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Looking for a temporary replacement. Who makes the best 'netbook'? Asus, Acer, MSI?

wangchunggti337

wangchunggti337

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 14, 2007
208
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I left my MacBook up at my parent's summer house :( Unfortunately there's no convenient way to get it back and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get it. I'm a student so renting a MacBook from the library for three days at a time has been working so far, but I need a replacement. I don't want to buy a whole new computer because I will eventually get my MacBook back. I figured a netbook would be my best option. Plus, it would still be useful to me when I get my MB back. I've been doing plenty of research but still can't come up with a winner.

Any advice from a Apple fan's perspective? So far I'm leaning towards the MSI Wind, but also like the Acer Aspire One, Dell Mini 9, and of course the Eee. Apparently the Mini runs OS X pretty well, although I realize this is illegal ( I think ).

I'm just looking for something that will surf the web fine, take notes, a decent battery, and won't be outdated too quickly. Hoping to get the bigger screen size 9" or 10", not a 7". I'd really like to keep this under $300, but not sure if that's realistic.

Thanks for the help.
 
Definitely the MSI wind.. led screen...nice build quality.. great keyboard... you can even install OSX on it with some very good performance !

http://windosx.wikispaces.com/Benchmarks is a wiki dedicated to installing osx on msi wind..

Eveything works, you just need to add a dell wifi card.
 
I tried to Eee 901 16G (8.9" screen, 16GB SSD drive, 900Mhz Celeron) and it was a dog. Not impressed at all, even for basic surfing.

It sure was light though...

The Dell's look nice in design, but they nickle and dime for every option (like webcam and bluetooth).

I was looking forward to playing with a Lenovo S10
 
I just got a Acer Aspire One, im in the same situation as you somewhat, I just wanted a cheap, small laptop until spring, by then new Apple laptops should be out.

So far I like it, I only have the 8 gig version with linux, so I can't comment on how windows works.

Really the Acer Aspire One is the best choice right now for anyone looking for a netbook, though I do admit the battery life is pretty bad (only 2.5-3 hours for me). But they are going to sell batteries with double the capacity and some of the higher end models are going to be shipping with he new batteries in a few weeks.

Oh and my acer aspire one was 329 from newegg, and I ordered last Thursday afternoon and got it Friday around noon, Newegg is awesome.
 
HP mini note.

if you can find one that is.
best 8" ive played with.
solid build and better specs.
expect to pay a little more than the dell though...
 
Yeah, the HP should be the best, but it's also by far the most expensive. The Acer Aspire One is probably the 2nd best, but you'd need the 6 cell battery to make it really usable. This raises the price towards the higher end.


And the thing that people don't get is that despite the HP not using an Intel Atom, it's probably faster than the Atom in most situations. They also don't offer a really low price like the Dell because to get all the features, they don't charge you for every little additional item. If you build a decent Dell Mini 9, it would cost an extra $150 to $200. It may have a lower base price, but I'd never take the base model Dell, so the cost difference between it and the HP isn't much, really.

The upcoming Lenovo does look good, though.
 
I'd stay away from the HP, first of all it's HP...you can't find a company with worst customer service. Second of all it's using a Via CPU that lags behind the Intel Atom. I'd go with Acer, you can get the 120 GB hard drive, and 1 GB of RAM in either the Linux or Windows configuration. I've owned two Acer laptops and have never had a problem with them.
 
I love my Asus EEE 1000h. They just got a $100 price drop, so you can score one for around $400 with a coupon from amazon with free shipping. The keyboard is roughly 92% the size of a standard keyboard, and is WAY more comfortable than any of the 8.9". Comes with the intel atom 1.6 (hyperthreading, speedstep), 1GB ram, 80GB HD, 6-cell battery, bluetooth, wifi, cam, multitouch trackpad, et al.

Comes with XP but I did this. I use mine as my beater to take to and from class, and work with in the library. Runs iWork and Office 08 amazingly well, and works great for everything I need for school.
 
I had an Acer Aspire (13" screen, but forget the model) and it was good until the end of the first year. I wasn't impressed with the build quality, the screws on the bottom became loose and needing constant tightening, the hard drive went and the LCD developed a dark blob in the center where the back lighting was failing.

It was a good temporary solution for $500 for a year. But I sold it just after the first year before it fully gave up the ghost. It did what I wanted and expected it to do, but I still didn't like the build quality.

If I were going with a temporary solution, I would go for the EEE PC. It is cheap and when you get your MacBook back you mod the snot out the EEE with tons of cool features.
 
kwood said:
I had an Acer Aspire (13" screen, but forget the model) and it was good until the end of the first year. I wasn't impressed with the build quality, the screws on the bottom became loose and needing constant tightening, the hard drive went and the LCD developed a dark blob in the center where the back lighting was failing.

