My dream netbook...

[aysiu]

I have a dream.

It's a netbook.

It comes with a flavor of Ubuntu preinstalled.

It's under US$400.

It has a hard drive or SSD bigger than 32 GB.
It comes with 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM.
It has at least three USB ports.
It has VGA out.
The keyboard is at least 92%-sized.
The battery life is at least 5 hours.

Haven't found it, though. Bummer.

[Mokoma]

I have a dream.

It's a netbook.

It comes with a flavor of Ubuntu preinstalled.

It's under US$400.

It has a hard drive or SSD bigger than 32 GB.
It comes with 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM.
It has at least three USB ports.
It has VGA out.
The keyboard is at least 92%-sized.
The battery life is at least 5 hours.

Haven't found it, though. Bummer.

i find netbooks to suck big time. they just cant handle flash very well. plus you need to have uber munchkin sized paws to use the keyboards O,o

[Joeb454]

I think you probably can find one, but not for that price :(

[cardinals_fan]

All I want is a good keyboard, long battery life, light weight, and solid construction.

[jlimon]

It doesn't come with Ubuntu preinstalled.. but...

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-U100-641US-10-Inch-Netbook-Processor/dp/B001P5GKCG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1239321516&sr=8-2

The MSI Wind seems to fit the bill nicely.


I have a dream.

It's a netbook.

It comes with a flavor of Ubuntu preinstalled.

It's under US$400.

It has a hard drive or SSD bigger than 32 GB.
It comes with 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM.
It has at least three USB ports.
It has VGA out.
The keyboard is at least 92%-sized.
The battery life is at least 5 hours.

Haven't found it, though. Bummer.

[Mokoma]

It doesn't come with Ubuntu preinstalled.. but...

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-U100-641US-10-Inch-Netbook-Processor/dp/B001P5GKCG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1239321516&sr=8-2

The MSI Wind seems to fit the bill nicely.

dont those have really small mousepads??

[aysiu]

It doesn't come with Ubuntu preinstalled.. but...

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-U100-641US-10-Inch-Netbook-Processor/dp/B001P5GKCG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1239321516&sr=8-2

The MSI Wind seems to fit the bill nicely.
I don't think the battery life is so hot on that.

More importantly, I don't plan to ever buy Windows again.

[mxboy15u]

The 1000HE and Acer Aspire 10.1" are both excellent netbooks and with an external monitor work well as full time computers.

[sideaway]

Full time computers? Net book? Even with a screen, no way.

Keyboards are tiny, mousepads are tiny. So that's two of your three USB ports gone. Then there's the issue of a maximum of about 120gb... So if you want an external, there's your third gone. Not enough space for a full time computer on its own. Not to mention the ****** little GPU's and the efficient-but-slow atom.

Want a full time computer? Buy a desktop.
Those two are good NETBOOKS.

+1 for the MSI wind. Probably my favourite netbook so far. They're only going to get better.

[aysiu]

Full time computers? Net book? Even with a screen, no way. Speak for yourself.

I've been using an Eee PC 701 for the past year as my full-time computer.

An 8.9" or 10.1" screen would be gigantic for me by comparison.

[gnomeuser]

It seems ARM and their downstreams have some interesting piece of kit coming out that might fit your bill. At least they have good battery life, come with Ubuntu installed and they aim at a sales price between 149-249 depending on the configuration (from the sources I have seen).

No moving parts, giving a small slim form factor yet powerful enough to play 720p videos without glitching.

I don't know about the keyboard size but at least we hit a number of your requirements.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39617753,00.htm

Release should be in June for the first devices.

[Godly]

I have a dream.

It's a netbook.

It comes with a flavor of Ubuntu preinstalled.

It's under US$400.

It has a hard drive or SSD bigger than 32 GB.
It comes with 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM.
It has at least three USB ports.
It has VGA out.
The keyboard is at least 92%-sized.
The battery life is at least 5 hours.

