looking for a new laptop... but a bit lost.
 

OK so I'm looking for a laptop $300-400 before tax.

I've been looking at those 10" net books from futureshop but I'm wondering if there's somewhere better to buy than FS

What I'm looking for:
-Small, light weight
-something I can do word processing on, use the internet.
-has at least 60-80gb or expandable memory.
-around 1.0-1.2 ghz , i'm not using it for gaming.


any suggestions?

Netbooks pretty much sums up all your needs.

sorry my bad, what i meant was is there a better place (cheaper) to buy from than fs?

ncix

done. thanks!

I see a lot of people bought a netbook and found it useless few weeks afterward.

Go check out Buy/Sell forums, there are always sub-$300 items in mint condition out there.

We have several at Staples ... I recommend the MSI Wind @ the $300 price point (I would say the HP Mininote, but it has so many software issues, I can't recommend it.)

Just avoid the Acers; they're pieces of shit. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many returns ...

using an acer travelmate now... this pos overheats, the screws on the screen have cracked so why screen wiggles back and forth... oh god acers are the worst.

Question, what are your opinions on solid state hdd vs sata hdd?

SSD = Smaller capacity

SATA = Heat generating bastard, slower ... but much bigger capacity.

Ideally, you would use SSD for your OS and maybe another one for your Programs to install onto.

Or get two of them and RAID the two SSD's together for hot sex speeds.

??????? OP is looking for netbook.

Yes, but if you look two posts up, he asked what's better, SATA or Solid State. Read much?

I think what Jacka was referring to was the RAID statement. Not going to be raiding anything on a netbook (or any laptop).

If it comes down to cost, stick with a regular HD (SATA most likely if it's something new) to keep costs down. $300-$400 will probably get you almost any 10" netbook on the market (maybe not the higher end ones). That doesn't leave you much room to buy an SSD.

I got my HP 110 netbook at Costco. They had a $50 instant rebate.

Yeah, I got carried away with the RAID. At that point, I started blabbing out my ass because I wanted a RAID setup. LOL!

Anyways, the only problem with buying a netbook from NCIX is that they won't let you see the laptop out of the box ... You also have to consider if the keys are too small for your fingers too. Otherwise it'll be quite a shitty deal for you.

thanks for all the responses guys
are there any brands that are better than the rest?

HP? Dell? Asus?

As with many things, that all depends on what 'better' means to you.

Just don't plan on doing anything other than word processing or basic web browsing with a netbook, and you should be fine.

I would recommend to almost everyone that they should increase their budget by $100 and get a Celeron-ULV based 10" or 11" notebook.

Netbooks are fine for most casual users. Word processing and web browsing doesn't need insane CPU or GPU power. If you plan on doing any gaming or watching hi def movies that require some graphical power, you'd probably want to step up to a regular laptop for the extra power.

As for netbooks, the biggest limitation I've had is with the low resolution (seems too limiting, and pages don't display all that well on an 800x600 screen anymore) and somewhat strange keyboard layouts (like my 1st gen Lenovo S10)