It was a good temporary solution for $500 for a year. But I sold it just after the first year before it fully gave up the ghost. It did what I wanted and expected it to do, but I still didn't like the build quality.

If I were going with a temporary solution, I would go for the EEE PC. It is cheap and when you get your MacBook back you mod the snot out the EEE with tons of cool features.
Click to expand...

yea I agree, acer computers are normally not the best quality but the acer aspire one does not feel cheap like most acer laptops, it has a very sturdy feel to it imo. The only netbook that looks better quality to me is the dell one they just came out with
 
Forget about Asus. Their tech support is not good. I bought a video card and a motherboard from them. Both items had problems. I emailed tech support and waited for about a week. There was no reply. I returned the items to the stores for a refund. Then another week later, I got replies from somebody from China. Although they replied in a polite way, the suggestions made were not helpful at all.
 
hajime said:
Forget about Asus. Their tech support is not good. I bought a video card and a motherboard from them. Both items had problems. I emailed tech support and waited for about a week. There was no reply. I returned the items to the stores for a refund. Then another week later, I got replies from somebody from China. Although they replied in a polite way, the suggestions made were not helpful at all.
Click to expand...

That is weird...never had any problems with them personally...bad luck?:confused:
 
I picked up an Acer Aspire One with 120GB HDD, 1GB RAM, XP, and I have to be honest, pretty impressed with it. Perfect for email, surfing, and portability. I'd like to see Apple release a small netbook.
 
I have an acer aspire one, just waiting for the next macbook to come out. I'm loving it so far, but do wish I had waited for the version with the 6 cell battery. Though if I was doing it now I may get the asus eee 1000h thats selling for 400-450
 
I like my Asus 4G....admitly there line is a little pricer then it should be, but over all, nice laptops.

Now a days, I'd go Dell's Mini 9. Ubuntu has me sold!
 
hookem12387 said:
I have an acer aspire one, just waiting for the next macbook to come out. I'm loving it so far, but do wish I had waited for the version with the 6 cell battery. Though if I was doing it now I may get the asus eee 1000h thats selling for 400-450
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same here, when the next macbook comes out my Netbook is going on ebay.
 
Why dont you just get a cheap second hand mac from ebay or something, old powerbook 12" if your looking for something small? That would probably be cheaper than a netbook and you would still be using a mac. You could put it back on ebay as-well and pretty much get the same that you bought it for i would guess if its only temporary?
 
Nitrocide said:
Why dont you just get a cheap second hand mac from ebay or something, old powerbook 12" if your looking for something small? That would probably be cheaper than a netbook and you would still be using a mac. You could put it back on ebay as-well and pretty much get the same that you bought it for i would guess if its only temporary?
Click to expand...

I've been doing that while noticing the netbooks are becoming increasingly attractive options. My 12" iBook replacement might be a Linux netbook as I've used Red Hat, Knoppix, Saboyan and Ubuntu before.
I'm inclined toward an MSI as I have one of their MBs that's really sweet on a machine running Ubuntiu 8.03.

Apple doesn't make them like this anymore, but once did, that's what bugs me. Those 12" Books were beautiful little machines.
 
I have an Asus (an older one from last year -- the 701), but at the moment if I were getting a new one, the ones I would take most seriously are... the Asus EeePC 901, the new Dell one, and the Lenovo one.
 
i really like my asus eee 901
one of the big differences between the models is the battery life
some have 3 cell batteries and last 3-4 hours
the eee901 lasts 6-7 hours with wifi on.
 
hookem12387 said:
The lenovo is getting only decent reviews. It's apparently way hot
Click to expand...

Yeah, true... to be honest, ever since the 701 was the clearly dominant model in the first round of these devices, there hasn't really been a strong leader. Asus, I think, remains quite competitive (in fact, I might even get an EeeBox). The Wind isn't half bad, although I think I like others better. But there's been something that a number of people did not like much at all for almost every device. That was true for the 701 also, I guess, although it was a relatively new thing and so perhaps it was exciting.

I still really love my 701 though. I think one way or another, netbooks are very satisfying, and I'm glad I got one.
 
The new dual-core Atom CPUs are likely to show up in some netbooks soon, and many other (new) netbook models likely before the holidays.

ASUS confirm dual-core Atom Eee PCs this year, bigger SSD & HDD: In late September, the Eee PC S-series is expected to launch with a 10.1-inch 16:9 aspect display with LED backlighting, 4-5hrs battery life and 32GB SSD storage. ASUS will be targeting the netbook at the “high-end” of the netbook market, with an estimated $700-900 tag.

Gigabyte planning 10-inch M912 netbook with Atom 330 dual-core?: According to Engadget Chinese, Gigabyte are preparing a 10-inch version of their M912 convertible touchscreen netbook. Not only will the larger netbook - they suggest the M1012 - have a bigger display than the 8.9-inch M912 but it will also use Intel’s upcoming dual-core Atom 330 CPU.
 
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