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Mikejf

Mikejf

Free Member
Mar 5, 2008
221
6
Swindon
I'm after a laptop or notebook thats very portable. I like the look of the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 but unsure of what an Intel Atom 1.6ghz is the eqiverlant.

I need to run some software on it that requires a min of 1.6ghz dual core or 2.2ghz pentium/amd, running windows xp and at least 512meg mem.

Would this Atom processer be up to the job.

Also, as this model doesn't have a cdrom drive, could I just copy a cd's contents to my usb drive and install software from that?

Any other laptop/notebooks similar that might be good.

Many Thanks
 
Mikejf said:
Also, as this model doesn't have a cdrom drive, could I just copy a cd's contents to my usb drive and install software from that?
Click to expand...

Would you really want to be faffing around doing that? You can even get the most ultra light laptops with built-in or external CD's. As already asked by Eagle, your budget is key here. You can get any laptop in the world if your budget will allow for it ;)
 
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If you want something small and light have a look also at the Asus eee PC and the Acer Aspire One.
 
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Budget is under £400.

I don't think the Acer Aspire one has a CD dom drive, but again a nice laptop.
 
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How about an external USB CD/DVD? I use the Plextor PX-608CU which is very light and USB powered and is an excellent DVD-Writer.
 
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Atom is a single core CPU and these type of devices are aimed for fairly light use applications, web, e-mail, music and photos type stuff - if you're going to try and run anything serious it's likely to struggle.
 
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Only my personal opinion and others may disagree, but do not get an Acer - we have two of them and the higher spec as well and we both have been sent in for repair more times than I care to remember, and to top it all off their customer service would be better off ran but a group of monkeys.

I guess you can tell that I am impressed by Acer

Dee
 
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balloonARTstudio said:
Only my personal opinion and others may disagree, but do not get an Acer - we have two of them and the higher spec as well and we both have been sent in for repair more times than I care to remember, and to top it all off their customer service would be better off ran but a group of monkeys.

I guess you can tell that I am impressed by Acer

Dee
Click to expand...

I use an Acer Travelmate 3000 which is an ultra light laptop. The cd-rom drive is external which is ok for me as I hardly ever use it.

I bought it nearly 3 years ago with the 3 year extended warranty. It has been perfect for me. The spec is still higher than laptops coming out today and at the time it was half the price of bigger brand ultra light laptops with less capabilities. I have seriously loved my laptop. It's been a workhorse and has never let me down. never had a blue screen or a driver issue. never!

About a year ago the power pack charger had a connection problem and they replaced this quickly. However, right now it is at Acer for repair of the system fan. They have a 5 day turnaround and I sent it on Monday last week. When I called yesterday to check progress a very rude woman had he attitude that I was disturbing. I said that 5 days had passed and asked if I can get a progress update. She told me its awaiting parts. I asked how long that would take and she said it would take as long as it takes. Ok, I said, can I have some sort of ETA, have your parts supplier said a day, 2 days, a week, a month? She said that they don't get that information and I would just have to wait until the laptop returned. Ok, well can I speak to somebody who will be a bit more helpful. No you can't, there's nobody else available. Well I'd like to speak to anybody else who is less snappy than you. Concerning what?

I had to repeat myself 3 times before she put me on hold for about 3 minutes then came back and said there is nobody else available so she would arrange a 24 hour call back. I didn't believe her but rather than give her any satisfaction I agreed to that. 32 hours later I got a call from a very competent engineer who advised me of the full details of the repair and the delay. he advised that the laptop would be shipped tonight and arrive tomorrow.

Until this, my view of Acer had been steadily growing and I had recommended them several times. Many of my friends and family and business partners bought Acer on the strength of my recommendation, begrudgingly shunning Vaios and Dells.

I don't think I will be buying or recommending another Acer
 
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Your story rings bells with me.

