Netbook/Web-book advice please

[teamster1975]

Vista avoid.

Not necessarily true, with SP2 it's not too bad at all. My laptop came with it loaded and I have persevered; it serves its purpose.

[highlander]

I bought 2 copies of Vista for my household and the Wifely Person's HP laptop came with it pre-installed. No problems here whatsoever. Am looking to move to Win7 at some point though.

[sirwiggum]

Im going to have to disagree.

Vista is a disgrace.

I installed it on my last desktop, an AMD64. It just sat processing, could get nothing meaningful done. Reformatted and put XP on, didn't look back.

Even the girlfriends laptop which is fairly new, Vista is way too slow. We put ubuntu on it and use it, flies!

It's like crippling a brand new 407V6 coupe with concrete tyres, putting vista on a new machine.

[FarmerPug]

My old laptop was a dell inspiron 6400 i got it about 4 years ago for £400, then a friend based on my good review of the laptop bought one a year later same price, same spec just with vista. The xp one was quicker and had less irritating do you wish to allow messages. And vista spends ages opening stuff and doesnt seem to be fully in control either xp just was click open file, click change password no waiting. And now the older xp one is still going, the vistas now too slow to even bother using, so i need to put xp onto that laptop some time.
But mac is worth the extra, even a used one will still be going strong because adware and spyware dont clog them up and slow them down

[teamster1975]

Im going to have to disagree.

Vista is a disgrace.

Admittedly it runs like a turd with less than 3Gb of RAM but I have been happy with my setup since I bought it
Let's not turn this into a which OS is best debate; you see enough of it elsewhere on the net!

If we are each happy with our setups then all is good with the world

[FarmerPug]

true, next thing it would start a debate on the uks best network easilly the most depressing read in the whole internet.

[sirwiggum]

I was looking forward to a register-style "my OS is better" debate

Are there any pug diagnostic tools that will run on USB / XP (NT kernel)?

[teamster1975]

I was looking forward to a register-style "my OS is better" debate

I think most of us would agree with the fact that life is too short to really give a sh1t!

[gRoberts]

lol you'll laugh. I have a Mac G5 with Snow Leopard installed, but I'm running Boot Camp with Vista Business on.

I have only used OS X once, and that was to setup Vista.

I've always romanticised with having a Mac as it's common place for people in the same line of work as me (developer) but I'm so used to Windows and how it works, that I can't get used to the OS X setup.

That said, like any Apple product. It's more to look good than actually anything else.

[trem1]

Im going to have to disagree.

Vista is a disgrace.

Admittedly it runs like a turd with less than 3Gb of RAM but I have been happy with my setup since I bought it
Let's not turn this into a which OS is best debate; you see enough of it elsewhere on the net!

If we are each happy with our setups then all is good with the world

WEll said Teamy
anyone got any advice on the original subject

[sirwiggum]

WEll said Teamy
anyone got any advice on the original subject

My 14 year old son has decided he wants a Netbook/Web-book off Santa this year so i'm after some advice about them.
From what ive found out there all 10.1" screen and around about the same sort of memory size.They all come with windows 7 as operating system, but no other software. Can downloaded software be installed on these without any issues, as curry's wanted about £100 for office software which seems excessive.

Yes downloaded software can be installed to a netbook. Buy one with an HDD (not SSD) for a bigger hard drive size. Download OpenOffice/LibreOffice or Lotus Symphony as office software for free.

I understand there is no cd-drive but dont think this would cause problem's

This is true, but it isn't as big a hindrence as you may think. Workarounds include USB Pens and drive sharing from a desktop CD drive.

As i said it's for my 14 yr old son to basically use on facebook, minclip and general surfing, the idea is for him to do schoolwork/homework on it as well but he's the 4th child so were not that gullible anymore.

Any Intel Atom system with 1-2GB RAM can do all that without any problem.

want a good deal as he's likely to break it,drop it, spill something on it so about £200 would be nice

Keep an eye on hotukdeals, maplin, keep an eye in the adverts for the likes of currys doing offers (but beware the pushy salespeople selling useless covercare - you get a years manufacturer warranty anyway).

any advice appreciated
Neil

I tried.

[trem1]

thanks for that sirwiggum, thats excellent advice thanks neil

[trem1]

right then we've bought one, whats the spec on this any good


and my next question is......................should i switch it on and get it up and running for xmas morning or leave it till then and sort it with my son. Whats involved in setting one of these up??

[FarmerPug]

thats very good, you can start it up but all you have to do there is to type in your or your sons name, set the time, choose what internet browser you want to use and setup them general preferences but that all adds to the specialness of a new pc. Though one thing to remember is before it goes on the internet it needs antivirus so you may choose to put it on now or on the morning of the 25th.

[sirwiggum]

Looks good!

If it has a limited return from the shop then check it works (although it should have a years manufacturer warranty).

As suggested, Windows will ask for things like username and possibly timezone, wireless network details, install an antivirus and to pick Firefox or Chrome as your browser.

Windows 7 starter is grand, I just don't understand the wallpaper limitation! Seems fairly arbitrary.