good luck with the new device!

[Hands0n]

Is that the older Apple TV? About the same size as the Mac Mini? They were obsoleted by the new size-of-a-fag-packet Apple TV that appeared late last year.

Nice buy there Paul. I never shop at Costco, used to, as it is far too expensive for me. We used to have a Toyota Space Cruiser that we'd fill to the roof on each visit. I had to cut up my card and stop going :)

[paulbds]

No, it's the new one, that why I bought it - seemed cheaper than shoplifting as they say!

[Ben]

What a buy! :)

Rumour has it a 'new' Apple TV will shortly surface sporting 1080p, as this has been added to iOS 5. I don't think this is the reason why you got yours at such a good price, though... stores wouldn't have any definite knowledge yet, because if they did - we'd know! :)

[DBMandrake]

Interesting tidbit - 1080p rendering (via TV out) might have been added in iOS 5, and only for new hardware, but iOS 4.0 actually enabled playback of 1080p video files (albeit scaled to screen resolution) even on the iPhone 3GS - I know, because I've tried it...(the iPhone 3G on the other hand was completely incapable of playing 1080p, so it's 3GS and later hardware)

iTunes wouldn't let you sync a 1080p clip onto an iPhone at the time, but if you used any of those Wifi file sharing apps to get the file across that also had media playback capability, the 3GS would happily decode and play a 10 Mbit/sec 1080p 6 audio channel H.264 file - scaling it to SD and stereo of course, but impressive nevertheless. From memory Apple disabled this functionality around iOS 4.1 since it was undocumented, and not entirely stable. (Attempting to play certain video files could lock up the sound system on the phone requiring a reboot to get sound back!)

From that I'm sure the more powerful current ATV2 must have the horsepower to play back 1080p files, albeit probably scaling the actual output to the TV down to 720p. The rumored ATV3 with an A5 would no doubt allow for actual 1080p output - considering that the iPad 2 already has this ability with some games like Real Racing 2 HD already supporting true 1920x1080 output in second screen mode. (As opposed to just scaling up 1024x768 in mirroring mode)