are those things just good for viewing web or can you install programs on them just like a normal labtop/pc?
Well... now that I've got my geek with me...
Ok, these are the specs...
1.6GHz Intel Atom processor
1 GB Ram
8 GB Solid State Drive
3 USB ports
1 VGA port
1 10 100 Network port
Wi-Fi
1 MMC Card-reader slot
Microphone
.3 Mp Webcam
Stereo Speakers
*Some of the pre-installed software:
Skype
StarOffice8
Microsoft Works
Acrobat Reader
PowerPoint Reader
All the regular Windows stuff... ie, Media Player, Movie Maker, Messenger, most of the Windows Live stuff.
*There's no CD/DVD drive* (but it comes with a DVD recovery disc)
It's got enough power and enough space to install a couple of browsers, basic photo software, music software, etc. Out of the 8 GB on the drive, there was initially only 2 GB spare. We uninstalled StarOffice and a couple of other unecessary programs, so now we have about 4 GB of space. It's not really designed to be used as a normal pc or laptop, it's designed for mainly online use. For example, Facebook, forums, email, YouTube, etc. You can connect an external drive to it, or use an MMC card, or USB stick if you want to store more stuff.
It's small and compact (22.5cm x 16.5cm x 2.5cm (9 x 6.5 x 1 inch)), and weighs next to nothing. The screen's only small, so it probably won't be any good for anyone with bad eyes. It's quick enough that I didn't really notice any difference between it and our laptop when it was plugged into our modem though. All up, it does the job it's supposed to. We're going to be picking up another one in the next few days for another 'someone special'. It'll be the same netbook, just has Linux installed for $150 less. Spewing...
Gryph is going to format it and install XP Pro on it...
It wouldn't be any good as an everyday computer. But, I quite like it. For the internet, I mean. We have our own base system, and we have a laptop, but I think one of these would be really handy to have for ourselves. There are times when we go either walking or caving, and we usually take lots of photos. At the moment we're limited to the amount of pics that we can fit on our memory cards. This sometimes means that we don't take as many pics as we want, especially if we're going to be away from civilisation for a while. Saving that extra kilo and significant size would make it so much easier to take a laptop to store our pics. To be honest, it would also be really cool to be able to say hi to all our friends as we're sitting on top of our favourite mountain...
The problem at the moment is that we can't network it with our laptop. We didn't buy a modem... 'cause we're cheap... so we can't connect it to the net at the same time. For some reason they don't see each other. Gryph said he could probably hard-wire them together... but that's just too much hassle.
Although it would be good to 'talk' to each other on line......
