So i'm going to buy a netbook for my senior year of high school

Screen Size: Something not to huge but not extremely tiny either 8-10 inch

HDD: Disk is preferred since I would like as much storage as I can get and I don't really think a SSD will last long with how much I use my pc's

CPU: I heard that they have core architecture versions of these on netbooks but a decent Atom is preferred for battery life.

Ram: 1gb atleast is wanted can this also be expanded on netbooks?

OS: Windows XP



I would be able to find one with the things I want easily but I have never purchased this kind of machine so I need some advice.

I heard Dell Mini's and Acer Aspire One's were good

Any suggestions?

1) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16834220441
2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16834220443
3) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16834146554

#2 or #3 are my suggestions.

I'd recommend 2, but haven't seen 3 beofre
Also http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16834131015

My personal choice would be #2. I'm not a huge Asus fan, but the multitouch pad is better than other models. It's not undersized, which is important. It's not full-size either--especially since Asus learned their lesson with the EeePC 700's.

Thats probably the one i'll go with

I have an Acer Aspire One, I really advise it, it's great you can fold it up and carry it with one hand. I've had almost no problems with it, and it looks cool It's battery is pretty good, good RAM, good hard drive (although that changes with price).

2 things about it : 1024x600 Resolution is REALLY ANNOYING. Most programs are built for either 1024x768, 800x600, or something higher then 1024x768. I've found this resolution to be hard to work with.

Personally, I don't mind the fact that it has no HDD, but you might. For one, I hardly use disks. 2, I have an external one.


I think it's like 9 inches screen.

The battery is about 3 hours if you use it well.

So I advise this one, the 1024x600 resolution is annoying but in the long run doesn't really make a difference, don't decide on your computer because of that. The only reason I wouldn't get this if I were you is if you plan to use a lot of disks as compared to USBs and stuff. External drives are about $100, so it's really your choice there.

I'll look into that as well I think there may be one I can try out at the store oh and btw I think your confusing disk drive with hard drive lol.

And you're confusing optical disk drive with hard disk drive. Not having an optical drive can be a real pain in the cabbage. I broke down and bought, for $40-50, an external USB combo drive--one that reads DVDs and burns CDs. A new external DVD burner would probably run you about $70. Some manufacturers bundle a drive in there, but I've not seen any netbooks with bundled drives. I know that Lenovo's IdeaPad U110, which is NOT a netbook (and costs $1000) comes bundled with a second battery and an external optical drive. The biggest advantage with external drives is you only have to plug them in when you need to use them. There's no point lugging an optical drive (either in external or internal form) around if you only use it to install software.

My Optical Disk Drive can go months without being used and I could probably easily live without it so its not much of a issue.

Good luck installing an OS or running a recovery DVD without any optical drives. The only way I got by before I bought myself this portable optical drive was because I have another one back home. Not particularly convenient. Most programs can be installed easily from a USB stick or even over a network, but it can be a real pain in the cabbage to install an OS, especially when your hard drives are on the small side (as per my EeePC 900--4GB and 8GB solid state drives, second-generation EeePC it is).

1st Gen: EeePC 700 2/4/8G
2nd Gen: EeePC 900 8/12/16/20G
3rd Gen: EeePC 901 12/16/20G & 1000 40G & 160G w/ HDD
4th Gen: Current EeePCs, S101 series, &c

Most

Also a suggestion for the dvd drive, you could share a dvd drive from another pc through the network if you need to install software from a cd/dvd, but this wont work for installing an OS, youll have to buy an external reader. The other pc will have to be on for it to work though.

Yea my optical drive (or whatever you put the disc into, lol) has been lying on the floor for months.

If you don't play games that need discs, then I highly advise the Aspire One, otherwise, either get an external drive, or don't get the Aspire One.

Probably wouldn't game and I know how to do everything with simply a flashdrive.

Installing a OS, programs, etc

You mean people still install OS's with Disc's?

-Love linux

Sometimes you need another OS. The issue becomes getting a USB drive to boot properly. Windows especially is VERY annoying to get to install from a USB stick.