Dell Mini 10v netbook advise please :)

[unit504]

looking at getting the kids a dell mini 10v netbook for xmas, a wondered if anyone has had any first experience with these netbooks? or can recommend a good netbook?

 

[wemorgan]

Hi.

I have the Dell Mini 10 laptop. For the money I think it's a good product. When I was looking the equivalent Samsung was at least £50 more.

My biggest grip is that I find the small touch pad at times difficult to use. I don't know whether that is a Dell issue or just a feature of all small touch pads. Of course there is a USB port, so mouse can be plugged in.

I use MS Office 2007 on it and all applications start in a reasonable time and then work very smoothly. With 1GB of RAM, if you have 4 MS Explorer tabs open, Word and Excel you will notice a performance hit, but it is still useable.

I think the laptop is quite light because the number of battery cells is low. This means it last ~3 hours. I believe batteries with more cells can be bought as an upgrade if needed.

I bought my mini 10 (not 10v) 'boxed new' from forum member 500E. The price was good, so you might want to PM him, as I think he had one more last time I heard.

I'm not sure what else there is to say about it, so feel free to ask more questions.

 

[wemorgan]

This also looks good value at £209:

Samsung N130 Netbook Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer

 

[w124coupe]

The twin advantages of netbook over a budget laptop are size and battery life.

Disadvantages are small screen, graphics capability and often a compromised keyboard.

Are you better off getting them budget laptops?