Legit Reviews

Taken from the news....
"Netbooks had a rocky start last year in some markets, Intel's marketing chief said at the Intel investor meeting Tuesday. At the investor meeting, Intel demonstrated on stage the performance gap between a Netbook and a mainstream notebook. In the demonstration, a Netbook and a notebook ran the same high-definition video of the NBA basketball playoffs. The video on the Atom processor-powered Netbook was jerky and dropped frames, while the Core 2 chip-based notebook's video was smooth. The point was obvious: the Netbook's Atom silicon falls short in performing some tasks that a mainstream notebook handles with relative ease. No one mentioned anything about the NVIDIA Ion platform though!"

"In the first period--June, July, August of last year--there were some in the retail channels that were shipping (Netbooks) as notebooks," Sean Maloney said in a question-and-answer session that was streamed over the Web. "They were running ads that had a continuum of notebooks and had this Netbooky thing in there--it was called a notebook. They had very high return rates and a couple of these guys had return rates in the 30 percent range, which is a disaster."

I just saw this in the news section on the site. It just goes to show how dumb some consumers can be in thinking that they can get something for nothing. But then again most of these consumers are just that, consumers... They don't really know much when it comes to technology, kind of like the women in my family when it comes to cars... "I just want to be able to turn the key and have it run..."

I'm not suprised by this. I've been debating a netbook for some time and it is inevatable that I will get one this year in perperation for my trip to Australia in 2010.

I've been holding off as I can't seem to find a netbook that meets my needs. I've been hoping nVidia will release thier ION platform to the netbook market to fix the one major issue I keep seeing on these devices which you touch on in your article, video playback. I'm not expecting this thing to be able to play a video game, but I would like to see 2D acceleration powerful enough to play DVD quality video back flawlessly.

Here's my requirement list before I go netbook:

Biometric lock
1280x800 rez on 10" screen
4 hour battery life
Flawless 2D video playback
HD-Audio codec

If I can find a netbook that does all that, I'll buy it.

When I saw that story I had to post it on the front page... A 30% return rate is huge and amazing to me!

FeRaL wrote:At the investor meeting, Intel demonstrated on stage the performance gap between a Netbook and a mainstream notebook. In the demonstration, a Netbook and a notebook ran the same high-definition video of the NBA basketball playoffs. The video on the Atom processor-powered Netbook was jerky and dropped frames, while the Core 2 chip-based notebook's video was smooth. The point was obvious: the Netbook's Atom silicon falls short in performing some tasks that a mainstream notebook handles with relative ease. No one mentioned anything about the NVIDIA Ion platform though!

Yeah, because the Ion wouldn't have been able to do anything, anyway. I can easily playback 720p/1080i MPEG2 on the Atom so chances are, the hi-def video they demoed is streamed from a website using Flash and Flash supports neither DXVA nor CUDA.

FeRaL wrote:I just saw this in the news section on the site. It just goes to show how dumb some consumers can be in thinking that they can get something for nothing. But then again most of these consumers are just that, consumers... They don't really know much when it comes to technology, kind of like the women in my family when it comes to cars... "I just want to be able to turn the key and have it run..."

Huh? You have to turn the key? I thought you just need to press the button.

Skippman wrote:I'm not suprised by this. I've been debating a netbook for some time and it is inevatable that I will get one this year in perperation for my trip to Australia in 2010.

I've been holding off as I can't seem to find a netbook that meets my needs. I've been hoping nVidia will release thier ION platform to the netbook market to fix the one major issue I keep seeing on these devices which you touch on in your article, video playback. I'm not expecting this thing to be able to play a video game, but I would like to see 2D acceleration powerful enough to play DVD quality video back flawlessly.

Here's my requirement list before I go netbook:

Biometric lock
1280x800 rez on 10" screen
4 hour battery life
Flawless 2D video playback
HD-Audio codec

If I can find a netbook that does all that, I'll buy it.

You don't need the Ion for smooth MPEG2 video playback. As mentioned above, I can play even HD MPEG2 on an Atom+945GC build. The rest, well those are a bit of a tall order if you want an inexpensive device. The good news is, you can probably get a similar size Fujitsu convertible tablet PC that meets all your requirements. The bad news, you might have to sell a kidney or two. Oh yeah, I don't get the need for "HD-Audio codec". Audio's usually decoded by software if you don't have a sound card. Perhaps you're referring to multi-channel audio bitstreaming? Seriously, though, unless you're planning on plugging-in your netbook to the AVR, what benefit do you get from multi-channel audio? Are there headphones or ultra portable speaker set-ups with multi-channel audio support?

I was refering to 48.8khz decoding of audio. ie something better than the AC'97 codec.

As far as it being inexpensive, if I can get what I want I'm willing to pay a decent price for it. If, as you say, they're capable of flawless 2D MPEG playback as it is, I think I'd be happy with the vast majority of the netbooks on the market.

One of my major concerns is apparently none of these devices comes with a biometric lock. In an age where people are loosing (i.e. having stolen) laptops all the time I'd be concerned about having my personal data potentially stolen. True that I keep 99% of that stuff on my IronKey but traveling internationally... my concerns of privacy escalate.

Skippman wrote:I'm not suprised by this. I've been debating a netbook for some time and it is inevatable that I will get one this year in perperation for my trip to Australia in 2010.

I've been holding off as I can't seem to find a netbook that meets my needs. I've been hoping nVidia will release thier ION platform to the netbook market to fix the one major issue I keep seeing on these devices which you touch on in your article, video playback. I'm not expecting this thing to be able to play a video game, but I would like to see 2D acceleration powerful enough to play DVD quality video back flawlessly.

