thinking of a netbook, but not for the usual reasons

kingaaa

I'll mainly be using it for playback of media. I hook my present sony laptop up to a pa system and an LCD, and I also have a set of gear4 blutooth speakers. Its a bit of a pain carting the sony around, and I'm always nervous of damaging it.So my requirements are:

at least 120 gb hard drive
bluetooth (a must, so all linux based machines are out)
wi-fi
audio/headphones output
good battery life

I've been looking at a lot of different model, but always find myself drawn back to the Dell mini10, simply because it has HDMI out. I cant find another netbook that has this,although admitadly im not a big dell fan!

I'd like to hear honest opinins from anybody that actually owns one of the current models of netbook.

robbie_998

kingaaa wrote: »

I'll mainly be using it for playback of media. I hook my present sony laptop up to a pa system and an LCD, and I also have a set of gear4 blutooth speakers. Its a bit of a pain carting the sony around, and I'm always nervous of damaging it.So my requirements are:

at least 120 gb hard drive
bluetooth (a must, so all linux based machines are out)
wi-fi
audio/headphones output
good battery life

I've been looking at a lot of different model, but always find myself drawn back to the Dell mini10, simply because it has HDMI out. I cant find another netbook that has this,although admitadly im not a big dell fan!

I'd like to hear honest opinins from anybody that actually owns one of the current models of netbook.

Dell is the only one that pops into my mind for the best laptop for what your looking for

having said that i have a Dell laptop over 2 years now...never a problem

Amalgam

Asus Eee 1000HE springs to mind.

OP, bluetooth has fine support in the main Linux distros.

kingaaa

I'm not familiar with linux at all, and im not very good at messing about with operating systems. I had an XPS which turned me right off Dell machine. Id spring for the samsung nc10 if only it had hdmi!

robbie_998

well ubuntu and linux can be downloaded but with a mini dell it would most likely be Windows XP not sure which one but you might get vista on it if its big enough in memory and that

caspa307

http://www.carphonewarehouse.ie/product.php/466/73/hp_pavilion_tx2130ea/eacc6830d7dea42de61a1e742951d12e

hp pavillion tx2130ea- not a notebook but small enough and very powerful! plus touchscreen 799 in store



http://www.carphonewarehouse.ie/product.php/541/73/toshiba_nb_100/eacc6830d7dea42de61a1e742951d12e

if not the toshiba nb100 small powerful only 120 gb hardrive but very nice
cant remember the price hope it helps

Amalgam

Lenovo S12 is out in the US, ION chipset and HDMI. If you know someone that can ship one over for you..

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=8EE56652C33D4452A778393130C14F42

I have no idea if that configuration will make it to Europe. I've read that the European S12 will feature a VIA Nano chipset.

Alanstrainor

They're probably sold out by now, but it could be worth a look. This Medion Akoya 11.6" netbook looks like a good buy. HDMI out, dedicated graphics, and slick design.

halkar

Aldi has a netbook with hdmi and bluetooth. 400€ with larger screen. Not bad me thinks.

kingaaa

the s12 looks interestin, and its only €380 on laptops direct, but its just a tad too large, getting into notebook territory

Fysh

Having an HDMI output isn't your only concern, you'll want to make sure whatever you go for has the power to properly decode your media files. I'm guessing you're talking about AVIs or the like rather than DVDs since you're not mentioning optical drives, but even so it's not a given - I've had a Eee 701 for a while and it's fine for playing media on the internal screen, but putting it onto an external display results in an unwatchable degree of flicker. Something with an Atom processor should fare better, but I would suggest testing before you buy if possible.

kingaaa

dont really know anything about medion, are the a quality brand?

kingaaa

the medion is nearly the exact same spec as the top dell mini10, except for the amd processor and the larger screen, all for the same price

Amalgam

kingaaa wrote: »

dont really know anything about medion, are the a quality brand?

Medion are often basically just a 'rebadge' of other brands. The Akoya E1312 is basically an MSI netbook. Medion had a hit with a previous model, which was more or less an MSI Wind 100, you could even load the MSI firmware on the Medion..

I'm not sure which MSI model the E1312 is a rebadge of, but it is a rebadge. Unless you're a brand snob, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Medion. Anything under 12 inches I would class as 'netbook-ish', nicely portable.

kingaaa

Just a quick update, I ended up going for the mini10 and could'nt be happier! I got the higher spec screen, the 6 cell battery, and the higher spec processor, also came with the mini N wireless card and bluetooth.Also got a 3 year world-wide warranty. The batterylife is amazing, used it for nearly 5 hours last night and still plenty in the tank! The HDMI works great, thought it was going to be a bit hit and miss but it looked great on a 32" philips lcd. I'm well pleased I did'nt go for the samsung (I was really tempted but the HDMI swung it for me). Now all I need to organise is is some sort of sleeve/bag.