Which Netbook?

[Tarmac_Terrorist]

...for personal use - not business.

My current HP laptop is getting a little tired at 5 years old. All works OK but it's probably at the end of it's life. I will keep it for photo editing and bigger tasks.

I have decided to go down the netbook route and buy a seperate hard drive and dvd drive for backing up etc. To be fair, I probably don't need the extra memory but I want to be able to back important stuff up elsewhere. I'm looking to buy over the next couple of months.

So which netbook should I go for? A local laptop repair centre suggested a Toshiba as they reckon spares are generally easy to get but warned of the cheaper entry level models of any make as spares cannot be found and they are generally engineered to last no longer than about 18 months and then it's a case of buy new again.

Don't really want to spend any more than £250 - £300 for the netbook itself. Any thoughts?

Has anyone got any good / bad experiences of other makes?

Ta

[Sponge]

I'll be monitoring this thread with interest. My wife wants a netbook for her birthday in October.

I liked the look of this one, but it's a bit over both our budgets.

Edited August 22, 2010 by Sponge

[Tarmac_Terrorist]

That is a nice machine but a hefty price. I wouldn't want to be taking it places or on the rare occasions I had to, leave it in the car boot at that price.

I don't mind paying a little more if it lasts well but I get the impression that these are pretty much throw away items and aren't build / designed to last like a half decent quality laptop.

Come on TSN massive - any ideas / opinions?

[Philbes]

The latest PCPro magazine has a test on 7 netbooks. Chose the Asus Eee PC 1001P at £219 as the best. The Toshiba NB305 at £265 and the Packard Bell dot s2 at £280 were also recommended.

The winner in the Ultraportable group was the Packard Bell dot u at £449.

[Tarmac_Terrorist]

The latest PCPro magazine has a test on 7 netbooks. Chose the Asus Eee PC 1001P at £219 as the best. The Toshiba NB305 at £265 and the Packard Bell dot s2 at £280 were also recommended.

The winner in the Ultraportable group was the Packard Bell dot u at £449.

Thanks - the NB305 could be on the shortlist then.

[DaveP]

I paid £160 for Samsung NC10. Pretty good, would be nice to have DVI/HDMI.

[Sponge]

Asus Eee PC 1005PE gets a good review.

£285 from Amazon UK.

[Sponge]

The latest PCPro magazine has a test on 7 netbooks. Chose the Asus Eee PC 1001P at £219 as the best. The Toshiba NB305 at £265 and the Packard Bell dot s2 at £280 were also recommended.

The winner in the Ultraportable group was the Packard Bell dot u at £449.

I'm liking the look of the PB dot s2. It takes xD cards (my Fuji compact uses them) and comes with Photoshop Elements 7, which my wife uses to edit our photos.