Harvey Norman cheapo laptops

Dave!

Hey folks,

I'm looking for a new laptop that will get me through to the end of the year in college.

All I need it for really is internet, programming, maybe writing an essay or 2, and playing DVDs would be good too.

There are 2 cheap ones advertised in Harvey Norman at the moment:

HP 550 Notebook: €400
-Intel Celeron M530 processor
-1GB RAM
-120GB hard drive
-DVD burner
-15.4" screen

Acer Aspire One A110L Compact Notebook: €270
-Linux with Intel Atom processor
-512MB RAM
-8GB SSD
-8.9" CrystalBrite screen
-5in1 card reader
-3 hours battery life

They both have 5 year warranties.

edit: Do they both come with wifi? Important

The Acer doesn't appear to have a disc drive

The Acer one is cheaper and smaller, which is a plus It has f*ck all RAM though, so I'd have to buy some more probably. What's the processor like in that? I haven't a clue about processors.

Will probably purchase tonight if any good, so reviews welcome ASAP I'll search for previous threads too

Cheers

btw I have a iBook G4 at the moment and it's a few years old

Tom Dunne

Personally, I would go with the Acer.

I would be very surprised if either of them did not have Wifi, all laptops nowadays come with it as standard, but double-check to be sure.

Some questions to ask yourself:

- how often do you use a CD/DVD drive? Me, I never use mine on my laptop. I use network and memory sticks.

- could you realistically programme on an 8.9" screen? Me, not so sure. Short bursts (i.e. 10mins here, 15 mins there) maybe. Anything longer, no way.

- how important is portability? Obviously the Acer is a helluva lot more portable

- is an 8Gig Hard drive enough? Probably. Plus you can buy 4Gig USB memory sticks now for €30-€40

The Atom processor is a new fandangled processor for the really tiny laptops (netbooks is what the kids call them, I think). For what you want, it would be fine. As would the Celeron, for that matter.

Disclaimer The person I sit beside in work has just bought one of those Acer laptops, complete with Linux and the 8.9" screen. I am utterly smitten, so I might be a tad biased.

Alanstrainor

\you're right, the acer doesn't have a disc drive, and it doesn't have windows either. It's running it's own version of linux. And just to let you know, every laptop will have wireless internet these days;)
The acer aspire one, is a "netbook" it's uber light and built for people on the go. Is that HP notebook running vista?

Dave!

Doesn't say what the HP is running!

Cheers lads

- how often do you use a CD/DVD drive? Me, I never use mine on my laptop. I use network and memory sticks.
* I only use it when I'm watching DVD's, so that would obviously not be possible on the Acer! But most of my DVDs are malegals , so they can be put onto a USB/whatever if I need to watch one

- could you realistically programme on an 8.9" screen? Me, not so sure. Short bursts (i.e. 10mins here, 15 mins there) maybe. Anything longer, no way.
* I reckon I could if I'm honest! Each to their own though

- how important is portability? Obviously the Acer is a helluva lot more portable
* Quite important really, that was a major appeal of the iBook at the time (relative to my other options )

- is an 8Gig Hard drive enough? Probably. Plus you can buy 4Gig USB memory sticks now for €30-€40
* I would have to be quite judicious in my use of space that's for sure I like to run a tight ship, so the smaller hard-drive would force me to delete all the clutter and sh*te that I accumulate on the desktop or mac (usually filed away in folders such as 'Desktop sh*te' and 'desktop sh*te 2' )

The Atom processor is a new fandangled processor for the really tiny laptops (netbooks is what the kids call them, I think). For what you want, it would be fine. As would the Celeron, for that matter.
* Cheers, I reckon it would be okay

Disclaimer The person I sit beside in work has just bought one of those Acer laptops, complete with Linux and the 8.9" screen. I am utterly smitten, so I might be a tad biased.
* haha I'll let you stroke it if I buy one

Alanstrainor

If you're going to be going down the netbook, acer aspire one route, it'd be worth your while looking at the eee 901, 1000 and 1000h, and the advent 4211/msi wind. I'm using the advent 4211, which is a netbook, no disc drive, but 10.2" screen, very usable keyboard, 1.6ghz Atom processor, 80Gb Hard Drive, that i've upgraded to 250Gb!:pac:!, 1Gb RAM (I've got 2!;)), windows XP. It cost 379, in pcworld, so it's probably worth your while heading out to see them for yourself, and you can decide which suits you best

Run_to_da_hills

Keep away from "Celeron" chips, they are slow and would drive you mad even with the simplist of games or decryption programme, "Centrino Duo" are a better option.

