I'm about to lose my mind trying to make up my mind on which notebook or netbook to buy. Any recommendations for best review site?

(This decision seems a reasonable one to go mad over. I hope that’s your most serious issue today. )

Budget, brand, Mac or PC zealot, uses?

The netbook pc generally run in the $300 to $500 range. I’d advise against them as I just sold my HP mini. I owned it for 5 months. Actual usage less than 4 weeks (only when on vacation). They are painfully slow when you have more than 1 app running. They are generally just good to use for email, web surfing, word processing.

I’m an Apple fanboy for life and I’d say wait it out until year’s end when the rumored Apple tablet/netbook might debut.

Oh wait. You wanted a website you say? Try netbookboards

Could you let us know what you want to do with it? And what you are looking to spend.

macs were among those i was considering until i was told that having to pay for upgrades every 6 months would be an issue..

i’m going to be traveling, so i was thinking netbook or small notebook. at this point lenovos and fujitsu are looking good, and just got msi recommended yesterday.

don’t want to spend too much over $1000 and would prefer paying less.

the netbookboards link not good

I just bought a refurbished dell a90 (the business version of the dell mini 9) and I plan to put osx on it.
I paid $250 on the dell business refurb outlet got the 16GB SSD and bought 2gb ram for $20 on newegg
the ubuntu 4gb ones are on sale NEW for $199 for a day or so more.
it all depends on what youre using it for.
Mine will be for updating websites, and some light editing -if I can get Lightroom and Photoshop to work, which i hear has been done. with 2gb ram, it can handle pretty much anything a casual user can throw at it.(one heavy app at a time of course)
PS is pushing it. web browsing, email, word processing can all be handled by even the weakest of netbooks.
the only thing i would advise against a netbook for would be heavy typing. As all of them except the hp minis have a somewhat compromised keyboard (90% size and moved modifier and specialty keys) I suck at typing anyways so this is not a problem for me.
and they have a great following
www.mydellmini.com

im not sure what you mean by:“macs were among those i was considering until i was told that having to pay for upgrades every 6 months would be an issue..”

re macs, i’m not sure what i mean either, that’s just what i was told by a macbook user who was annoyed by having to pay, but not enough to give up his macbook pro

You don’t have to upgrade every six months. More like 18 months and you don’t have to buy it. And the next one is going to be 29 dollars.

@patg7590 :: OS X on a 16 Gig drive is going to be brutal.

I hear that MSI Wind netbooks are pretty good. Many folks turn them into “Hackintoshes” because they can run that OS pretty well. There is a problem I’ve read about where the Wind can’t connect to Wi-Fi in OS X. Not sure if that’s the extent of the problems or not. If anything, MSI Winds are nice out of the box!

@patg7590 nervous about 2 things: tweaking a netbook (never had anything but desktop), and buying refurbished

@johnpowell it has an sdcard slot that I can thrown another 16GB in, and there are tons of ways to slim it down. Removing 3 gb or printer drivers, language files, ppc code, iphoto, imovie, garageband, the list goes on. I see it as a fun adventure.

I chose the a90/mini9 because it is completely osx ready out of the box. Everything works. and i have a 15“mbp in case i need to get any serious work done, this is more just for fun and to do light work -on-the-go

yeah,yesterday was the first time i ever heard of msi computers. knew they been making motherboards from way back

@archer every mac my family has ever owned except for one has been refurbished – (so 5 refurbs)

every dell laptop we’ve ever owned (this will be the fifth) has been refurbished.

never had a single problem and they come with a 1yr warranty

and im not sure what you mean by tweaking… have you ever used ubuntu? If you haven’t or are opposed you could always run xp on it

Get an Acer. They are the best.

@patg7590 :: I have a slimmed down Snow Leopard install. But with swap files and music and other stuff it is going to fill up fast.

interesting, about acer, i had heard negative things, and when i confused asus with acer in converstation the response was, oh, no, asus are great, it’s acer that sucks

@zendo why an Acer? Acer’s typically are cheaper and of worse build quality, the acer mini is $600 on amazon with way worse specs than the mini and its has some weird linux on it. which is even LESS familiar to people than ubuntu

@patg7590 that’s very useful info re your positive experience with refurbished computers. did you get them online?