Our last issue with our TravelMate resulted in Acer sending us a replacement, but the story behind it was a nightmare! Sorry this is a long story

We had an issue, and like you we had taken out the extended warranty which should mean a faster turn around time. About a week passed and we called them and got fobbed off by them saying that they were waiting for parts. Then we got the machine back, turned it on and it had the same issues, we looked at the engineer's notes which said "re-seated battery" meaning that they took the battery out and put it back in. So called them back and mentioned this and they said pack it up again so we did.

A little over a week passed and we called again to be told that they were waiting on parts and it could be another week, called back then and was told they still had not come in. Tried to talk to a manager as was ask "why"......"because I would like to"...."they can not tell you anything else than what I am telling you". Laptop came back same issues!

Sent it back and some how got hold of a manager after about 40mins on the phone and started to tell them about the whole ordeal as well as the other 3 times the laptop was sent in for repair. "There must be a major issue with this laptop we want it replaced" I said, in short we had to call Laptops Direct where we bought it from and get them involved .... they came back to say that the laptop was dead! and that they would send out a replacement...thank you I said I can also have the hard drive as we could not do a recent back up due to the issue. No it and the rest of the laptop now belongs to us and it may have already been binned or took parts for spares......AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH... please can you check.....ok we still have it, it will cost you £30. After a long drawn out conversation we managed to get it sent back free of charge. But the whole ordeal took I think nearly 2 months.

This was one of 7 issues we had with two laptops and on 2 other occasions the laptops where with them for over 1 month.

 So I agree with you that I will NOT be buying or recommending another Acer

Dee
 
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OK, so don't buy Acer. Anyone else with any suggestions. Something like a flybook but not as expensive! That sort of size though.

I need it to have wi-fi, bluetooth, Windows XP, web browsing, email and the ability to run a low spec version of AutoCAD. Portability is the key here as I need to carry it around a lot while I survey buildings.
 
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I had a place on the advent badged copy of the msi wind in currys.

Very nice to work on (well for the 5 mins I was playing) nicer than the other net books they had there.
 
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FWIW I was having the same dilemma as you only a week ago:)

Started off intending to buy a notebook but then started to look at laptops with 14" screens and for not much more weight, you can get a far more powerful machine than a notebook with a bigger screen, which, I would have thought would have been a big bonus if using CAD software. Other way that I looked at it is by the time you add in the axtra weight of an external cd drive, (if you feel the need for one,) laptops can turn out to be both weight and cost effective.

I ended up with an Advent for £275. No problems so far:)

Mister B
 
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The main idea is I have a small lightweight machine I can carry around buildings with me while I survey the building. I use AutoCAD for all my drawings but when on site I only need the outline of the building measured (walls, doors, windows etc) - basic lines. I can then "pretty it up" when I get back to the office on the main desktop machine.

I wouldn't carry the CD drive with me, only use it to install software, so it would stay at the office - either that or just install off a network drive.

After many searches, it looks like either the Eee PC 1000H or the Msi Wind U100 is the smalest machine capable of what I'm after, at a cost to suit me.

Thanks for all you replys.
 
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One of our suppliers has a laptop thingy with the touch screen and he hand draws everything on the computer and edit's it later, he recons its the best invest he ever made and saves loads of time, don't know if it's an option but might be worth looking into.
 
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But if it saves you time and money it might be worth the investment, what about leasing?

Might be worth poping into a shop to have a play and see if it will benefit you, I would imaging that drawing something in a CAD program would be very time consuming at the time, drawing it would be much quicker, and would make you look very professional.
 
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I've seen plenty of discussion and jokes about it but not yet seen any reports of anyone successfully running AutoCAD on any of the current breed of netbooks - they fall below the system requirements on both the processor and the screen resolution.

It might work fine, but then I've also experience programs that will refuse to run if they don't detect their minimum screen resolution, I don't know how fussy AutoCAD is.

Hope it works for you but be prepared for the eventuality that it won't be usable, either speed or ergonomics of such a small device - there's a reason the other systems you've mentioned are so much more expensive.
 
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