Netbook for £150?

Hey all, seeking a bit of advice here as i know squat about netbooks!

Basically, i am looking for a netbook with a budget of around £150 (ish). I have already had a quick look on the net to get a rough price mark, but they seem to be in the region of £200+ (which is quite alot to us students!) I was thinking maybe second hand is the way to go, so I may place an ad in the classifieds pretty soon :)

But yes, the requirements are:
Will be used for the most basic of needs - browsing the net, word processing mainly (i.e typing up work) and maybe watching the odd movie streamed off my home network.

WiFi capabilities is a must as is a decent sized HDD, and bluetooth would be a nice bonus :) oh and also maybe a VGA output too?

Anyone have any ideas? £150..am i asking too much? :help:

Vga output is standard on all of them.
They don't cope with movies that well, I find I need to have my eee pc 901 pluged into the mains so I can set the atom cpu to full speed or I get stuttering.
Almost all of them have the same 120gb HD if it's an hd model and not a SSD model.

The problem is cost, new you're out of luck for £150
best you can hope for is 2nd hand and even then you may be pushing it, you can probably pick up one of the original eeepc 701 or 900 for that or a bit less 2nd hand, however you'll be limited to the small SSD and 900mhz celeron cpu.

Currently you're looking at £200-300 for a new netbook, the price will vary mainly on battery.
You can often find the same model with two or 3 different prices, it will generally be batteries with fewer cells and thus a running charge.

I would get a secondhand notebook instead off Ebay.

I would get one off the Dell outlet store personally

Keep an eye on ebuyer, they sometimes drop one of the older models in price to clear stock - I've seen them go as low as £150.

If you can commit to a small monthly payment a few places (Currys "digital" springs to mind) do free netbooks with 1GB mobile data plans for ~ £20 a month. Addmitedly it'd work out more expensive in the long run (usually your tied to a 24 month contract, so £480 all told), but of course for that you also get your mobile data usage and dongle, and it spreads the cost so you don't have a big hit in one term's loan... ;)

Keep your eyes on hotukdeals they often list netbook deals. Pcworld/Dixons sell off recon models for around £150, or dell outlet.
There does seem to be a lot of ex corporate laptops on ebay at the moment, you could look for a nearby dealer and visit to pick the best available. I did this for a friend a while ago and picked up an imacualte thinkpad.

Laptops direct do them from £109 (refurbs)

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/AdvSe...ewrite=netbook


Play have the Acer One for £179 (with built in 3G)

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/8056387/-/Product.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

I would get a secondhand notebook instead off Ebay.

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I'd second this, for a similar price you can get a small-screen lappy.
It depends why you've chosen to go for a netbook in the first place but I use a small 14" HP Nc2400 (which are in your budget) & love it.
Picked over a netbook for the increase in raw power (albeit they're still obviously underpowered by desktop standards)

I've certainly seen some 2nd hand Acer Aspire One's for £130 or less on ebay, with the 120GB hard drives.
By the way, the 1.6Ghz Atom N270 plays movies using various codecs fine, and contrary to popular thinking it's not the resolution of the movie that counts as much as the bitrate... admittedly this typically means in practice that it cant do 720p files properly, however standard def / DVD-ripped type films play fine. Unless you have a ridiculous bit-rate.

Edit: As an example, check out ebay item 200399685908
(I have no affiliation to the seller etc)!

A big thanks for all the replies.

I think I will most likely go secondhand unless I can obviously get a good deal within my price range. Just got back from Curry's and PC World to see what a netbook was like first hand, the ones I took a liking to were: Acer Aspire One, Dell Mini 10 and the NC10 from Samsung - which is very nice indeed. The keyboard layout is good and the keys weren't as small as I thought. I think a 10" screen would be ideal, anything smaller would be a tad bit small.

@ CAT-THE-FIFTH
why a notebook instead of a netbook? they seem kinda pricey..

@ MSIC
thanks for the info and the ebay link! I think that kind of netbook would be perfect..watching movies on it would not be very often as I have my HTPC for that - but you know, i would like to have the option :)

also, netbooks run pretty much silent right? ive heard the Acer's fan can get quite loud.

Thanks again

My house mate has an acer aspire one, he likes it very much.
He got the ssd version, he takes it with him when he goes cycling, normally meets up with friends in coffee shops, so he uses it to do writing on. (aspiring screen writer)

The linux on it is pritty nasty, but it works as long as you don't want to add any additional software.
so for typing, surfing the web and watching video files it's fine :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KalC

A big thanks for all the replies.

I think I will most likely go secondhand unless I can obviously get a good deal within my price range. Just got back from Curry's and PC World to see what a netbook was like first hand, the ones I took a liking to were: Acer Aspire One, Dell Mini 10 and the NC10 from Samsung - which is very nice indeed. The keyboard layout is good and the keys weren't as small as I thought. I think a 10" screen would be ideal, anything smaller would be a tad bit small.

@ CAT-THE-FIFTH
why a notebook instead of a netbook? they seem kinda pricey..

@ MSIC
thanks for the info and the ebay link! I think that kind of netbook would be perfect..watching movies on it would not be very often as I have my HTPC for that - but you know, i would like to have the option :)

also, netbooks run pretty much silent right? ive heard the Acer's fan can get quite loud.

Thanks again

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A few years ago I got a Medion SIM2000 off Ebay with a faulty hard disk for under £100. I already had a newish IDE hard disk lying about so it was no issue to get it up and running OK. I upgraded the processor to a 1.7GHZ Pentium M and managed to get a brand new original extended MSI battery for it off Ebay very cheaply(from a UK seller and it was the same battery which Morgan Computers sold for around £60). I got a brand new 512MB sodimm too taking the RAM upto 768MB and there was already a DVD rewriter installed IIRC.

The notebook is actually made by MSI and has a cast magnesium body and screen surround too. Basically I paid under £150 for a 12.1 inch notebook with a brand new battery and I used too get 3+ hours of battery life with the with the wireless card switched on.