Mini laptop (netbook)

[12noon]

Hi,

Has anyone seen those mini laptops (netbooks) that mobile phone shops are now selling ?

The mini's are only small and are about half the size of a normal laptop. They also don't have a CD / DVD drive and are mostly set up for just using in the internet. They do have USB slots though, so can take add-ons. Do you think they are worth the money they cost ?

[SensoVision]

welcome back, Graham, it's nice to see you again!
I've seen some small laptops but I thought they had built in DVD drive but specially didn't checked it.
Anyway it's look pretty fancy but not at the price they sold here, as it's just a bit cheaper than normal sized notebook.

[12noon]

Thanks Denis for the welcome back.
 
My sister works in the Vodafone shop in my home town and was showing me one of these mini laptops the other day. They are actually Dell mini laptops with built in Vodafone mobile broadband. They have a 8.9inch LCD screen, 1.6GHZ Intel Atom Processor, 1GB Ram and a 8GB SSD hard drive. I'm not sure the price per month is worth it, but if you don't have a laptop and don't have a connection to the internet, then i think one of these would be ok for doing stuff like surfing the internet and doing your email from anywhere where a mobile phone can be used.

[SensoVision]

sounds like a nice solution for people who traveling frequently. But what about monitor resolution, is it big enough to provide acceptable browsing for most modern sites?

[Andy]

I doubt whether this product would be good value for money in common with everything in the UK, especially if it is offered by Vodafone!

Let me guess, it will be £500 and £30 per month subscription. Double this for the rough price in USD.

[Manu]

I have seen a lot of them as I visit local computer stores quite often to check out the new stuff.

Well, I would prefer not to work rather than working on them. They are quite small to be worked on IMO. Keyboard is very small too. They are basically targeted towards women. They come with vista pre installed and don't have any collaboration with telecom companies here.

The most famous ones are HCL's X series which costs about Rs 14,000 ($294) and V series which costs about Rs. 31,000 ($660)

[SensoVision]

Manu, they are so cheap there. I think that such price is really make sense to have device like this in travel. if I'm not wrong here they cost about 900$ or so, I'll check prices if would be in shop.

[Manu]

Manu, they are so cheap there. I think that such price is really make sense to have device like this in travel. if I'm not wrong here they cost about 900$ or so, I'll check prices if would be in shop.

Well, India has the cheapest computers, gadgets, airfare, phone call rates, broadband, liquor, mobile phones etc. Its the volume game here + the recent strongness of dollar against Indian Rupee has also made it look cheap to you in terms of rate quoted in $. Two months ago Rs 31,000 would have been $760 instead.

I guess these are lower end models too.

[SensoVision]

Thanks, Manu! Didn't know that it's so cheap there, I should definitely take a closer look to gadgets from India since they are affordable. Maybe if you know any good online shops you can share them?

the recent strongness of dollar against Indian Rupee has also made it look cheap to you in terms of rate quoted in $. Two months ago Rs 31,000 would have been $760 instead.

but aren't prices start to grow if dollar become stronger? At least it happened here all the time. And after yesterday dismiss of parliament it'll surely affect exchange rate even more.

[12noon]

The Inspiron mini 9 from Dell in the UK is £299. I think that Vodafone (mobile phone shop) are giving them away free as long as you take up a 2 year broadband contract with them at either £25 or £30 per month depending on the internet package you want.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/inspnnb/includes/en/emea/laptop_inspiron-9_superview?c=uk&l=en

Above is a link to some pictures of the mini laptop. I don't know what the screen will be like for reading text, but it doesn't look that bad.

[Manu]

There are many online Indian stores like Sify, Indiatimes, Rediff, IndiaPlaza, CompareIndia Futurebazaar etc. But I guess they do not deliver outside India.

Stores that I know deliver worldwide are http://shopping.SurfIndia.com and www.IndiaPlaza.com

As far as the rates are concerned, most computer manufacturers hiked them marginally from October. I guess it could be because of stronger dollar.

[SensoVision]

Thanks Manu! I'll finish my today tasks and check out shops you've advised.

[donecweb]

I am writing this on an AA1 (Acer Aspire One) with an 8Gb SSD and I have added a 16Gb SDHC card. It has a 8.9 inch screen, no optical drive and works very well. I got one with Linpus Linux on it but it was too restricted so I changed to Onelinux a version of Ubuntu that has been customized for the AA1. I paid $329.00 for it. The odd thing for me is how many people are doing modifications to the AA1 and it keeps on working I mean people have been tearing AA1's apart and making all kinds of hardware changes like soldering new hardware into it and changing the hardware and it keeps on working even with amateurs doing all this. This tells me it is a very well made netbook.

[SensoVision]

Don, do you plan modding your laptop as well?

[12noon]

As far as i know the Advent 4211 is a little bit better than the Acer Aspire One. Both look very good to me though.

BTW i've edited the subject of this topic because it turns out that these mini laptops are called netbooks.