I’ve just been offered an updated version of this
http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668686.php
I have been told it’s not on the market yet, it’s a sample model from acer. The specs are a little different, it now has an N455 atom and 2GB DDR3 but no hdmi. 7000nt with no warranty. Is it worth it? I always thought HDMI was a basic must have on laptops nowadays.
Lostswede I’m guessing you will have some good advice for me as always! 
No, not even for zero.
In other netbook news, Acer is introducing tablets with the following intent towards netbooks:
[quote]“They are aimed at phasing out netbooks,” he said. “That’s the direction of the market.”
They will use Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors and run an Android operating system, Lu said. The largest will have a 10-inch screen, Lu said.
The Taiwan-based computer giant will keep making netbooks, adding to its millions sold to date, but it will stick to simple models and manufacture fewer than in years past as tablets gain popularity, he said.[/quote]
Ok mabagal but a little more detail as to why not even for zero would be nice
And why no to gateway when it is owned by acer?
Hi Irishmoe,
Have you had a netbook before? If so, were you ever happy with it? If not, do you expect this thing to actually be a good computer?
What I mean is unless you absolutely know what you are getting into, you will not be happy with a netbook. I have a netbook we got once about a year ago on a whim sitting totally unused in a corner because we realized pretty quickly it was not very useful for anything and was actually pretty annoying to use. Annoying enough that I wouldn’t wish that kind of annoyance to anyone. Some people are happy with their netbooks, but I would say most people are not.
The above tatement from an Acer rep gives some pretty strong signals about their (waning) commitment to netbooks, including Gateways. I might worry about that.
Thanks for your input mabagal. All we want it for is connecting to the tv and surfing the net on the sofa so netbooks don’t bother me much and I will buy one just not sure whether to go for this one or buy a better one with a warranty. My question was about hdmi as opposed to vga, would there be much difference between the two?
[quote=“mabagal”]Hi Irishmoe,
Have you had a netbook before? If so, were you ever happy with it? If not, do you expect this thing to actually be a good computer?
What I mean is unless you absolutely know what you are getting into, you will not be happy with a netbook. I have a netbook we got once about a year ago on a whim sitting totally unused in a corner because we realized pretty quickly it was not very useful for anything and was actually pretty annoying to use. Annoying enough that I wouldn’t wish that kind of annoyance to anyone. Some people are happy with their netbooks, but I would say most people are not.
The above tatement from an Acer rep gives some pretty strong signals about their (waning) commitment to netbooks, including Gateways. I might worry about that.[/quote]
I’ve got a netbook (it is a 12 inch, though, so it may not really count as a netbook anymore) and am quite content with it. I would never buy a huge notebook, which is too large to carry around. My screen has a resolution of 1280x800, which is perfectly fine. The only thing which is a little bit annoying is the speed, but well, it was not that expensive. Maybe the next time I would buy a subnotebook, which is faster, but still has the same display size.
A tablet is of course nice, but I wouldn’t compare these two computers. Having a real operating system is still a real plus over a tablet. It depends what you want to do with a device. A netbook is not always bad. If you have a real fast computer, and need the netbook just for travelling, or sitting in the train or something like that, a netbook is definitely fine. Tablets seem nice to sit on the couch, toilet or train and surf in the Internet, but I guess you cannot really work with them. Just having Word, Excel and some other programmes on a netbook is an advantage over tablets.
The only real disadvantage of a netbook is the speed: If you want to play games or watch HD movies, you cannot do that. For using word or something like that, it is still sufficient. But it always depends on what you want to do. For me as a university student, a netbook is nice to take to university. I see no one in university who has a tablet or a real notebook, everyone uses netbooks.
I would definitely vote for HDMI, though. I compared 1920x1080 with VGA and HDMI on my computer monitor, and VGA was really bad. And, worse: My television does not even support 1920x1080 with VGA. it stops at 1280x1024, so you cannot even use the entire resolution (you may check that in the manual of your TV). Try connecting your ordinary PC with your television, you will see how bad the quality looks. HDMI is cristal clear, though.
(and, don’t underestimate this: you don’t have to connect audio, because it comes right away with HDMI. Just connect the HDMI cable with the TV, select “computer monitor and HDMI” or “only HDMI” with the FN keys on the netbok, and he automatically detects the best resolution and will give you sound on TV. It couldn’t be easier. On contrast, with VGA: Connect VGA and audio, select output, check the resolution, adjust it, get bad image.
