Are Ultra Cheap Netbooks Worth The Cost?

I like my netbook. Well, I don't like it that much. But it's light, portable, has a keyboard (I hate the Ipad touch screen), and if some fuckhead in a third world country steals it I won't care that much because it's cheap. And you don't have to buy apps, you just use it like a laptop. I can do work on it, though it is kind of slow and for some softwares the resolution messes up the interface so some buttons are missing etc. But it does the job.
 


I'm due for something new as well. My 4 year old Sony Vaio is, well, 4 years old. It's funny how awesome it was when I got it, and how heavy, old and crappy it seems now.

I need something light for traveling, something powerful enough to do real work on, and something I can just use lounging on the couch. Rather than buying a netbook and an iPad 2, I'm thinking of just buying a Macbook Air, reformatting the entire thing and installing Windows on it. I have no interest in OS X or any of that crap, but the Macbook Air is one sweet piece of hardware.
 
dsiomtw said:
I'm thinking of just buying a Macbook Air, reformatting the entire thing and installing Windows on it. I have no interest in OS X or any of that crap, but the Macbook Air is one sweet piece of hardware.
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Wow, have ppl done this before? Sounds too good to be true... Surely Stevey boy has put some hardware constraints in there to stop this from happening.

If you get it working, let me know... I'd love an Air running win 7 myself.
 
When I got my latest laptop, I went in for a netbook. The netbook (as far as I know) has no sound, no dvd drive, and is quite slow. I just got a cheap laptop instead... cost me like $399 vs $299. No need to go spending over $1,000 on a laptop.
 
lukep said:
Wow, have ppl done this before? Sounds too good to be true... Surely Stevey boy has put some hardware constraints in there to stop this from happening.

If you get it working, let me know... I'd love an Air running win 7 myself.
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You would need to have X present to run Boot Camp. Windows doesn't run without Boot Camp. You could set up a small partition for Mac, and define the Boot Camp Windows volume as your startup disk in preferences.

Also, the MBA has no CD drive, so you'd not be able to install 7 from a CD. I learned the hard way that some conveniences, like a CD drive and an expansive hard drive, are sacrificed for lightness.
 
BlueYonder said:
You would need to have X present to run Boot Camp. Windows doesn't run without Boot Camp... Also, the MBA has no CD drive, so you'd not be able to install 7 from a CD. I learned the hard way that some conveniences, like a CD drive and an expansive hard drive, are sacrificed for lightness.
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Skrooalladat!

If it can't boot win7 then I'll just wait until HP or dell finally comes out with an "air" of their own. :angryfire:
 
lukep said:
Skrooalladat!

If it can't boot win7 then I'll just wait until HP or dell finally comes out with an "air" of their own. :angryfire:
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You can boot win7, as long as you specify in the preferences. And win7 would keep loading on startup if you don't change it. Boot Camp has to be present on the hard drive, but you don't have to use Mac. That's it.
 
The netbook battery was a life saver when I went to a remote place with just couple hours electricity a day.. I have the iPad too but 3G sucks, and had to use a datacard. And the netbook went on and on and on...

Only problem was the screen and the keyboard..
Thinking of getting the 11' Air
 
jesus you are so annoying lukep can you stop recommending ipads for people who are trying to do real work thanks
 
FerrisHilton said:
jesus you are so annoying lukep can you stop recommending ipads for people who are trying to do real work thanks
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jesus you are so annoying FerrisHilton can you stop recommending expensive, bulky, long-to-boot, insecure shit for people who are trying to do ONLY browsing and email thanks

FWIW, I don't own a slate of any make. I just read what the OP said he needed and gave the most logical assessment.

You should try that reading part sometime.
 
lukep said:
Skrooalladat!

If it can't boot win7 then I'll just wait until HP or dell finally comes out with an "air" of their own. :angryfire:
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You can boot Win7 ... and it boots almost instantly with that "instant on" shit that mac air has. It's wicked. It works just as good booting Win 7 as it does OS X. That's the kick ass part about the flash storage. Who cares if it's only 64 or 128GB ... that's waaaaay more than you need for a work machine.
 
dsiomtw said:
You can boot Win7 ... and it boots almost instantly with that "instant on" shit that mac air has. It's wicked. It works just as good booting Win 7 as it does OS X. That's the kick ass part about the flash storage. Who cares if it's only 64 or 128GB ... that's waaaaay more than you need for a work machine.
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So you're telling me that Both OSX and Win7 can fit on a 128GB HD and you'd have enough room left over for a work machine? :updown: (Or did you mean netbook replacement?)

Also, I've had a flash drive in a desktop PC before and it couldn't boot Vista any more quickly than a normal HD... What else about the Air archetecture is getting the data processed faster at bootup? More FSB bandwidth? More Ram?
 
I'm not sure exactly how much storage the mac side of things will take up (boot camp etc) but my primary desktop XP work machine is only 24 gigs and I do OK. 128GB is more than enough. Just google it dude. Everyone who has done it freakin' loves it. ;)
 
lukep said:
jesus you are so annoying FerrisHilton can you stop recommending expensive, bulky, long-to-boot, insecure shit for people who are trying to do ONLY browsing and email thanks

FWIW, I don't own a slate of any make. I just read what the OP said he needed and gave the most logical assessment.

You should try that reading part sometime.
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so should you I didn't recommend anything to the OP
 
dsiomtw said:
I'm not sure exactly how much storage the mac side of things will take up (boot camp etc) but my primary desktop XP work machine is only 24 gigs and I do OK. 128GB is more than enough. Just google it dude. Everyone who has done it freakin' loves it. ;)
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I might go that way when I get more mobile... It's hard on my because my "work apps" (Read: Not ALL porn) take up about 350 GB.

However the cloud is getting to the point where I'm going to be able to keep shit like this up there and access it with any kind of a connection. So I'll keep this in mind, thanks.
 
Everything a Netbook can do a Tablet can do better. I use to love my Netbooks for travel, but Tablets really have come far and taken over.
 
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