Eee Netbook: Motoring Computer Related forum

Computer Related > Eee Netbook	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Zero	Replies: 35

Thu 8 Apr 10 18:11

Eee Netbook - Zero

Well Nicole has been mithering that

a: her current laptop is too slow and weighty
b: saw a friends Eee Netbook
b1: saw a friends apple notebook
c: she is the only one without decent hardware

So despite my misgivings about Atom CPUs I let her buy the netbook she wanted - A smart little white Asus Eee seashell 1005HA

Firstly - the language problem. I have heard many issues of people buying these things, and presnted with the "choose language" choice. With an oversensitive tap touchpad, its mighty easy to end up with the default "finish" language. Once chosen you can not change it!

It takes forever to configure itself - around an hour. Once that is done it is festooned with stupid addons and programes. I have removed a full trial install of MS office AND MS works. Dropped the supplied Trend Micro security suite and installed MS Security esentials.

Fettled the registry start up and services and removed the carp. Installed the basic features of open office.

The bios was 6 months out of date and 4 releases down level.

Its now, tolerably fast. (I wouldnt tolerate it but hey ho) It does however how a delightful keyboard for one so small (nice feel, key size and spacing), and a nice bright clear screen and very light and portable.

And its cheap at £258 inc vat

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5

Thu 8 Apr 10 18:15

Eee Netbook - Runfer D'Hills

Interesting Zero. I've been threatening to buy one of those little mini-laptops for traveling purposes. I'd need one which could pick up email on the move both in this country and abroad. Forgive my ignorance but would I need a dongle thingy to go with it ?

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:26

Eee Netbook - Pat

Yes you would, but why not have a proper laptop like mine. It's a Dell Lattitude D410 and the disc drive is completely seperate and has to be plugged in.
This leaves the laptop itself nice and small and light, which is a bonus when fumbly fingers won't grip heavy ones.

Pat

Last edited by: pda on Thu 8 Apr 10 at 18:26

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:30

Eee Netbook - Runfer D'Hills

Thanks Pat. I already have a "normal" lappy but just fancied one of those little ones for a lighter briefcase. Just been on the Dell site funnily enough. They have some but I get easily confused........

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:28

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

Some have built in dongles, some need separate ones, whatever you decide on check the data roaming costs, I was stung 5 quid per MB in Eire last year, 3 quid per MB isn't uncommon.

Obviously a lot cheaper / free if you can use WiFi instead.

The flavour of Ubuntu on my Acer netbook is slowly driving me insane, must get round to sticking Win XP on it. It's tolerably quick provided you don't ask it to multi-task in any serious way.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:30

Eee Netbook - Zero

>> Interesting Zero. I've been threatening to buy one of those little mini-laptops for traveling purposes.
>> I'd need one which could pick up email on the move both in this country
>> and abroad. Forgive my ignorance but would I need a dongle thingy to go with
>> it ?

It has wireless so you could have a roaming hotspot account or yes one of the 3g dongles.

Pat

your dell is heavy compared to the Eee. The Eee is very light and compact. Fits in Nicoles kipling handbag

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Fri 9 Apr 10 05:19

Eee Netbook - Pat

I must have a look at those then. I kept dropping my old one when I was putting it back into the bag as gripping something narrow and heavy is always a problem.
The case cracked but it still worked fine!

I need it for my training and it would have to do PowerPoint and Word, I also use it on holiday or when away for normal internet and email.
Is the disc drive included in the main unit as mine is a bit messy with cables to set up if I have limited room for a presentation?

Pat

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Fri 9 Apr 10 09:37

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

Pat;

I'm not aware of any of the netbooks that have a built in optical drive, mind you there are always new ones coming out, and it's not something I keep an eye on. The vast majority of new models these days run Windows 7, older models XP - a few run Vista but not many. So they should pretty much all be capable of handling PPT and Word, certainly I use them on my Linux netbook using OpenOffice 3.1.

Could you not stick the presentations on USB memory stick?

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Thu 8 Apr 10 19:11

Eee Netbook - Tooslow

Humph,
I (well Mrs tooslow to be strictly correct) has a Lenovo netbook. unusual choice I know but as it cost nowt :-)

My only real criticism is the screen size, the depth in particular. I use mapping software and I had to plug in an external monitor to tick the box that suppresses the crap at start up. On Firefox (don't try IE, it's a total dog on this m/c) I have to hack away at the tool bars to be left with any visible space.