@archer Acer is the company who manufactures many internal components for computers bought by many of the big boys. I have an Acer 3620 which I bought 3 years ago new. It has been the very best laptop I ever used.

@archer yes we have bought all our macs (save one) at the refurb section of apple.com and likewise at dell.com (well the dell outlet section to be exact)(good luck finding that one)

I’m sure I could be of more help, but what exactly are you going to use it for? what is a typical day in the life of this lappy?

@patg7590 i have no objection to ubuntu, but never used it. and by tweaking i meant anything requiring opening up the case

Retrevo might be useful to you.

@Zendo what other laptops have you used? or perhaps the quality has diminished as of late, cutting corners saving costs…

@archer the ram upgrade is really really simple its two screws, im sure even the most un-tech-savvy person could handle it. or take it to a local shop and they will do it for 20–30 bucks. (JUST DONT TAKE IT TO GEEK SQUAD)

you should download and burn a live cd of Ubuntu, try it out. if you like it, its free and will run quite well on a netbook. but again I could better tell you with “a day in the life”

i plan to use it to update blog, satisfy my facebook and twitter addiction, light processing of photos, video and audio, like to be able to do more than one thing at a time without bogging down, but nothing seriously demanding

@archer I’ve used quite a few laptops, dude. For 4425 brand new on sale, this thing is the cat’s meow. I added a gigabyte to the ram and she has been solid since.

what would be the advantage of ubuntu over xp, and wouldn’t most programs i use not work?

i can do memory.

@Zendo that was $425 three years ago?

@archer On sale at Circuit City just before they began closing all their stores. I got a great deal on the last model available. Best buy I have ever made on a laptop. I’m using it now. There were several rebates and incentives involved to make the price so low. I had to pay $650 up front to get the lowball price.

@Zendo so that was a notebook then, right?

what specs, screensize, harddrive etc?

@archer all of that sounds netbook capable with the exception of light processing of photos, video and audio
does this mean photoshop?
no netbook is going to run final cut pro or sony whatever
no budget priced laptop is going to run those programs either.
you would need a real graphics card for that.

netbooks and budget laptops are similar in functionality, the full size gives you more HDD space and a bigger screen.
real performance gains come from a better processor and graphics card.

Ubuntu is a lighter, leaner OS, but it is linux so you are going to lose compatibility, the whatever device you buy at target isn’t going to work out of the box, maybe not at all. for example…
itunes-not available for linux- try songbird instead (works with ipods)a
internet explorer-not available for linux- use Firefox instead (you really should be already)
ect. so i guess narrowing down what programs you absolutely HAVE to HAVE would be a big part of deciding.

XP is 8 years old and it sucks (imho) but it is compatible with everything

I guess you need to decide
netbook or laptop
weigh cost, performance, price

and then you need to decide OS
Ubuntu or xp if you go with netbook (some netbooks can run Windows 7 but its not much more stable than hackintosh at this point, not recomended for someone who just wants a machine that works all the time 8-P)

weigh compatibility, price, and how tech savvy you are.

but please dont buy an acer unless you are just looking to save money.

@patg7590 thanks for all that. i think what i’m going to need is a small screen notebook that’s pretty well packed. that’s why the lenovo and fujitsu look good. both have models with new generation memory, and fast processors etc

@johnpowell wont SL only run on x64?

@archer fair enough- if you come down to a $700 pc and a $1000 mac please consider the mac.

Hardware failure+virus protection+overall user experience=$300

and for the most part, apple takes care of thier customers.

my 2 cents

this is a good deal on one comes with an ipod too
http://dealmac.com/Apple-Mac-Book-Core-2-Duo-2.13-GHz-13-Laptop-w-i-Pod-touch-8-GB-for-1-000-free-shipping/309884.html

@patg7590 so the update issue i was told about is totally bogus in your view?

@archer dual processor, XP, 15 inch viewscreen, Celeron M, I upgraded to 1 gigabyte ram for $30 a few years back, ... She has more than made up for the buy price with ebay sold items!

@archer i guess? i mean i dont really have any idea what they could be talking about…
new models come out every 6 months (or so it seems) so perhaps the person you talked to thought they always needed to have the latest and greatest?

