New RAM!

[afuna]

I didn't buy it just because I was waiting, I swear...

I've been wanting to buy new RAM for a while now, but the place I was originally looking at has been out of the brand I want for months now. Hadn't had time to do the shopping until now. While I was there and looking at stuff, I also started seriously playing with the thought of buying a netbook for travel; it just needs to be strong enough to run a browser and let me SSH into my server with minimal painfulness. And also be light and small enough that I can carry it around easily, and have a good enough battery life that I don't need to constantly be looking for a wall socket to charge it -- something like an afternoon's worth, with just a bit extra allowance to be safe. Oh, and I hope to find one with no OS installed, so I don't have to go through the extra step of uninstalling Windows.

I need to do some research on what is a good balance between price and ability -- I really really am not planning on getting fancy with it! -- but I've at least gotten a feel for the price range and range of battery life etc.

I know a couple of you have netbooks. Are they worth it? (Is there any one brand I should avoid or any one I should run to? *g*)

ANYWAY my current laptop is now at 4 gigs, up from the original 2. That, plus I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard, and, well, everything is running quite zippy. We'll see how it feels after Firefox has been on a bit, but right now, I have a virtual machine running, and I don't feel it at all -- before Snow Leopard, running a VM would slow my machine down to a crawl especially on startup and shutdown. After upgrading to Snow Leopard, running a VM was doable, but it made certain actions feel slightly hmmm, sticky/tacky.

Feeling very very very cheerful at the newfound speed ^______^ (And now and now, I'm playing with the thought of running my dev env on a virtual machine, instead of SSHing to my server. Possibilities! Maybe!)

OH and also, I'm feeling quite pleased that I managed to install the RAM myself. As much as I love software, the hardware side of things intimidates me. I always worry that I'm going to break something somehow (not entirely unjustified... the first time we had a lab in electronics, I burnt out three or four cheaps -- luckily the cheap kinds). I have tried my hardest not to have to fiddle with any hardware since. And today I installed RAM on my laptop \o/

(This is the generation of macbooks where it is easy to install RAM. But I'm still quite pleased with myself ;-))

Comments

Possibly TMI, definitely rambling. :)

[starshadow_rivaulx]

I can, obviously, only speak for myself here - but I recently acquired a netbook, one on the lower end of the price scale (roughly 18K). It's a Neo Basic - battery life is about 2 hours or so. It came installed with Windows, which is OK, since my scanner, bless its black heart, is a Canon that refuses to play with Linux Mint but wakes up for WinXP.

I love the thing. It does exactly what I want it to do - catch up on email/feeds/blogs/social networks during the monthly visits to the cardiologist (hubby's and Dad's, not mine, at least not yet). I can go online from any room in the house, since my main laptop doubles as a desktop now. So I can keep an eye on Ma's PT in the guest room and still catch up on stuff.

Typing on it is a bit weird, sometimes the cursor leaps about and puts sentence parts where they shouldn't go; or it deletes text altogether. Maybe it's a function of keystrokes or accidentally touching the touch pad? But if I type slowly, things work out all right.

I could tell you more, but it's a wee bit past my bedtime, and am feeling pleasantly woozy after a busy day. Maybe I'll add more tomorrow/later. :)

Re: Possibly TMI, definitely rambling. :)

[exor674]

I bet its optionally touching the touchpad -- most laptops should have a "ignore the touchpad while typing", turning that on might help?

Re: Possibly TMI, definitely rambling. :)

[(Anonymous)]

*waves hello*

Why, thank you very much! I'll go look for that option, turn it on if it's off, and see what happens next.

Re: Possibly TMI, definitely rambling. :)

[starshadow_rivaulx]

I did as you suggested re the "ignore the touchpad while typing" option, and now typing is so much better than it used to be! Thank you very much for the tip!

Re: Possibly TMI, definitely rambling. :)

[exor674]

*waves*

You're welcome.

[liv]

I bought one of the original Asus Eee netbooks, and I love it very much. It just makes my life so much nicer. I didn't go for power, just wanted a relatively cheap, portable internet terminal, and it's done me proud for that. The only thing I regret is not holding out for better battery life; I know many of the recent models give 6 to 9 hours, which sounds like it would about fit your requirements. 3 to 4 (actually more like 2 1/2 if you're on wireless) does have just that constantly looking for a wall socket problem you mention.

