Would your recommend a Meerkat Ion NetTop?

**wakajawaqa** · April 11th, 2012

I own a Gazelle laptop and it has been working out great for me and since my mother wants a new computer, I was thinking the Meerkat might be a good choice.

At the moment, I have her using Kubuntu on an old Dell (Core2 Duo 2.0GHZ 1GB RAM). She's been complaining a little about the thing freezing up, can't enable desktop effects, etc.

Can anyone share their experiences with the current Meerkat Ion? I have seen some reviews, but most of them seem to be of older models. Basically want I want her to be able to do is run Firefox (say on ebay, with lots of images to load), Amarok, LibreOffice Writer and desktop effects at the same time without noticing a performance decrease.

Can the little Atom processor handle that? I plan on going with the 60GB SSD. I also plan on leaving 12.04 on there until it expires.

Right now I'm wondering if a RAM upgrade on the old Dell smooth it out enough? The last pc I added RAM to, I hardly noticed a difference and ended up getting a new box anyway...

Any input is appreciated,
Thanks

P.S. is the fan really loud enough to be a deal breaker?!

**imhavoc** · April 11th, 2012

We purchased a Meerkat Ion NetTop for my Mother-in-law in October 2010. She has never complained about system limitations. There was one incident in which an Ubuntu update broke things and it refused to boot. That's the only problem to date.

She uses hers for email and other internet tasks. That is all.

Hope this is useful information.

**pete04** · April 12th, 2012

I don't own the meerkat, but I suspect it would work very well.

I own a little foxconn box with an atom 330 running ubuntu 11.10. It has 2 gigs of RAM and relatively weak integrated intel graphics. It handles Unity, and KDE 4.8 with standard effects like a champ. For fun, I tested some of the 3D games like open arena and it works great. I have a GMA booster that helps it play higher def videos, but otherwise, it handles most day to day tasks with ease.

The fact that the Meerkat has the nVidia GPU and a much newer atom chip than my box suggests to me it will make for a very slick experience for the casual user. I think it would be plenty for your mother-in-law.

**isantop** · April 12th, 2012

For running all of that simultaneously, I think a Ratel would be a slightly more apt option. It's got quite a lot of extra power for the money you're spending, and will be better equipped to handle providing to her needs over a longer period of time.