@Zendo celeron is a swear word as far as processors are concerned. Never buy one.

@Zendo i am taking note of your enthusiastic unbridled love and evangelism

@archer I knew that about Celeron, but it all this unit came with…and it turns out there is nothing to swear about! Perhaps I bought a magic laptop.

@patg7590 no they weren’t talking about models, they were talking about the OS, and that when there was an update many old apps wouldn’t work on it and such… i don’t know i may have misunderstood to some degree, but i didn’t misunderstand his suggestion that i not go that route

this thread illustrates the problem… so many different viewpoints, and all valid to some degree. so much of this is subjective

@archer this is much less likely to be an issue on a mac where the same company is releasing the OS as the Applications being run on it. (at least the main ones (iphoto, iweb, ical, itunes, etc))

on a pc, every single program is made by a different company. much higher chance that an update screws something up.

just sayin’

ps have you used mac?

@patg7590 never had mac, but made mistake of playing around with macbook pro at the mac store and it’s been in my head nagging me ever since…“buy me, buy me”. so considering the price, i was kind of relieved that the guy yesterday advised against it… the voice died down considerably

a bottom tier mac still outperforms a mid range pc on specs and performance (lappys at least)

some other things to consider

the power cords on mac lappys are magnetic, so in a fall or if someone trips, it gets safely disconnected

on a pc, they plug right in and one fall or trip can dislodge the power jack from the board. A repair usually costing $160—$200

no real virus threat=$50/year saved

basic software that is actually good is included – iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, Garageband, etc.

little things like this add up.

In the long run, the pc may not save you money.

if you want a beautiful, seamless, intuitive computing experience get a mac. If you need windows, you can always do that through boot camp.

if you want to (possibly) save money get a pc.

well i’ve been fine using free antivirus programs so that’s not an issue.
and while the macbook pro looks and feels great and has great specs, seems like the lenovo or fujitsu are equally good for $1000 less. that’s pretty considerable.

you can’t really compare a MBP and a $900 Lenovo :/ not spec wise at least
im saying if the comprable price difference is around $300 like if you got a Macbook
anyways if you are completely settled on one of those two I would recommend the Lenovo.
If I had to buy a PC is would most likely be a lenovo.
but it would be running ubuntu
:D

the lenovos and fujitsus i was comparing to the MBP were between $1500 and $2500

“seems like the lenovo or fujitsu are equally good for $1000 less. that’s pretty considerable.”

now its my turn to be confused

MBP prices are $1199, $1699, and $2499
13”, 15”, 17” respectively
?

hmm, i didn’t see that. the top of the line was over 3, $3400 if i remember correctly, and i didn’t see any at $1200… going to have to recheck

by the way you’ve helped me out a lot with this computer info, here’s a tip in return, “anyways” isn’t a word, although it seems to be spreading like a virus. guess people just ignore their spell checkers for some reason. baffles me.

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

thanks for the tip, I actually know that “anyways” isn’t a word, my finance says it constantly and I say it obnoxiously to her to get her to realize it, but alas, it has become part of my vocabulary now haha

told you it was viral…

thanks for the link, and all your help

you’re welcome
have a good one

A netbook is good if you use mostly web apps, and are on the go a lot. The Asus eee1000 is really nice to use.

I personally prefer a Mac, but I also drive a Honda, and don’t have the need to customize a system in big ways. I like what I buy to do what I want it to do without me having to customize.

I go back and forth between a mac laptop at home and a windows laptop at work, and I hate my work laptop.

@patg7590 ok. i had a week moment last night and bought a 13“MBP.

remains to be seen whether you will get thanks and praise, or scorn and blame.

@archer haha congradulations!
if you need any help at all- just let me know. I’m here for you.
We’re like family now

@archer: Congratulations. I’m glad you have been able to retain your sanity. Now you can focus on world peace.

Pretend I’m the mom. It’s weak and not week. The latter is the one with seven days in it.

omg i did write “week”! that just illustrates the level of devastation spending that kind of money on a notebook can have on the mind and emotion of a proud, self-identified and confirmed cheapskate

as far as world peace, you take that assignment, i’d rather work on world freedom. #iranelection