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We're looking for a smaller netbook to have with us at con weekends; something around a 12" screen. For convenience, we want a Windows 7 system; both my wife and I use Windows 7 on our work machines, so we're not looking to "upgrade" to Windows 8. We also want to configure it with at least 4GB of RAM (and a 64-bit OS). The Acer Aspire One looks as though it might be a suitable machine, but there are so many different model codes it's hard to work out what is in any model. There's also at least one HP Pavilion model that looks interesting.
Does anyone have any particular recommendations for or against any particular machine, or any suggestions for models we've overlooked? And can anyone recommend a website that will enable us to compare performance, battery life, etc. for different candidate machines?
As a Dell employee, I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest our own offering. Have you looked at the XPS 13 ultrabook yet? It's very lightweight and well-made. The fact it uses solid-state drives also means you don't need to worry about moving parts on a machine that you'll be toting around everywhere.
As far as comparisons go, you might try CNET.com.
Happy hunting! :)
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Here's the big question what are you using this for?
If it's for gaming PDF's perhaps one of the upper range tablets might serve you better. Among other things, they've got much longer battery life than a laptop.
Gaming PDFs are adequately covered; we've got an ASUS Transformer Prime which will run for an entire convention of typical use without needing a recharge. This is mostly for having HeroLab available to us over the weekend without having to bring a 17" behemoth. But we do expect it to get some use between conventions, as well (such as when one of us is at an out-of-town conference), so it will also be running Microsoft Office and Photoshop Elements, and possibly even Adobe Lightroom.
What's your budget? I have had good luck with both Dell and Sony refurbished laptops, both for myself and friends/family/customers. Acer also seems to be improving in build quality on their most recent models.
If you can do it, I strongly getting a laptop with an LCD panel of at least 1600x900/"Full HD+" resolution, even in the 11" to 13" range. 1366x768 sucks when trying to read highly-formatted portrait PDFs, like Paizo's and many 3pps, or doing any image manipulation. I'd suggest a minimum of 4GB of RAM (whether it ships with it or you drop in an upgrade yourself). I'd avoid an Atom processor (and AMD Fusion C- and E-series processors) unless your budget was extremely tight.
Acer has a little 11" Aspire V5 with an i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and Win8 64-bit for $449. StartIsBack ($3 after 30-day trial) eliminates much of the Win8 interface annoyance. Unfortunately, it's a 1366x768 screen, but you might be ok with it if your PDF and Adobe usage isn't too heavy. The one I set up wasn't too bad with the shovelware, and it cleaned off/uninstalled quite easily. Keyboard was quite good and usable in spacing and key travel. It had SUB 3.0, a DisplayPort and 15-Pin analog SVGA connector. I think the customer is getting around 3.5-4 hours battery life (not the 5 hours listed), but YMMV. Upgrading the RAM and hard drive is through a one or two screw/single panel removal on the bottom. The hard drive is a 5400RPM SATA 3, but you shouldn't need a bigger/faster one (or Flash HD) for a while. The standard 4GB is one a single SRAM, leaving you with one socket free to drop in another 4GB to 8GB max (some notebooks ship with both SDRAM slots filled, so you have to replace them both). And that's all I can remeber. Disclaimer: And no, I have never worked for Acer (or Dell).
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My budget is more weight than price. It definitely has to come in under 5lbs, and the lower the weight the better. That means that there probably isn't going to be an optical drive in the system, but that's OK - I can get an external USB one for occasional use. More important is multiple USB sockets (one will usually be dedicated to a wireless mouse), and ideally a built-in SD card reader.
Obviously price does factor into it somewhat. I'm not looking to spend $2000 on an absolute bleeding-edge system, but if I go for an SSD for lower weight, longer battery life, and increased I/O throughput I know that's going to add some to the price. But, equally, while I'd like an i7 system I'm not sure it's worth paying $200 or $300 more over an i5.
As you suspect, most of the latest systems (including every 1600x900 one that I've found) don't offer Windows 7 as an option. But Windows 8 is just too different, especially when you're trying to work with a couple of applications at the same time.