It's a great little machine, useful for keeping up with email and odd things while away, not to mention saving & viewing photos, but I would buy a small, cheap laptop with a bigger screen for preference.

Incidentally, the latest Atoms are not bad. probably blow the pants off my last pc :-)

JH

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Thu 8 Apr 10 19:40

Eee Netbook - Zero

>>
>> Incidentally the latest Atoms are not bad. probably blow the pants off my last pc

This is an N270. It has one 1gig sodimm (it only has one slot - so would have to be hoiked out for the preferable 2gig - have you seen the price of memory lately? 2gb is 40 quid!)
and has a 250gb drive.

Its not a rocket for sure, but, as long as you dont expect it to do too much, it seems to do the basics ok. Certainly faster once I dumped all the carp. I suspect with 2GB it would be much better.

The 10 inch scree is lacking a little in real estate, but again it does the basics you need, and is bright and readable. The keyboard is very very good for its size, useable by my hocks of ham fingers.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:30

Eee Netbook - captain grimes

it
>> is festooned with stupid addons and programes. I have removed a full trial install of
>> MS office AND MS works. Dropped the supplied Trend Micro security suite and installed MS
>> Security esentials.

Bit late now, but for future reference take a look at www.pcdecrapifier.com/ - a handy piece of freeware that, er, decrapifies your new pc.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:33

Eee Netbook - Zero

Just checked it out. Alas it would not have removed all the carp involved here.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:38

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

>> Just checked it out. Alas it would not have removed all the carp involved here.
>>
>>

The new HP PC I set up for a neighbour a few weeks back had the MS Works full version + Office trial version as well, seems to be becoming common. Both wiped off and replaced with OpenOffice 3.1. Norton replaced with MSE etc. etc.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 18:38

Eee Netbook - Runfer D'Hills

I'd like one which has Word, Excel and Email, it wouldn't have to do much more. Wonder why you can't just buy one like that.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 19:35

Eee Netbook - merlin

I have a Eee 1000HE - previous gen to the 1005HA. I wouldn't being doing without mine. It's very convenient to have where ever I am in the house and it's not too slow. Agree about the carp. I always do a clean O/S install - that takes care of that problem.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 19:44

Eee Netbook - Runfer D'Hills

Wish I had a neighbour who knew as much about these things as some of you clearly do. Sadly when I start to try to understand what I'm sure are really very simple terms and jargon I'm lost. It would be great to just be able to say to someone, "I want it to do this, this and this please. Now can you take everything else off ?"

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Thu 8 Apr 10 19:53

Eee Netbook - Zero

does work not have a guru?

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Thu 8 Apr 10 19:55

Eee Netbook - Runfer D'Hills

We have one who thinks she is. My laptop has never worked as well since I let her loose on it.

:-(

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Thu 8 Apr 10 20:30

Eee Netbook - Iffy

Humph,

I have an original seven-inch Eee PC which some on here would laugh at, but it's perfectly adequate for surfing, email and basic office applications.

There's really no need to remove loads of stuff to make the machine work well enough, unless you are a very demanding user.

The Windows 7 basic operating system found on some netbooks has been well received, although there are those who will always knock Microsoft, whatever they produce.

What has not been mentioned is battery life.

Get one with a longer lasting battery - eight to 12 hours, some quote only two or three, which is not really enough.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 20:40

Eee Netbook - rtj70

For Internet on the move, also consider what they call MiFi personal wifi hotspots using the mobile networks. I have one and it's quite good. But I'd not use it overseas as is - I'd need to hack it and put in a foreign SIM to keep costs down.

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Thu 8 Apr 10 21:52

Eee Netbook - Runfer D'Hills

Good stuff chaps, I'd press the "thank you" button if I had one. I got some doofers back for a while but they've gone again !

Edit - I'm confused !

Last edited by: Humph D'bout on Thu 8 Apr 10 at 21:55

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1

Fri 9 Apr 10 00:44

Eee Netbook - VxFan

Humph, what browser are you using, and have you got all the add ons enabled?