When Asus first launched the Eee, they were really pushing Linux, but I believe more recent models are more Windowsy. Worth investigating, anyway.

[afuna]

Hmm, thank you, especially for the perspective on battery life!

I agree with you on the recent models being more Windowsy -- it looks like the ones which come with no OS have a battery life in the 3-4 hour range, I don't know why! Maybe they're picking the lower-specced ones, so I may just have to bite the bullet and get something with Windows. Hmm.

[dreamatdrew]

my EEEpc came with their funky Xandros mutation on it.... which got nuked after about 45 minutes. Yay EEEBuntu!
Liv's battery life estimate is about right with the standard battery, though they do make bigger ones. (or they did).
I <3 Mine. Almost as much as I <3 DW-Fu ;)

[snakeling]

I've got an Asus eee 901. It had Linux on it, some version of Xandros that lasted a day before I installed something else :D I've tried Ubuntu NBR, which is slow, Crunchbang, which is quicker but not updated as often (it's based on Ubuntu), and I'm currently using Xubuntu, which is good.

Mine is old, and only the second generation; I think they fixed the main problem, which is the tiny keyboard. The really annoying thing is the >< which needs two or three keys to print, which can get old very quickly when you do HTML.

Battery life is a little under 4h, RAM is 1M, which is a bit slow when you've got Firefox running (I'm trying out Chrome right now, which is speedier). The HD is 8G, and I added an SD card for 4G. Given that I only use it to surf and listen to a little music, it's more than enough. I've got an external 120G HD I can connect to it when I feel like watching a video.

Honestly, it's a toy. You can't use it in a productive environment. But it's really convenient when I go on holidays, for example, because it's only 1kg, so way lighter than an actual laptop.

If you can, try typing on one in the store, to get a feeling of whether you'll be comfortable.

[afuna]

Oooh, thank you. I'm mostly familiar with Ubuntu Linux, so it's heartening to hear that I can use a variant of it on a netbook, no problem *g* Though I may end up playing around a bit, but hmmm.

Honestly, it's a toy...But it's really convenient when I go on holidays

*nods* That seems fair, and also very useful info, since I'm looking for a netbook primarily in anticipation of a spate of travelling \o/

[juliet]

I had an eeepc 701 (1st gen). It was great when I was travelling for 3 months, because it weighed so much less than the laptop & also I wouldn't have wept buckets if I'd lost it. (So I could take minor risks like leaving it in a corner of the campsite toilet block for half an hr to charge while I made my breakfast; didn't worry about it in hostels; etc etc.)

Then my laptop caught up with me when I settled in Sydney for a bit, & I basically stopped using the netbook altogether. I didn't even consider shipping the laptop & taking the netbook in my bag when I set off back to the UK (another 6 wks) -- I was *mostly* static during those 6 wks & it wouldn't have been worth the tradeoff. Have barely touched it since & have just sold it.

The issues I had were that the keyboard was small & a bit rubbish, & the screen was just too small -- I found it irritating to websurf on etc (I read too fast!). Both of those problems are probably reduced in more recent netbooks.

I have a smartphone now (Android G1) which will do fine if I just need to check the interwebs when I'm out & about, and which has the major advantage that it's always with me. If I actually want to do anything serious, I'll drag the laptop along.

Having said all of that, I do want an iPad, because I would like an entertainment-and-web device that you *can* do a bit of writing on. The iPad looks like it's actually going to be good at the entertainment-&-web thing (which for me the eeepc wasn't really), primarily due to better screen. Plus it has v good battery life, plus you don't have the weight penalty of a keyboard. (For me, I don't think the virtual keyboard will be significantly worse than the scrunched plasticky eeepc keyboard.)

If I were doing the trying-to-maintain-freelance-career-while-travelling thing again, I prob would still get myself a cheapass netbook, but for day-to-day life, I just found that I didn't use it.

