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Netbooks

Anyone else have one? I just bought an ASUS Eee 1000HEB Netbook and was really quite pleased. It is very small but has everything I wanted when getting it. I was just looking for something that I could use to surf, check emails, maybe play some online poker, and that's about it. Just something to use when away from my main system at home. This is really perfect for those things. I will never use it for anything photographic so that is no concern. The only thing that really bugged me was not having any kind of disc device. I bought a nice external USB 2.0 CD/DVD read writer to go with it and everything fits nicely in a small bag about the size of my lunch kit. Anyone else have one of these mini mites or am I alone in this arena?
James Newman
 
It's great for just those purposes. It has Windows XP, 160G HD, builtin wireless, and a 10" screen. The keyboard is nothing special but very usable. At Best Buy it was $349. I added in a wireless mouse for myself because I hate those small touch pads that laptops have. And I bought the external disc drive. For what it is and what I bought it for, it is just what I wanted.
James
 
I got the earliest version - Asus eee 700 - 18 months ago and have used it happily and daily ever since. My version uses linux as the operating system, has a 4 gig solid state drive, and a slightly smaller screen than more recent models. It came with the open source equivalent to MS Office that is fully compatible - at least for my needs - with the 2003-7 version of MS Office and lots of other goodies. I use it for all power point presentations and editing MS Word Documents while travelling. The keyboard is adequate even with my big fingers, although I sometimes plug an external keyboard into one of the three USB slots. The clarity of both the screen and speakers are higher than those of my ThinkPad laptop that cost five times the price of the ASUS.
The limited 4 gig memory space proved to be no problem. I simply email completed files to myself as attachments and download them into my office computer. The solid state drive is robust indeed - twice I got the electric cord twisted around my leg, resulting in the Asus being thrown halfway across the room but with no harm to the machine. It's the computer equivalent of a Nikon F4 in that respect, very durable despite accidental mistreatment.
The machine came with a Windows XP disk that could replace Linux as the operating system, but I pleased I stuck with the latter. It's up and running within 20 seconds with no need for an invasive protection system like Norton that slows everything down. Obviously, it is unable to run Windows based photoediting programs or any other program that requires lots of memory or speed, but that is not its purpose. Used as a netbook or for editing Office files, it's near perfect.
Cheers
Mike
 

Umesh Bhatt

New member
I have a MSI Wind U120. If i may chip in - it has its uses. It usually serves as my main surfing and email tool while away - and i must admit is more convinent to use as compared to the iPhone. I have presented slideshows by connecting it to a projector and have even tried using it to shoot tethered with my Nikon camera (MFDBs require FW which my Netbook doesnt have). The keyboard is almost full size, and quite usable. I use an external mouse (Logitech Nano Wireless)...and the combination works great.

I sync the 160GB with a network disk via SuperDuper! - which makes the images accessible on my home network (and from the desktop) and thus gets imported into LR.

For notes - I use evernote - which does not need sync - because it is always synced to the web.

Finally - I have an extra travel adapter - lets me charge the laptop on the road....and in the car....

At $300 bucks - i think it was a good buy.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What photo capable netbook?

I have a MSI Wind U120. ..........
At $300 bucks - i think it was a good buy.
This and the Asus seem interesting. Simple documents, email but also pictures! How about being able to look at images and do some edits to be able to post images online?

Also, how about weight?

Thanks,

Asher
 

Phil Marion

New member
when I go on 4-5 week long vacations I have been taking my ancient Fujitsu P2110 (I upgraded the HD to 120 GB). I love it because it was the best small laptop available at the time (2001). It s/b in a museum now and am looking to upgrade. I really only use it for downloading my RAW files every night (while on vacation). The screen is big enough that I can use it to determine things like critical focus. It is better than my 30D lcd screen. I use it to delete any RAWs that are unusable. It still views images quickly with Faststone viewer. It's max RAM of 512 gb means I don't use it for any serious processing - though I can play with DPP if I want. I do all my processing when I return home on my PC. It's Transmeta CPU is seriusly lacking. I need an upgrade. I am seriously looking at getting the new line of small laptops mentioned above. I feel they do have SOME photographic use - at least for temporary storage and viewing.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I am seriously looking at getting the new line of small laptops mentioned above. I feel they do have SOME photographic use - at least for temporary storage and viewing.

Phil,

What's needed is low weight and sufficient processing to work with a light program like Microsoft Expression to grade and sort images and send some off. The key for me is cutting down weight. I'd love to hear more from users who do initial work on the notebook.

Asher
 

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
I have the EEEPC 1000HE. Upped the spec with a 2gb stick of RAM and a 320gb 7200rpm hard drive and I've overclocked the processor to 1.81ghz (standard is 1.66).

It's still not fast by any means but it's a perfect travel machine, heck it fits in the pocket of the seat infront on the flights which makes me very happy, don't have to bother with taking bags down and putting them back from the overhead bins.

I can download my work to the laptop and use bridge/lightroom although it's pretty slow at doing 100% previews but then it's a pretty slow processor! Using bridge (faster than LR on the netbook) it takes approx 3.5 hours (5 on LR) to build 100% previews from 1200 5D RAW files and when I have them sorting and organising is very fast. If you don't need 100% previews then you'll be up and working in minutes literally. ACR doesn't fit on the screen (LR is no problem) but I use an external screen when abroad and I can edit 200 files at a time in ACR no problem at all. I convert to DNG often within ACR but haven't timed it, not as long as you would think actually. Haven't tried timing saving to jpg and I haven't tried anything with photoshop.

The battery life in the real world is 7 or so hours and I have a spare which will give me an extra 9 hours. Never had to use it once. I can use the built in wifi, webcam, mike and speakers to talk to my wife and daughter when I'm abroad, read ebooks or listen to music. I could watch DVD's if I was into it which I'm not. Even the power adaptor is tiny. The tracker pad is the biggest on a notebook though the buttons location is a bit fiddly, the keyboard is a 'chiclet' style and you can touchtype with it.

It's not as fast as my other laptop, a 15.4 widescreen toshiba monster with a core 2 duo 2.0ghz and 4 gig of ram, a computer that is basically a desktop in mini, however it is tiny, light and has amazing battery life, all of which are missing from regular laptops. Every time the netbook is slow doing something I think to myself 'I forgive it everything for being so small, light and not making me swop batteries every 1.5 hours'!

Keep in mind what it's been designed for and you will be very very happy with a netbook.

Did I mention that my final cost, including all the upgrading specs and spare battery, was just £390? That's very good indeed for the king of the netbooks and I stuck the 120gb HD that came with it into a £2.50 USB enclosure so now I have an extra portable HD as well...
 
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