Netbook or laptop?

[Darkmolerman]

Alot of the students get itunes, it works fine. I use VLC. I run rainmeter and so many other programs at once and the computer uses about 25% of the processor speed

[Rico]

I think I'm headed more towards a laptop.  I like Dell and HP quite a bit.  Looked around Best Buy a little yesterday.  Still thinking and reading up more on some reviews and so on.

[Darkmolerman]

When it comes down to it, do you want performance or battery life?

[Rico]

When it comes down to it, do you want performance or battery life?

Performance.  Most of the time I'll be able to plug in if I have to.

[Darkmolerman]

I know Alien ware has a pricey netbook with the power of a laptop so I would go with that, but I don't know how the stats are

[RickPeete]

I have a Dell Mini 10v NetBook with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.  10" screen and nice and quiet and gives me a little over 5 hours to continuous use.

I take it with me to work so I can surf and check my email and such.  I have used it very successfully for audio stuff with Audacity, iTunes is fine, and it is great for use with Skype for video chats with my daughter at college.  (it comes with builtin mic and web cam).

I have Word/Excel/Outlook 2003 installed and they run fine.  The only program that is slow on it is Photoshop Elements so I am going to put Image Ready on it instead.  I need something to deal with photos from my iPhone or other digital cameras.

I am very happy with this little guy and it only cost me $320!  My real laptop is a DELL D630 and is pretty much upgraded to the max.  I love it but it stays home in the docking station most of the time because the NetBook is less of a risk if it is lost or damaged.

[Darkmolerman]

I used to have a Dell XPS 1530, the thing overheated, processor apparently started over heating to the point where it would not accept a charge, now I am not using it.

[RickPeete]

Did you contact Dell about it?  My D630 had a faulty NVidia video chipset onboard which caused a lot of heat generation to the point where the bottom of the laptop was too hot to handle (it could have been the Organians...)

I contacted Dell.  They admitted the problem and sent a tech to come out to my house to replace the motherboard, fan assembly, etc. and the problem was solved.  Now it is nice and cool even after powered up for eight hours.  And they fixed it for free cuz it was still under warranty at the time.

I have owned a lot of Dell desktops and servers over the past ten years.  They have always been very reliable for me.  I have also had VAIOs which were NOT.

[Darkmolerman]

I contacted them about 5 times in one year, then the warranty ran out, as it happened again so I gave up and built a computer

[RickPeete]

Well that blows.  Sorry to hear they were less than helpful.

Building your own is always your best bet if you have the time, tools, and talent.  That way you know what you are getting and can ensure everything works right, you have sufficient power and airflow, etc.

[Darkmolerman]

Well they were more then helpful, the laptop just sucked for a hot Hawaii summer

[RickPeete]

Dell has a new device now which is a tablet PC.  The form factor is a bit like the iPad and it supports multi-touch.  It is a lot of more expensive than the iPad but it does everything a PC can do, including Flash, USB support, etc.

http://www.dell.com/tablet?s=biz&cs=555

[Darkmolerman]

I would love a tablet PC

EDIT: WHOA it is expensive I mean WHOA, all I want is a decent tablet PC...hello Ipad

[Rico]

Dell has a new device now which is a tablet PC.  The form factor is a bit like the iPad and it supports multi-touch.  It is a lot of more expensive than the iPad but it does everything a PC can do, including Flash, USB support, etc.

http://www.dell.com/tablet?s=biz&cs=555

Very nice, but way beyond what I want to spend right now.

[Bromptonboy]

HP 311 - netbooks have some pretty good configurations - with up to 3GB of RAM, 11.6" display, 80GB SSD, etc.