[zarhooie]

I've got an Acer Aspire One (last year's model). It is my primary computer. I sprung extra for the 6 cell battery, but I think you could even get a 9cell now. They weren't available when I was shopping. I've had mine for over a year now and I LOVE it. I haul it everywhere with me, and even after a year, I still have a 2-3 hour charge on the battery. The one thing that I didn't like initially was the layout of the touch screen, but I got used to it really quickly.

My primary recommendation would be to get somewhere and try them out. Some keyboard layouts are different than others. I selected the Acer because the shift key was in a logical place and I could reach it with my small hands.

ALSO GET ONE IN COLORS. <3

[aveleh]

I have an eeepc 1000he, and I love it. It is pretty much happy except when I have two instances (different profiles) of Firefox open PLUS am running yakuake to SSH in to my server PLUS am watching movies or tv. Then VLC pauses the video every once in a while which can get annoying if I'm *looking* at it (but is fine if I'm mostly just listening to the audio and flipping to it while doing the other things that require firefox and yakuake.

It came with Windows (I run xubuntu); there wasn't an option in that model and it made me sad, but I really wanted the new gen keyboard it came with (if you remember, I used to have a 901, which I hated the keyboard on), the long long battery life (rated at 10 hours, definitely does 6 or so, my 901 had been down to just over 2 hours before I sold it), and a slightly bigger screen (this is my second 10" display, it's my favourite size; I used to keep my 8.9 hooked up to my monitor at home, but this one I mostly don't). My only real complaint is that I wish it was lighter - my 901 I could justify bringing with me for only a low-chance of use, this one I need to be a bit more sure. But I'm very aware of how I load my back, and I don't think most people would find it problematic.

There's also a newer line, with the T91MT, which has the swivel touchpad screen <3 <3 <3. (Except reports of it and ubuntu aren't great.) Supposedly there's a 10" size coming soon; when that one sounds like it's reached the good fit point for me, it's going on my savings list.

[afuna]

Oooooh thank you, that's good to know. I'll only ever have one instance of Firefox (well, maybe multiple windows >_>), plus yakuake and SSH. Don't think I'll be doing much movies or TV, for what I'm planning to do, so YAY.

I am leaning towards the latest eeepc model with a decent price (1005ha? something like that? I took a picture /o\), and the keyboard fits my hands just fine, so I think that should be okay.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Or I may wait for the T91MT -- researching it now!

[afuna]

Abby dear heart, is this with 1 gig of memory or 2?

[afuna]

Oh also and sorry for the spam ._. man, the T91MT looks interesting, but it looks like it may not be available over here, so I may just end up with the normal netbook which would be pretty cool for my tastes ^____^

(Unless I really wanted something to play with. OH NO *wibbles*)

[vlion]

I tapped on every netbook I could find. None of them felt right to my hands; they always felt cramped. Since I was going to be writing my thesis on my portable computer, I didn't buy one, I got a good-feeling laptop. Obviously YMMV depending on your handsize.

[afuna]

Very tiny hands, so I guess that's an advantage for this! *G*

[jan]

I have a Dell mini 10v which is completely awesome. It's very fast and very light (and it's a cute candy-apple red *g*). I got the 6-cell battery and average about 6-7 hours. Even with the bulkier battery, it fits in a regular purse. I don't do heavy typing on it, but my hands are small so I've not had much of a problem. It's definitely easier than typing on my BlackBerry while traveling. If necessary, I know I can use a USB keyboard and mouse. It used to be my back-up/travel laptop, but has quickly ascended to #1 status.

If you want to get a good deal and are going to mess around with it anyway, Dell Factory Outlet sells the refurbished/returned ones quite cheaply. Then you use a 15% off coupon (widely available) to drop the price down further. We bought a refurbished one for next to nothing as a gift for my nephew. It has had zero problems. Kung merong mag-uuwi para sayo, this might be a really economical option. Good luck!

[afuna]

The Dell sounds somewhat interesting (mmm savings *__*) but I'm feeling really wary of Dell in general because my dayjob laptops are Dell, and they seem somewhat... prone to breaking.

[nova]

"buying a netbook for travel"

Is this a hint at a visit to one of the DW offices? :D

[afuna]

Heeeeee. Not yet, but I think I'd like one of those to be my destination one of these days :-D