Netbook for College

[Hob Hayward]

Originally Posted by DFSniper

either will work fine. and resolution isnt really a problem since the screen is so small anyway.

Idk, good resolution is a must for me. The 1024x600 screens that alot of netbooks have won't display the full width of a lot of modern websites without scrolling to the side.

I also like windows 7, but I have a feeling the 3 app limit would be annoying as hell... Could always just stick ubuntu on there or something. Maybe the netbooks version?

[timmyshoota]

This is why I didn't get a netbook for school and got a 13in Macbook Pro. Its small and easily portable, and can run every application at one time if I want. Price is 3-4 times the cost of a netbook though.

[Hob Hayward]

Truth, theres also ultraportables and stuff that have the formfactor of a netbook but are much more powerful, but are usually even more expensive than the 13" macbook pro.

[timmyshoota]

I'm pretty sure I'll never buy a PC again after making the switch to Mac.

OS X = <3.

[Hob Hayward]

lol good grief.. another mac fanboii.........

I'm prettymuch impartial to OS, I got a dell laptop last year before going to college for mad cheap, got me 8hrs of battery life at the time though (alot less now after mannnny charge cycles). It's triple booted with winxp, ubuntu and osx. Still does what I need most of the time.

All the OS's have their place, but I really do like windows 7. MS did an excellent job after their past failures.. and it's easily the best OS they've made thus far. Wayyy more secure than xp, and slightly more efficient too. Of course I'm typing this from my Core i7 desktop in ubuntu... oh well. Eventually it'll have a real copy of windows and a copy of snow leopard (currently has leopard, but I never bothered to make it fully functional... don't really have any application for it anyways other than bragging rights, everything I use also runs in windows, or only runs in windows).

Anyways, apple shanks you in the gut for hardware costs (claimed OS superiority makes up the price dif?), thus I personally won't be buying one anytime soon.

[interceptorMR2]

Ok so here's the next question... how well would W7 run on only 1GB RAM? That or should I just be looking around for a netbook with upgradable RAM?

[DFSniper]

it will run, but probably not as well as it could. you'd have to disable a lot of aeroglass stuff, but thats mainly a graphics issue.

[bigred76]

If its running Starter, its optimized to work already without all the fancy Aero features. Its essentially a much more reliable XP that has some but not all of the W7 appearance. I have 4GB of ram in my desktop currently, and in Windows 7 Home Premium with all the fancy **** running it typically is at about 20-35% RAM in use (about 1GB). Take off the memory hoarding features and it'd work just fine with 1GB.

Chris, noone likes fanboys who pay way too much.

[interceptorMR2]

"I'll buy anything that's shiny and made by Apple."
Anyone familiar with the Macbook Wheel? lol

Okay so I guess I won't really worry too much about the operating system. So another thing that came up was the solid state drives. Are those worth the extra cost? I know its "safer" but considering I don't plan on going through some big action scene chase in between classes, is it really that big of a deal? I mean, all the reviews I've read have called it a must-have, especially since for a netbook you don't really need a ton of room for such basic stuff.

[DFSniper]

i wouldnt worry about it. not like you'll be doing a lot of loading with your netbook.