Right, it seems like I’m a bit late to the party, but I’d also say to steer clear, despite the very cheap price.
Wait a bit and check out the new 11.6-inch machines with AMD’s new E-350 APU (CPU and graphics in one chip) as not only is it more powerful as a CPU, but the graphics is 100x better than that of the Atom netbooks and on top of that these machines have HDMI output and equally good battery life as netbooks. HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus and just about everyone else will have machines out within the next month or so for about NT$15k or less.
There are already a 10-inch model from Toshiba in sale in Taiwan, but it has the slower C-50 APU and isn’t really work 13.9k imho shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=stor … _NO=DHAJ0Y
Fujitsu has also announce a super expensive model here, again not at all worth it.
The HP dm1z is the one to look for engadget.com/2011/01/17/hp-p … on-review/
alongside whatever Lenovo is coming out with (a thinkpad and an ideapad), at least that I know about now.
Alternatively, I’d get something like this shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 0Y&ROWNO=1
11.6" is the smallest the screen can be and still get full-sized keyboard onto the machine, if you are concerned about that.
If budget isn’t a huge concern and you really want it to be light, I would put a Macbook Air 11.6" into the consideration set, or another 11.6" with a fast solid state drive. The solid state drive alone will really take care of a lot of the performance bottle necks that cause really long waits (eg: opening a large PowerPoint or Excel file is immediate with a fast SSD) and will make the machine feel a lot faster.
VGA is actually just fine for 1980x1080 (it can actually go quite a bit higher with good clarity), but most of the lower end netbooks simply don’t output a very good picture regardless of the interface. I’d go with HDMI if you can simply to reduce the cable count and cable size (the HDMI connector is smaller than VGA).
[quote=“mabagal”]11.6" is the smallest the screen can be and still get full-sized keyboard onto the machine, if you are concerned about that.
If budget isn’t a huge concern and you really want it to be light, I would put a Macbook Air 11.6" into the consideration set, or another 11.6" with a fast solid state drive. The solid state drive alone will really take care of a lot of the performance bottle necks that cause really long waits (eg: opening a large PowerPoint or Excel file is immediate with a fast SSD) and will make the machine feel a lot faster.[/quote]
I read in a computer magazine that SSD of course helps to speed up the pc - but only if the PC itself is quite fast already. So a SSD makes a fast computer even faster, but cannot really help an already slow PC.
But I also think that is important to check if the computer can play movies in Full HD. What I’ve seen is that it does not really depend so much on the speed of the CPU, but rather that the computer is optimized for it.
[quote=“mabagal”]
VGA is actually just fine for 1980x1080 (it can actually go quite a bit higher with good clarity), but most of the lower end netbooks simply don’t output a very good picture regardless of the interface. I’d go with HDMI if you can simply to reduce the cable count and cable size (the HDMI connector is smaller than VGA).[/quote]
Wow, I’m really surprised. Previously I compared my normal PC, with an Nvidia graphics card connected by DVI and my netbook connected with VGA. Now I only compared my ordinary PC once with VGA and once with DVI, and you are absolutely right: VGA still has good quality.
[quote=“Hellstorm”]
I read in a computer magazine that SSD of course helps to speed up the pc - but only if the PC itself is quite fast already. So a SSD makes a fast computer even faster, but cannot really help an already slow PC.
But I also think that is important to check if the computer can play movies in Full HD. What I’ve seen is that it does not really depend so much on the speed of the CPU, but rather that the computer is optimized for it.
[quote=“mabagal”]
VGA is actually just fine for 1980x1080 (it can actually go quite a bit higher with good clarity), but most of the lower end netbooks simply don’t output a very good picture regardless of the interface. I’d go with HDMI if you can simply to reduce the cable count and cable size (the HDMI connector is smaller than VGA).[/quote]
Wow, I’m really surprised. Previously I compared my normal PC, with an Nvidia graphics card connected by DVI and my netbook connected with VGA. Now I only compared my ordinary PC once with VGA and once with DVI, and you are absolutely right: VGA still has good quality.[/quote]
SSDs speed up the most time-consuming portions of computing, which is starting apps, file opening, etc. These are the things we wait for a lot. So the realized performance gain is much bigger in terms of actual and perceived speed. It doesn’t take much processor to get bottlenecked by the harddrive, especially the super crappy ones found in most netbooks.
