Netbooks

[JustJon]

I was wondering here if anyone had experience with the EEEPc, the Dell Mini 9 or any other netbooks. I'm debating buying one for my commute because my macbook is getting heavy to carry back and forth.

And does anyone know where I can see a Dell Mini 9 in person to see if it's worth it?

[KnoxHarrington]

Here's CNET's review of the Mini 9:

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-mini-9/4505-3121_7-33240837.html?tag=mncol;lst

I'd definitely go for one with the Atom processor, since Intel basically designed those for very small computers like these.

The review really reflects a lot of what I've seen, but I'm like you, I want to actually try typing on that keyboard before I make up my mind. God knows my fat-ass fingers get tied in knots on a full-sized keyboard (in fact, I've made a few typos typing that fucking sentence), but, then again, I'm decent at tapping things out on that iPhone "keyboard", so maybe it's not so bad.

[KnoxHarrington]

I did get to play around with 2 Asus EEPc models today at Best Buy: a 9" model that ran Linux, and a 10" that ran Windows XP.

I didn't have any trouble typing on the 10" model, but I did have to adjust how I typed on the 9". The 9" model runs Ubuntu, with what looks to be a special interface Asus did up for it.

The 9" model runs on an Intel Atom chip, which is the one I'd want on this. The 10" ran on a Celeron Mobilty (I think), which might get a little hotter and use more power than the Atom. As far as included software went, the 9" had Firefox as the browser and a copy of StarOffice on it. The 10" goes with IE, and also has StarOffice.

I think the 9" had a 4GB solid state drive, with 1GB of memory. The 10" had 8GB.

Both looked like you could easily carry them in any bag, without actually using a full laptop bag.

So, yeah, for the purposes of just having something around to get on the Internet and do very simple work, they're both fine. I would not want one as my only computer, though.