Here's my requirement list before I go netbook:

Biometric lock
1280x800 rez on 10" screen
4 hour battery life
Flawless 2D video playback
HD-Audio codec

If I can find a netbook that does all that, I'll buy it.

ASUS comes really close with the N10Jc-A1 we reviewed HERE.

The only requirement that it does not meet is the 1280x800 resolution. It has the standard 1024x600 res 10.2" screen. Other than that it meets or exceeds your requirements.

AuthenTec fingerprint sensor
1024x600 10.2" screen
4hrs 55min battery life at idle (*graphics card turned off)
descrete graphics with the Nvidia 9300m (same as the ion)
Azalia compliant audio chip, with 3D effect & full duplex

Just throwin' it out there. This is probably as close as you are going to get until there is a 12" netbook offering.

That thing sounds pretty close to what I want. No mention of the audio quality in the review but I'm assuming it was good. I love to listen to FLAC audio when I'm on a flight plus I've ripped a large portion of my movie library. The selectable video source is also awesome.

I wish I could try it out before I buy it but I don't think Best Buy carries Asus.

Skippman wrote:That thing sounds pretty close to what I want. No mention of the audio quality in the review but I'm assuming it was good. I love to listen to FLAC audio when I'm on a flight plus I've ripped a large portion of my movie library. The selectable video source is also awesome.

I wish I could try it out before I buy it but I don't think Best Buy carries Asus.

Best BUy does carry ASUS - 18 notebooks on their website and the store out here by me has them on display... not sure what ones.

Skippman wrote:I'm not suprised by this. I've been debating a netbook for some time and it is inevatable that I will get one this year in perperation for my trip to Australia in 2010.

I've been holding off as I can't seem to find a netbook that meets my needs. I've been hoping nVidia will release thier ION platform to the netbook market to fix the one major issue I keep seeing on these devices which you touch on in your article, video playback. I'm not expecting this thing to be able to play a video game, but I would like to see 2D acceleration powerful enough to play DVD quality video back flawlessly.

Here's my requirement list before I go netbook:

Biometric lock
1280x800 rez on 10" screen
4 hour battery life
Flawless 2D video playback
HD-Audio codec

If I can find a netbook that does all that, I'll buy it.

2 WORDS: Lenovo X300 (now the x301)

I think the biggest problem with the "general buying public" is their own ignorance. They buy a netbook expecting it to be a replacement for their traditional laptop or desktop. Then they get it out of the box and realize that they have made a mistake.
1. The keyboard on a netbook isn't the same size (especially the 8.9" versions).
2. The native resolution of 1024X600 takes a bit of getting used to.
3. The price tag of $300-$450 for a computer compelled them to buy it.
4. People didn't realized there is no DVD player.
5. Like Apple products the allure over the product wore off.

I own a netbook and couldn't be happier with it. The first thing I did when I purchased my netbook was order a 2GB stick of RAM. Then I formatted the drive to have access to all the space (ASUS ships their netbooks with 3 partitions, why?). I consider myself and everyone here to be more tech savvy than Average Joe Netbook Buyer so I knew what I was getting. This thing was not purchased to replace anything that I already own.

The reason I purchased mine was based on a specific set of criteria. At the time I was working 60+ hours a week and 20+ of those where out of state. My laptop couldn't hold a charge for more than 15 minutes and it only had 512MB of DDR RAM. After costing out the price of a new battery and more RAM it became pretty clear that I was better off buying a new laptop. What I needed in a laptop:
1. Light weight.
2. Long battery life.
3. Easily fit on an airplane tray.
4. Had enough drive space for movies and music.

After looking around for some time I kept running into the netbooks. On a flight from Houston to Milwaukee I watched a movie, listened to music and played some MAME games and still had 30% of my battery when I landed. If you know what you are buying then I think a netbook is a great purchase.

Here's my requirement list before I go netbook:

Biometric lock
1280x800 rez on 10" screen
4 hour battery life
Flawless 2D video playback
HD-Audio codec

If I can find a netbook that does all that, I'll buy it.

I don't think you are going to find that in a netbook. Some of those fit the bill but others do not. Remember it's just a netbook so I wouldn't expect too much from it.

That Asus N10Jc-A1 is definatly in the running. I'm planning on going by Best Buy this weekend to take a look them. I don't need to run games or watch BlueRay movies. Running a NES emulator would be MORE than enough as Blaster Master is always fun.

That Lenovo X301 is AMAZING but WOW is it spendy. I'm sorry, I just don't have a spare $2K to spend on anything that's not a desktop machine as I could build a darn good i7 machine for that price.

Skippman wrote:That Lenovo X301 is AMAZING but WOW is it spendy. I'm sorry, I just don't have a spare $2K to spend on anything that's not a desktop machine as I could build a darn good i7 machine for that price.

Exactly. Prior to netbooks, you'll have to spend thousands of dollars on an ultra-portable. Some of the really tiny Fujitsu notebooks I was eyeing before cost $2500+. Even at that price, though, they're not expected to do anything they're not designed to do (no gaming, etc). These were basic business machines (mostly for spreadsheets, etc) for frequent travellers. Basically, people are paying a hefty price premium for an underpowered device with a small size, light weight and long battery life.

Now we have netbooks and people are expecting to be able to do everything they can do on their desktop on these tiny machines. A lot of the reviews you see, gaming is benchmarked when really, it's not even a consideration. People are complaining you can't watch HD, but on such a tiny screen, I don't see any benefit of being able to play back 1080p videos. I really don't understand why people have such unreasonable expectations for a device that only costs $300.