At some point over the next few months, my little brother Dan Karpuk is going to need a computer for college. I am somewhat at a loss as to what to recommend. Here are three 10 inch notebooks at Amazon, each for around $400.
Samsung NC10-14GB 
- 10.2″ Wide, 1024 x 600 WSVGA , 220 nits
- Intel Atom processor N270, 1.6 GHz, 533 MHz Front Side Bus, 512 KB Level 2 Cache
- 160 GB, 2.5” HD, 1 GB DDR2 800 MHz
- Intel 945GSE shared, 802.11 b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 10/100 BaseTX LAN
- 6-Cell Lithium Ion, Genuine Microsoft XP® Home with Service Pack 3, 1.3 Mega Pixel webcam, Kensington Key Lock, 1 year standard parts and labor, 2.8 lbs
HP 1035NR 
- 10.2-inch (Diagonal) WSVGA LCD Infinity BrightView LED Display, 1024 x 600 Resolution
- 1.60 GHz Intel Atom Processor N270 with 512KB L2 Cache
- 1024MB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm), 60GB (4200RPM) Hard Drive, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (shared) with up to 128MB Total Available Graphics Memory
- 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth
- Genuine Windows XP Home Edition, approx., 2.38 lbs
ASUS Eee PC 1000HA 
- Operating system: Windows XP Home
- Internal memory: 160 GB hard disk drive (HDD)
- RAM: 1 GB DDR2
- Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom
- Memory expansion: Slot for MMC/SD(SDHC) cards
- Screen: 10 inches, 1024 x 600 pixels, LED backlight
- Networking: 54g Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), 10/100 Fast Ethernet
- Bluetooth connectivity: No
- Peripheral connectivity: Three USB 2.0
- External video: One VGA
- Webcamera: Yes, 1.3 megapixels
- Battery: 6 cells (6600 mAh), up to 7 hours
- Weight: 3.19 pounds (51 ounces)
These notebooks are ridiculously cheap. Add in a Wireless Optical Desktop Keyboard & Mouse
The question of course, is this enough machine?
Is price a big factor? I’m a Mac person, so I’m leaning toward an Apple product. I also like to have Bluetooth connectivity, but it’s not a must. Other than that, I’m don’t have much to contribute : ( Good luck!
Pang raises a good point. Apple is definitely more money for equal performance. My fear is that if he uses a Mac on a campus that is mainly PC, he may have some issues using the network. A knowledgeable user likely wouldn’t have a problem but an inexperienced Mac owner might have some headaches.
I notice these are all “netbooks”. If that’s the direction you’re going, I’ve heard good things of Lenovo (formerly IBM).
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087¤t-category-id=BEB99027EA3140D5AE22059B91F3AF15
Also of note, netbooks are designed for “extreme” portability. For this, you make some sacrifices, mostly performance and useability. They have tiny keyboards and monitors and aren’t generally very “snappy”.
It might be worth looking at a traditional laptop. They are only slightly more money and the performance/ergonomics gains are often well worth it for anyone that isn’t concerned with ultra portable hardware.
Okay, I guess I didn’t realize how small these are. I just measured my little laptop and its got a twelve inch screen. That is about as small as I would go.
Generally, I really like the little laptops. Its so easy to carry around the house with one hand. It would also be great for carrying around campus. I agree with you on “usability” if you have to type a lot, but that’s why if I recommended a small one I say that he needs to get the monitor and keyboard for heavy use….
Yeah, I thought about that. I still have my first laptop, purchased in 1997, sitting under my bed. I lost the chord so I can’t turn it on and check out my specs. I just weighed it in at eight pounds however, plus four pounds for the leather carryall. Add in fifteen pounds of books and no wonder I had to have a backpack that had hip straps and aluminum bars for back support!! Of course, those specs were incredible compared to my first mac that I had bought just three years earlier… http://newsburglar.com/2008/01/24/early-macs/
25 megahertz (MHz) processor.
Four MB of RAM
160 MB hard disk
2400 baud modem
All that for only $1,400.
From what I’ve seen around campus during my first year as a grad student, plenty of students now have Mac. There are plenty network support for it, too. Still, as Mike pointed out, number of software for Mac is still limited. Depending on what your brother wants to do, he might be fine (if he chooses Mac). I think Mac is a lot more user-friendly. Joe cusses at his PC all the time. Then again, he cusses at everything : )
Talking about old laptop, I might still have the old IBM, circa somewhere between 1990-1993. It’s super small, like may be 13″. It has the early version of LCD. The screen looks all squishy when you touch it : )
Morningside included a shiny new IBM clone PC with your tuition. 386 baby.
I was at Best Buy yesterday. I hadn’t looked at a computer in a long time so I stopped into the laptop department. Wow. I can’t believe how light laptops have become relative to size. Especially if they’ve got the flash hard-drive.
I bought my wife an acer aspire for like $450 about 2 months ago. Its got a pentium dual core, 160GB HDD, 3 GB RAM, Windows Vista Home Premium and a 14 inch widescreen display. Its VERY portable but has a full size keyboard. She loves it. And don’t let the nonsense in the media about Vista scare you, its a great OS.
What are your thoughts on which operating system to get over the next few months. XP is still available. Vista is languishing. The Windows 7 beta should be out shortly.
And, you could always use bootcamp or whatever to dual load the Mac OS.
I thought I saw something about Window 7 beta being released as a free download… You might want to google it.
Windows 7 beta is out for download. From what I’ve read, it will probably see final release late fall of 09. My co-worker has a machine at working running it. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. Windows 7 looks to be a further modified form of Vista code. Meaning, if you get to know Vista, transitioning to 7 will be a snap. Also meaning, if you like/dislike Vista, you probably won’t be a big fan of 7.
My personal choice would have to be to go with Vista. The rule of thumb with MS OS’s is that you should avoid them until they release service pack 1. That won’t likely be until middle of 2010. I’ve installed 10 year old games on Vista and they worked fine. I’ve installed all sorts of Photo applications and my wife is using it to do web design with old versions of Dreamweaver with no issues. Considering the security and functionality improvements in Vista, I don’t see any reason to cling to XP.
Macs are another story. I’ve owned quite a few but haven’t since about OS 10.3 and since they switched to Intel. I liked OSX but was not a big fan of the “dock”. I much prefer the useability of the windows taskbar. One issue here is that the taskbar changes quite a bit in 7, beginning to behave a bit more like the OSX dock. I’m not excited about that.
Once bitten (Windows ME), twice shy (Vista). Yeah, I know that Vista isn’t ME. That a lot of the negative waves are just hype. That, honestly, I have never had a problem with XP and, well, the devil you know.
Given the circumstances, my recommendation might be to wait as long as he can to buy it, since he doesn’t need it ’til September, and hope that MSFT announces some sort of “Buy Vista now and upgrade for free when 7 comes out.”
Did you have problems with ME? My mom and sister were using it for years.
Let me make it simpler. Vista is fantastic. I couldn’t go back to XP.