Haven't found it, though. Bummer.

There's wants and needs. If you can sacrifice on one item you can gain on another. Bring the had drive size down and the price will come down, along with the screen size. They're out there, I've seen them. ;)

[JECHO]

I have a dream.

It's a netbook.

It comes with a flavor of Ubuntu preinstalled.

It's under US$400.

It has a hard drive or SSD bigger than 32 GB.
It comes with 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM.
It has at least three USB ports.
It has VGA out.
The keyboard is at least 92%-sized.
The battery life is at least 5 hours.

Haven't found it, though. Bummer.


It exists!!!!!!

I own one and love it.

Asus EEE PC 1000HA
HDD: 160GB
CPU: Atom N270 @ 1.6ghz
RAM: 1Gig (Possible 2)
3 USB 2.0 Ports
VGA Port
Almost 6 hours of real-time battery life (i can vouch for that)
Basically full sized keyboard & Large trackpad.


Price: $330.00 (or cheaper)

I got mine from Amazon for that price! Its awesome I would highly recommend it!

(doesn't come with ubuntu preinstalled but Junty beta runs like a dream on it) Installed from a bootable flash drive :D

[st33med]

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-9?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~linux_6~~

VERY VERY VERY close. The two things missing:


Greater than 32 GB: You can go up to 32 GB; the price will be $379
5 hour battery life: it goes at 3+ hours according to a review (http://http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4578).


Almost perfect.

[toejamfootball]

It exists!!!!!!

I own one and love it.

Asus EEE PC 1000HA
HDD: 160GB
CPU: Atom N270 @ 1.6ghz
RAM: 1Gig (Possible 2)
3 USB 2.0 Ports
VGA Port
Almost 6 hours of real-time battery life (i can vouch for that)
Basically full sized keyboard & Large trackpad.


Price: $330.00 (or cheaper)

I got mine from Amazon for that price! Its awesome I would highly recommend it!

(doesn't come with ubuntu preinstalled but Junty beta runs like a dream on it) Installed from a bootable flash drive :D
That's a niceley spec'd Netbook :D

[3rdalbum]

The Acer Aspire One with Windows :-( will do that, if you add a 9-cell battery. 1gb of RAM, 160gb HDD, the keyboard is just big enough for me to touch-type on, there are three USB ports and a card reader, VGA out, and with a 9-cell battery you'll get over 5 hours.

Unfortunately, no Ubuntu; but you won't find anything out there that 100% hits your requirements.

I'd also like to echo the sentiment that netbooks don't make very good full-time machines. I have a desktop and my Aspire One and I really do use my desktop for full-time computing and the netbook for part-time. The netbook is a useful toy but it doesn't go anywhere near replacing any of the features of my desktop.

[sideaway]

Speak for yourself.

I've been using an Eee PC 701 for the past year as my full-time computer.

An 8.9" or 10.1" screen would be gigantic for me by comparison.

You must demand little from your computer.

My girlfriend has a EEE PC 701, and she's got Eeebuntu. And it's really not that quick. She literally uses it for lectures and work which needs to be done remotely. TBH, I cannot imagine it, even for her, replacing a full blown desktop setup. The advantages in productivity and speed far out weigh the extra cost.

You must have an external drive to store everything?

[TheIdiotThatIsMe]

It seems ARM and their downstreams have some interesting piece of kit coming out that might fit your bill. At least they have good battery life, come with Ubuntu installed and they aim at a sales price between 149-249 depending on the configuration (from the sources I have seen).

No moving parts, giving a small slim form factor yet powerful enough to play 720p videos without glitching.

I don't know about the keyboard size but at least we hit a number of your requirements.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39617753,00.htm

Release should be in June for the first devices.

I've already started saving up for one of those. My question, will they be available easily in the US?

[hotweiss]

Oh wow, don't get one with a SSD drive - they are SLOW!!!

