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One Netbook for 3 People? What Model?
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ecurry33
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I have only started to research netbooks and would appreciate a jump start in figuring out what I need.
We are 3 people [me, hubby, 7 yr old daughter] traveling for 2 weeks and will all be doing alot of digital photography-2 of us with high resolution cameras. We need a netbook that downloads our images quickly since all 3 of us will need to download nightly onto 1 machine and then probably do some on-screen editing to preserve storage space.
I know I need to estimate how much storage space we need--just haven't done so yet. I have seen comments about SDs and SSDs and don't really understand what they are, if netbooks have hard drives, how you upgrade storage capacity, and how any changes increase the total weight.
Plus we want a model that has a built in web-cam for skyping.
Plus we want a model that my daughter can use to watch videos on the plane.
Do we need any special super duper type of adapter or will any type of adapter do [as appropriate for our destination]? Nightly we will need to recharge 6 camera batteries and one or two ipods so I'm thinking we need one adapter for the netbook and another with multiple hookups for all the other gear.
I see many people mention the Acer brand, but the IT guy at the office says Lenovo is better.
any advice?
thanks!
EC
#1 Posted: 22/9/2009 - 03:12
SBE
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I'm thinking of buying an Asus 1005HA netbook next week in Bangkok. It gets good reviews and the battery life is really excellent (10 hours or so), which is a very important plus when you're travelling. It uses XP, has ample memory for storing photos and a webcam and it costs 299 euros at my local Carrefour here in France.
The main reason I'm not buying it now is because French keyboards have a different layout (azerty) and it's a right pain to get used to it... many keys are in different places on the keyboard and you have to use the shift button to do full stops and numbers.
Other reasons include the fact that last year I noticed that laptops in Bangkok were over 100 euros cheaper than here in France ...particularly Acer models. This is not what people on travel forums usually say, so maybe France is just more expensive than English speaking countries. In Bangkok you do get extras like a free carrying case, an optical mouse, some free software, not to mention a VAT tax rebate at the airport though.
There's a newer asus model, the the Asus 1101HA which has an 11" HD display and similarly good battery life, which might suit your daughter better for movie watching, but you'll need to buy an external DVD drive. One of the main reasons netbooks are so light and energy efficient is because they don't have DVD drives.
SD is a the kind of standard memory card you'd get in a camera. Computers have card reader slots so you can download pictures straight from the card. Check what kind of card your cameras have and see if the computer you're buying has a slot that will take them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_memory_cards
You can buy a multiple adapter cheaper once you get to SEA if you need one. Depends where you're going what kind of plug you'll need but it's mostly two pin plug sockets (either round or flat). In Malaysia they have plugs like in the UK.
#2 Posted: 22/9/2009 - 15:10
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dageshi
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Are you sure you want a "netbook"? The basic difference between a netbook and a laptop is screen size, a netbook is generall 10inches or smaller a laptop is generally bigger than that. So with a netbook your going to have a relatively small screen to do your photo fiddling on. However, netbooks are ideal for travelling with, the one I would recommend is the Samsung NC130, I've just got one of these for a friend who's going to south america.
It's got a 160gig hard drive (you would have trouble filling that up), webcam, wifi e.t.c., it's basically perfect BUT it doesn't have a dvd (or cd)drive, there just isn't room to fit one in. That being said as a general rule no other netbooks do either.
As for adapters, it sounds to me like you need a power bar and a universal plug adapter to actually plug it into the wall.
#3 Posted: 12/10/2009 - 06:39
enj503
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I have an Asus EEE netbook which I am bringing with me on my four week trip to Thailand. When I did my research they were the brand which had the longest battery life. Mine is a few months old so there is likely a newer version out there already.
#4 Posted: 12/10/2009 - 07:27