Netbook choice and buying advice.

[usxhe190]

Another vote the for the HP compaq 311c with ION (about £310 on Ebuyer)

The HP DM1 doesn't have anywhere near the same graphics capability (GMA4500) so it's not directly comparable. Yes the processor is better, but the graphics are worse...Atom+ION is better in my opinion.

True, if you weren't gaming, the GMA4500HD is more than adequate for HD viewing and the CULV processor will make day-to-day task so much more quicker and its noticeable.

[oolon]

True, if you weren't gaming, the GMA4500HD is more than adequate for HD viewing and the CULV processor will make day-to-day task so much more quicker and its noticeable.

I currently have a libretto u100 which is 8in in size and a 1280x768 display, but its days are number and the keyboard is very hard to use and a bit slow, not really liked many of the replacements options, most netbooks in the smallest side don;t even have my current resolution. I like the 11in 1366*768 display ones, personally I would like the SU7300 processor as it is dual core, 64bit and has virtualisation in it. (Atom lacks the virtualisation.) The Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T has available in germany seems a good starting point, shame the UK is such a tech back water. Personally I would also like the option to add WPAN (Blue tooth) and WWAN (GSM/G3), which this one cannot do as they didn't bother to put the headers on the board! Acer seems to have very few options on its web site here compared to Germany. The Dell Alien ware does all of those things but 800 quid+ for a SU processor seems ridiculous to me, Likewise with the price for a thinkpad.

[mikerr]

Ah the libretto - a netbook 10 years ahead of its time - but 1hr battery life?

[oolon]

Ah the libretto - a netbook 10 years ahead of its time - but 1hr battery life?

Yes, but no, this was the anniversary one so is only 4 years old with a Pentium-M processor and 1 Gig of memory so still quite useful, before that I had a Sony Vaio C1 Picture book, which has 196 Meg of memory and a Crusoe (remember those?) processors. So It kind of feel finally the main stream is catching up with the full fat mini devices (Not CE or a phone OS) which have been available in Asia for many years with little interest over here. However yes the battery life is only 1-2 hours.

[Covenant]

Better performance for sure than an Atom CPU, but what about battery life?? thats the bigger concern often I find with a netbook, ability to do basic tasks with little weight and long battery life.

Had my Acer Ferrari One for about a month now - I get between 4 and 6 hours battery life, depending what I'm doing. 6 hours if I'm just using as netbook for light web, word docs...etc, and more like 4 hours if I'm heavily processing photos on Lightroom (which runs perfectly snappy when you have 4gig ram - not even sure it'd be even worth trying on a single core Atom).

Having used it extensively the last month, I couldn't go back to a 10" 1024x600 screen and cramped keyboard now - the slight (and not very much) weight/size saving comes at too big a usability cost.