[aysiu]

You must demand little from your computer.

My girlfriend has a EEE PC 701, and she's got Eeebuntu. And it's really not that quick. She literally uses it for lectures and work which needs to be done remotely. TBH, I cannot imagine it, even for her, replacing a full blown desktop setup. The advantages in productivity and speed far out weigh the extra cost.

You must have an external drive to store everything?
You're correct. I don't use any heavy applications. Mainly Firefox and Thunderbird.

And, yes, I have actually two external hard drives to store things.

[smartboyathome]

Oh wow, don't get one with a SSD drive - they are SLOW!!!

That is only because MLC SSD drives are cheaper than SLC SSD drives - at the cost of performance. If any manufacturer offered SLC SSDs (Asus does for their boot partitions, but the main partition is an MLC), I would be surprised.

[gnomeuser]

I've already started saving up for one of those. My question, will they be available easily in the US?

ARM says that the first hardware with this will hit the market in June, then deployments will ramp up over the next few months to get a good selection for the Christmas shopping season.

I am hoping that means a release worldwide in June for the Pegatron designed netbook and nettop. But that is unrealistic, I am think the test markets will include the US though.. and I also fear that I will not see these machines in Denmark. As they are Linux only due to the ARM processor and I already can't get any modern netbooks with Linux here anymore, I think they will skip this market.

[donovan1983]

My Acer Aspire One 10" has taken over as my primary computer. I did come from a nearly 4-year old Apple iBook G4, though, so this thing is quite a bit faster and has far more software available. For web browsing and music management it is more than enough for me. Especially since I did bump the RAM up to 2GB and put in a 500GB hard drive. I do miss the extra vertical resolution my iBook had but otherwise the screen is adequate. I have a 19" external LCD to hook it up to when needed anyway. The keyboard works for my small hands just fine although the trackpad is a bit too small. It came with a 6-cell battery that gets me about 5 hours of usage, if not more. The Ubuntu 9.04 beta runs quite well on it, too. I love the fact that it is small and light enough to take nearly anywhere yet still can function as my main computer. It's the laptop I've been waiting for for years.

For basic uses I think a good portion of netbooks are quite practical options for primary computers for a lot of people. A couple of my friends already use their netbooks as their main machines because of how small and portable they are, and since they just use their computers for basic tasks. Both have Acer Aspire One 8.9" models, one with built-in 3G and the other without. They are both very happy with their machines.

[sideaway]

I dislike having so little screen realestate. And having such power limitations. Therefore I don't believe a netbook will ever replace my desktop. I wasn't even going to buy a laptop, but I saw the advantages of portability - even if there are power issues.

Having said that, I'm looking forward to those ARM powered netbooks...

Might buy one. Hopefully they come to lil' ol' NZ. If not, I'll have to import one.

[ibuclaw]

You can achieve (nearly) that with the HP Mini 1000 MiE. Give or take a few spec.

Also, I'm not sure how I would feel about having no access to a terminal...



Your Mini 1000 Mi series

Components

* • HP Mobile internet (Mi) software built on Linux
* • Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor N270 (1.60GHz)
* • FREE Upgrade to 1GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm)
* • 32GB (Solid State Drive Flash Module)
* • Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950
* • 8.9" diagonal WSVGA LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1024 x 600)
* • HP Mini Webcam with HP Imprint Finish (Swirl) - For 8.9" Display
* • Wireless-G Card
* • HP Color Matching Keyboard
* • 6 Cell Lithium Polymer Battery

Your running total

Total: $394.99*
Instant rebate -$0.00
Mail-in rebate -$0.00
Total: $394.99
You saved 0.0%


What doesn't meet your criteria:

Ports - 2 USB Ports, RJ-45, Expansion Port

Also, 32GB SSD Hard drive, you asked for >32GB.

I am just presuming that a 6 cell will give you >5 hours life ... I hope it does :)


Regards
Iain