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Fri 9 Apr 10 09:56

Eee Netbook - Bagpuss

My wife has an EeePC 901A in white with a 9" screen and an SD Card instead of a hard drive. It has an amazingly nice keyboard for something so cheap and is small enough to fit into Mrs B's handbag. We went for the Xandros version so no Windows rubbish and I think it's a brilliant device for mobile internet surfing, documentation and the like. It has limitations due to screen and memory size but we knew that when we bought it.

The main irritation is the automatic updating for Xandros which makes icons disappear and reappear at random and, on one occasion, caused various keyboard keys to stop working.

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Fri 9 Apr 10 11:53

Eee Netbook - Zero

> We went for the Xandros version so no Windows rubbish

> The main irritation is the automatic updating for Xandros which makes icons disappear and reappear at random and, on one occasion, caused various keyboard keys to stop working.

So you chose Xandros rubbish instead?

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Fri 9 Apr 10 12:08

Eee Netbook - Bagpuss

I'm prepared to forgive the Xandros foibles up to a point because at the very least it's cheap and unpretentious rubbish. It's also very self-explanatory as the Xandros toolbar for example actually has as standard, shock, horror, an icon which means "Shut down".

If I were going for usability and ergonomics I would have bought a Macbook but that wouldn't fit in Mrs B's handbag and would have made a far more substantial hole in my wallet.

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Fri 9 Apr 10 16:06

Eee Netbook - Iffy

The original Linux operating system on my Eee PC soldiers on reliably.

You can't do a lot with it, and it's definitely nothing to look at, but it fires up and shuts down quickly.

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Fri 9 Apr 10 16:30

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

The original Linpus Lite on my Acer worked OK but was really locked down and you couldn't do much other than surf the net or word processing - ideal for FT?

I couldn't find any way of getting networked shared folders or printers working, so gave up and switched to easypeasy ( Ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix tailored for AAO), network shares and everything are a doddle...but I can't for the life of me get the internal or external Mics. working, which isn't too good when you're trying to use Skype. :-/

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Fri 9 Apr 10 18:20

Eee Netbook - Iffy

...was really locked down...

Good way to put it.

I got my printer to work on the Eee - it was in the list of pre-installed drivers.

But it seems very reluctant to allow me to download any software - no chance of updating Firefox, for example.

Nor will it let me update Open Office, I'm still on version 2.0.

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Fri 9 Apr 10 19:35

Eee Netbook - Zero

fortunately the 1005Ha is a proper functioning PC, complete with a pukka copy of Win7

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Sat 10 Apr 10 07:44

Eee Netbook - Iffy

tinyurl.com/y9h7t5j

A decent spec netbook is the featured product on the QVC shopping channel today.

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1

Sat 10 Apr 10 11:40

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

>> tinyurl.com/y9h7t5j
>>
>> A decent spec netbook is the featured product on the QVC shopping channel today.
>>
A somewhat cheaper, but lower spec. one direct from Dell:-

tinyurl.com/yybt7v7

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Sat 10 Apr 10 11:59

Eee Netbook - Iffy

...A somewhat cheaper, but lower spec. one direct from Dell...

Looks a better bet.

Smaller 160gb drive should be more than adequate for most users, particularly as a netbook is likely to be a second or third computer.

Six cell battery suggests to me it's the longer lasting one.

No protection, but hey, Avast! is free.

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Sat 10 Apr 10 12:03

Eee Netbook - Zero

as is MSSE

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Sat 10 Apr 10 12:11

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

>> as is MSSE
>>

.. and AVG, AntiVir etc. etc., although MSE is my default option for replacing paid for stuff these days.

Talking of HDD sizes the HP I mentioned earlier up thread has a 1TB HDD as standard, the neighbour's old machine had a 60GB HDD and that was only half full after 7 years, so 1TB will last them a long long time.

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Sat 10 Apr 10 12:16

Eee Netbook - spamcan61

>> ...A somewhat cheaper but lower spec. one direct from Dell...
>>
>> Looks a better bet.
>>
My usual source for Dell specific deals is dmxdimension:-

www.dmxdimension.com/

I also hang about on hotukdeals, which can be painful reading at times but some good deals there:-

www.hotukdeals.com/

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Sat 10 Apr 10 12:13

Eee Netbook - Bagpuss

>> tinyurl.com/y9h7t5j
>>
>> A decent spec netbook is the featured product on the QVC shopping channel today.

It looks nice, but it's double the price of an EeePC and I think you'd need a big handbag to carry it in.

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