Basically I’m looking for more powerful net access while out and about. I’ve dabbled with tablets and they’re nowhere near serious enough for me. Currently I’m using a 9 inch netbook pimped out with as much ram as would fit and a fat SSD, but I need more CPU power than Atom provides. I also have a 15 inch laptop but that’s bigger than I want to go.
I need more CPU power in a similar size, say 10 inch display with a thick border would be acceptable. More CPU means to me at least Core 2 at 2 GHz equivalent or more. Anyone know of anything in that size bracket that doesn’t cost £lots? I don’t care how thick it is, it’s the area I need minimised. It will be used for going on the internet 99% of the time so everything else isn’t really important. Battery life of a couple hours would do.
Having said Atom was too slow, I wonder if a current one might not be? My only impression of Atom is the one in my current netbook which is 1 core 2 thread 1.6 GHz and getting on for 3 years old I think. Shall have to look into how Atom architecture has changed over time.
Been look at a HP Mini 210-4120 family of netbooks.
Uses top of the range Atom at 1.86 GHz dual core 4 thread. It only comes with 1GB ram but the internet says it’s dead easy to drop a 2GB module in for an extra tenner or so. Haven’t looked if the HD is a standard 2.5 inch model which I can swap my existing SSD into.
I’m really not after a tablet, even if it runs Windows. 2nd one is far too big. I really don’t want to go past 10 inch, although it is starting to look like I might have to move to 11 inches to get something I forgot to mention earlier: 1366x768 resolution. No current netbook seems to offer that in 10 inch format, other than some really old models. 1024x600 is just too cramped.
Looks nice, but I keep thinking if 11.6 inches is getting rather close to my 15.4 inch anyway. Yes, it’s still a lot smaller, but not small enough to be small, if that makes sense? I think I’ll have to pop down a shop to look at 10/11-ish inch models and see how they compare in practice.
I have a Samsung Q45, it’s getting on a bit - had it more than 5 years, but it is basically the same size as a sheet of A4. I get about 4 hours out of it on battery and it’s great for traveling.
To dig up this thread, I did get a HP DM1 4400SA a month or two ago to replace the old netbook. Win8 supersized netbook around 11.6 inch screen. Uses some AMD processor that feels dead slow. In further looking up it was atom class so not that big a surprise I guess. Adequate ram at 4GB and the supplied hard disk was ok. The extra screen space helps a lot over the old netbook, and the battery in this one actually lasts more than a couple hours.
The key test: Tiberium Alliances runs horribly on it! Got a business trip on Saturday, think I’ll take my bigger laptop after all just to run that. This one remains a handy net access device otherwise.
About all the atom style processors are good for really. My Dell mini that I use for work is only good for data backwards and forwards from work and occasional RDP to a build server. Was running slower than normal earlier this year so I thought I’d run System Mechanic on it to clean it up. It could barely complete the disc examination! Gave up on the defrag, but did manage to finish the registry clean. Still not much better even after faffing about for 4 hours.
Oh, the HP came with Norton… immediate double in speed uninstalling that! Disk was also fragmented to hell even though it was new so have to wonder if when they make their images they don’t sort out things like that? Again a noticeable boost after letting it run… might take a while but do let it finish! Run overnight if need be.
I never got round to working out what all the HP own software does yet, so nuking them is another option that may help.
Wish they would include battery life on the spec pages