Yes, playing video in Full HD has more to do with the video processor (GPU) in the machine and its native CODEC support than the it does the processor. This is why the extremely modest-spec iPad (1GHz ARM, 256MB RAM) can decode 1080p HD H.264 movies (although not display it since its display doesn’t have enough pixels). Most netbooks come with pretty crappy video processors as well, so definitely check this.
20 years ago, people were using VGA interface to routinely run 1600x1200 on CRTs (this is what I ran when I got my first CAD machine in 1995), and occasionally up to 2048x1536 on SGIs and other more dedicated CAD and 3D graphics machines. It’s pretty robust, but in reality it is cheaper component-wise and simpler to go digital from end-to-end, particularly with flat panels which is why the push to HDMI.
double post.
VGA/D-sub works, BUT it’s still analogue, so why convert digital content to an analogue signal and then back to digital again inside the TV? Also, some TV’s don’t have a D-sub connector any more and it’s a hassle with the audio as you need extra cables. Yes, I’m very much “technology forward” and as much as I hate the physical HDMI connector, HDMI is so much more convenient for connect up anything to a TV these days. It’s one cable and you get a high quality picture and audio. Yes, it’s full of DRM protection and crap, but if the content isn’t DRM laced, it doesn’t matter.
Also, anything that doesn’t have an HDMI connector these days is not likely to have enough grunt to play HD content. Sure, a netbook can most like play 720p WMV videos or maybe even DivX/Xvid, but not much else. Most HD content is in one or another kind of H.264 derived codec and netbooks don’t like that. Some have a special “HD” accelerator card, but then you’re limited to using one or two different media players and you pay a lot of extra for the little card. If you want to watch HD content, get something better to start with and you can do so much more with it at the end of the day.
Also, keep in mind that netbooks despite the name, are not great on the web with 1024x600 screens, they’re far from optimal for browsing many websites as more and more are optimized for 1280 width, not 1024 or smaller.
So Swede what do you think about this one?
http://sh2.obuy.tw/notebook/item.asp?item_id=1534552
It’s the one I was going to buy a few months back but someone gave me an old notebook and I just hadn’t gotten around to buying it when our friend offered us the gateway one. I like it because it seems to have everything. It’s dropped from 18000 to about 14-15000. I think you may have recommended it to me before 
Yeah, well, except a few months ago it didn’t have the hardware inside that it does now. Be aware that it has an ultra low power processor which means it won’t be flying, especially at just over 1GHz, but it’s still about 5x as fast as an Atom powered netbook. As long as you’re not looking at doing heavy video/photo editing or to play 3D games on it, it looks like a sweet machine. Under 14k here gohappy.com.tw/shopping/Brow … id=1223699
There’s also a slightly fancier model gohappy.com.tw/shopping/Brow … id=1223201 which has a little bit faster CPU, but it’s nearly 18k (do note some of the specs are wrong there).
For either one I’d recommend getting an extra 2GB stick of RAM which should cost no more than NT$700, most likely less at the time of purchase of the notebook.
Thanks Swede I’ll mainly use it for watching films so I’m sure as fast as possible is good. I can find that one you mentioned on yahoo for 14k and seems to have the lot. I’ll probably go with that.http://tw.page.bid.yahoo.com/tw/auction/d52232058
It’s funny how they all copy their specs off each other, despite the chipset and graphics being wrong :loco:
It actually has the HM55 chipset and Intel “HD Graphics”. It should be more than powerful what you want to use it for as the processor, despite the odd name, is based on the same bits as the Core i3/5/7 stuff, it’s just that it doesn’t have some of the extra fancy stuff and that it’s a super low power version. The upside is that it should have close to the rated battery life. At that price, it’s definitely worth it though.
Review here notebookreview.com/default.a … timeline+x although with the high-end CPU.
Probably above OP’s budget and size, but I’m recommending the Asus UL30Vt. I am using one at work and the battery life is truly great - average of about 10 hours on regular surfing via WiFi. 13.3" screen and around 1.7kg.
Uses the Intel SU7300 CPU, which should have more than sufficient power for everyday tasks. Can also do some gaming due to the discrete G210M video card. Around 19k NTD, which is a good deal. store.pchome.com.tw/enjoynb/M05005497.html
Only negative part is the trackpad, although you can get used to it.