Visio has a 15" i5 with 4GB, Win7 64-bit, 128 GB SSHD, 1920x1080 LCD, and ~4lb. for $699. It's only got 2 USB 3.0 ports and apparently no SD card reader though. I've heard the touchpad driver can be a bit flaky, but I don't have any first hand experience with it or Visio's notebooks in general. (I like their TVs though.) But it's a big 15-incher LCD, even if it is light and thin.
Do you have a local office supply store/big box electronics retailer near you? If ou can, go see what you like the looks of in person, especial the keyboard feel/travel/spacing and the LCD panel quality. You can at least rule out what you don't like and maybe see a few things to look for.
But please, don't get an Atom processor.
Disclaimer 2: No, I don't work for Amazon either, but everyone can navigate around their site fairly easily.
But Windows 8 is just too different, especially when you're trying to work with a couple of applications at the same time.
I ended up dropping 64bit Win8Pro + Media Center on my aging refurbished Dell Vostro 2510 (2GB RAM, 1.8Ghz Core2Duo). I absolutely loath the Metro interface and absence of the Start button + menu. StartIsBack (review here) does a pretty nice job giving me back (re-enabling actually, Microsoft just disabled button + menu code for Win8) the Win7 interface, especially once you change your file preferences/defaults to using non-Metro applications. It's not perfect -- Metro still pops up everytime I hit the keyboard Windows key by mistake (Desktop! Get BACK TO THE DESKTOP!) -- but it works well enough that Win8 is usable.
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The Visio seems to have pretty terrible battery life, and lots of people seem to dislike the touchpad (and, in some cases, the keyboard).
I've got Fry's Electronics about five miles away (and Best Buy, and probably at least one more big box store, although both Comp USA and MicroStore have faded away), so I can probably find at least some examples to prod. I generally don't like using stores as showrooms, and then buying products elsewhere, but I'll make an exception for Fry's; they've caused me enough grief over the years (including outright lying to me about products) that I think they owe me something.
What do you think of the ASUS Zenbooks?
I'm satisfied with my ASUS Transformer Prime tablet, and I know a couple of folks who have the honking great 17.3" super game machine laptop, but the Zenbook is a rather different beast.
It seems to hit most of the must-haves for me; light, W7 64-bit, SSD available, SD card reader, two USB slots.
A friend of mine just travels the world by bike, having a 11.6" Lenovo Thinkpad with him. He's quite happy with it.
John: Judging by the specs you keep mentioning, you might be better served in telling people that you are looking for a lightweight laptop or ultrabook rather than a netbook. The reason I say this is because the i5 CPU, 64-bit OS, and 4GB RAM requirements you have are laptop-grade features. As someone who works for an actual computer company, only your ambivalence about an optical drive would say "netbook" to me. Also, as far as battery-life goes, part of the reason netbooks traditionally cost so little and run so long is because of the low-power components they use: Atom rather than Core.
What I'm trying to say is, if you are shopping for a lightweight 4x4, you'll only confuse the sales person/search results if you specify that you're shopping for a smart car. :)
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OK - substitute "Ultrabook" for Netbook.
I thought that was an Intel-defined term, with pretty strict requirements; I'm a little more flexible (some of the machines I've looked at don't meet the Ultrabook specifications).
I thought Netbook was the more generic term for "system somewhat lighter and/or smaller than a regular laptop".
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Thanks to Laithoron for prompting me to take another look at the Dell product line. I had a Dell notebook a long time ago (Win95, IIRC), but hadn't looked at them lately.
As of just over 12 hours ago I now have a (refurbished) XPS 13. It only missed out on one feature that I wanted - a built-in SD card reader - but scored pretty highly on everything else; it's really light, came with a 256GB SSD and Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, and has a good bright display and reasonable battery life.
It's just printed out a character sheet from HeroLab on our home wireless printers, and has a copy of all my Paizo PDF rulebooks & scenarios, so it's ready to come along to game night tomorrow!
Sweet, glad you like it! :)