Very Small Laptops

dubmick

I've noticed a few of these on my travels recently and I think they are a good idea. Seen ones with 10/11 inch screens. Loads of people seem to have them in the states.

Any one got a laptop like this or could they recommend one?
See an 11" Sony Vaio at the weekend but it was something like £1500 sterling and that was in duty free!

Sid Deuce

You should try the lap top forum. In fairness without search it is hard to know such things.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=529

HArdly worth post a new thread. There are many on the subject there already!

I am in the same boat btw. Still looking!

BlackWizard

Im looking at them at the moment too. Im holding out to see when these new
CPU chips come out in laptops. Merom I think?

K.O.Kiki

Merom (Core 2 for laptops) had a paper launch the other day.

newme2006

Hi my mother got one of these, she is mad into her P.Cs, she bought a sony Vaio one, i think she uses it as a bit of a gadget rather than using it as her main P.C, she has a desktop at home.

In saying above she is quite knowledgeable on such things, and wouldn't have bought it if she wasn't impressed, but then they say that a Sony Vaio user is looking for a flashy thing to show off, suppose it can be said. her desktop is a Dell, and her handheld is a HP.

From what i have seen of it, and as a regular user of a laptop, i would feel that it is more of a gadget as it is too small to see properely but it does do most of its bigger counterpart, a case of personal taste, i guess.

ambro25

'Very small laptops' are most often referred to as 'ultra portables', and many manufacturers have been making these for donkeys' years.

You could usefully go on ebay.com or ebay.co.uk and do a search using this string ("ultra portable", ultraportable) and tick the 'search description' box. See what that spews back and have a look.

You have to remember two or three important things with ultraportables:
* even with very recent ones, don't expect to be doing any kind of 'high-end' 3D gaming: laptops (real ones, not these 'desktop replacement' monstrosities) are by nature a compromise of specs to achieve portability, in comparison to a desktop. 'Ultra portables' are even more of a compromise, so (usually)
graphics will be an embedded-shared affair only. And not a high-performing one at that.
* directly related to the above, only one spindle (the HDD) and (usually again) no internal media drives (DVD/CD/FDD/etc.). In these days of multi-GB USB keys, not that you really need them anyway.
* all of the above is for the dual purpose of (i) ultra-portability and (ii) extended operating time: smaller screen, no extra drives, no graphics card all mean that more juice left in the battery.

As you can tell (hopefully), I've had a few over the years - 'normal' ones and ultraportables. Ultraportables I've owned were the Tosh Portege 7020, Libretto 100, Fujitsu B110 (all fairly old machines, but you'd be hard pressed to find smaller/thinner, tbh - and they're enough for browsing/typing on the go with WiFi) - more recently had a lend of a Dell X200.

What I have found, in the end, is that if I'm going to need computing on the go during travel, I'm better off with an embedded (windowsCE) solution than a 'real' laptop (i.e. windows 95/98/2k/XP): no moving parts, instant on, rarely less than 7 hours operation on battery, wifi-able - and ultraportable by lappie standards (examples I've owned which you can Google are the Compaq Aero 8000, HP Jornada 820, Intermec 6651 and one in tablet format, the Fujitsu Pencentra 200).

I'm now chasing a B-series Fujitsu, and hopefully my quest will be at an end after that