Tom Dunne

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Keep away from "Celeron" chips, they are slow and would drive you mad even with the simplist of games or decryption programme, "Centrino Duo" are a better option.

It's horses for courses, really.

If a person wants a bottom of the range, basic laptop, for nothing more than e-mail, surfing and the odd letter, a Celeron will do just fine. At this stage, it's the memory that is more important to general usage performance than processor. And I am speaking as an ex-Intel employee.

AlmightyCushion

Dave! wrote: »

I would have to be quite judicious in my use of space that's for sure I like to run a tight ship, so the smaller hard-drive would force me to delete all the clutter and sh*te that I accumulate on the desktop or mac (usually filed away in folders such as 'Desktop sh*te' and 'desktop sh*te 2'

I see you have the same filing system I have. If you do need the extra hard drive space then a 320GB WD Passport can be had for around €100. It's small and powered through the usb so very handy. You can get smaller capacity ones for cheaper.

If screen size doesn't bother you then go with the acer or another netbook. The HP will more than likely be running vista and would be a bit slow . The acer is similar in spec (the celeron would be comparable in performance to the atom but the atom uses less power) but cheaper and smaller.

Dave!

Cheers lads! I went for the Acer in the end And so far I'm pretty happy with it!

For internetting purposes it's perfect for me... Has fully working firefox (flash etc), messenger, and all that crap. It has all the OpenOffice programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation. Has a pdf reader too. I was afraid it would just be the bare bones and nothing would work on it!

I've spent the last 3 hours browsing this forum, and discovered alot of cool sh*t
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=17

Should be a good source of info for when I f*ck up

That site lead me to a cool 'advanced' menu that I am unlikely to have found without it, and this gives you access to a sh*tload of apps, one of which is Eclipse (IDE)! That was pretty straightforward to install, and I've now got my programming app for college

Oh there's also a cool (low res) webcam built into it And a microphone somewhere...

I've yet to have any complaints really (thought writing this spiel on it would be taxing on the fingers, but alas I've made fewer mistakes that I do on my desktop ), but I'll let ye know if I do

Cheers for giving me the nudge I needed

Now, back to modding my Acer..........:pac:

TerrorFirmer

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Keep away from "Celeron" chips, they are slow and would drive you mad even with the simplist of games or decryption programme, "Centrino Duo" are a better option.

What a ridiculous statement, it wouldn't matter what the processor was as the video options in every laptop mentioned would be the bottleneck, not the CPU. Which, itself, is more or less the same as a Pentium M with less cache - Not that slow. It would also be faster then the Atom.

gamer

if you look around dell.ie or various shops ,or dell outlet core 2 duo laptops are selling for for 500euros,a 10 inch laptop is too small ,unless you are just using it to check email ,maybe 30mins a day webrowsing.i have a celeron 1.oghz its fine for the internet ,but for 100 euro extra its worth buying a core2duo pc.think about the weight of the laptop be4 you buy.you,ll need 2gig ram for vista,maybe 1gig if you knock off aero .TRY and get a laptop with grahics card that can acess at least 200meg ram for video /games ,if you think you might ever play any game more complex than tetris.Could be handy to have a tv out /svideo connector.

Alanstrainor

gamer wrote: »

if you look around dell.ie or various shops ,or dell outlet core 2 duo laptops are selling for for 500euros,a 10 inch laptop is too small ,unless you are just using it to check email ,maybe 30mins a day webrowsing.i have a celeron 1.oghz its fine for the internet ,but for 100 euro extra its worth buying a core2duo pc.think about the weight of the laptop be4 you buy.you,ll need 2gig ram for vista,maybe 1gig if you knock off aero .TRY and get a laptop with grahics card that can acess at least 200meg ram for video /games ,if you think you might ever play any game more complex than tetris.Could be handy to have a tv out /svideo connector.

I dont think you get it tbh. The whole idea of netbooks is, cheap small, portable laptops for basic use, ie, internet, office applications, possibly movies on the go if you want. Yes a better spec laptop could be gotten for the same money but it would be larger, not the kind of thing you can throw in your bag and forget about. Your logic would also work with getting a desktop over a laptop, they're cheaper and better spec for the money.(perhaps a little extreme, but relevant)

Dave!

Cheers for the (retrospective) advice lads. The notebook / netbook / tiny laptop seems grand for my purposes