Friday, March 27, 2009

What netbook should I get?

I've decided I want a netbook, one of those diminutive, cheap laptops that are all the rage these days.

I currently have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop, about 2 years old. It's still plenty powerful with a dual-core processor, but it is bulky and heavy at about 8 pounds. It has a DVD/RW drive that I never use, and a 15" screen... bigger than you really need for a laptop, but not big enough to watch movies on comfortably from more than a few feet away. As a result, it hardly ever leaves the house unless I'm going for more than a few days, and it's a real pain to take on the plane.

So I want to sell it and get a netbook. I have a few concerns, though.
  • I have pretty big hands and do a lot of coding, so I want a keyboard that's not too ridiculous. With that in mind, I think I would prefer a 10" netbook over a 9" one, but not 100% sure.
  • I'd prefer one that can take a regular 2.5" hard drive. Many of the netbooks have flash memory in a non-standard form factor. It's (a) small and slow, (b) expensive to upgrade, and (c) doesn't reduce the weight, size, or power consumption enough to offset these disadvantages.
  • I don't care whether it comes with Windows or Linux. I'm going to run Linux either way.
  • Built-in Bluetooth would be nice so I can use my phone for free Internet access without even taking it out of my pocket.
The Dell and HP and Lenovo models seem a bit overpriced for getting basically the exact same thing as the smaller brands. Here are the models that have intrigued me the most in terms of price and features:
  • MSI Wind: it's 10", has 1gb of RAM, takes 2.5" hard drives, has built-in Bluetooth, and is about $300 with a 160gb hard drive. Weighs 2.3 lbs. But how's the keyboard?
  • ASUS Eee PC 1000: very similar specs to the MSI Wind, supposed to have a very nice keyboard, and a bigger 6-cell battery. Weighs about 3 lbs. Worth the extra $40 and weight?
  • ASUS Eee PC 1000: very similar specs to the MSI Wind, supposed to have a very nice keyboard, and a bigger 6-cell battery. Weighs about 3 lbs. Worth the extra $40 and weight?
  • ASUS Eee PC 900 or Acer Aspire One: even tinier 9" models, and cheap. About $250 with similar specs to the 10" models. Too small??
So does anybody have any experience with these, preferably more than one of them? Which of them have nice keyboards? Any hidden features or bugs I should be aware of?

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