Netbook/Small Notebook Suggestion that meets these specs...

[bob4432]

need a netbook for the wife. her t42 is getting a bit old while it has been a good machine, the daily use and the monthly traveling w/ it for the 4+yrs are starting to show. it has been one hell of a workhorse machine, but time to move on and get something a bit smaller

here are the hopeful requirements i can meet in either a netbook or very small notebook:
- screen size - 10" +
- battery life - 7hrs+
- connetivity - bluetooth, lan (100Mb/s at least) and wifi g, also ability to use a sim card and connect to att's wireless broadband - we already have a pcmcia adapter, but i know that form factor is going by the way side and its smaller, new verision is not on the netbooks i have seen so far, so just putting the sim card inside the unit would work ok
- backlit keyboard or some type of light that illuminates the keyboard
- optical drive - not necessary
- cpu power - not much, just working in the office suite w/ word, excel and then browsing - only video playback would be something online through facebook/youtube - nothing hd
- weight - 3#s or so
- os - either xp or win7, doesn't really matter
- hdd - don't really care as i can change that out if need to a larger size or a ssd
- ram - again, i can change it to 2GB if needed, which i will probably do anyway
- machine needs to be stout - it will be a work machine so it will get bumped and banged around accidentally of course but it will happen. will end up going in the wife's purse
- price - up in the air - will pay for quality if it has all that is needed but don't want to waste $$$ either
- keyboard - i think the ~90%+ would suffice, but not much smaller than that

thanks in advance for your suggestions
bob

 

[Hacp]

No netbook has a backlit keyboard. I checked. Multiple times.

 

[mpilchfamily]

-Most all netbooks have at least a 10" screen.
-You can find long battery life just be sure to get the larger 6 cell battery with the unit.
-All but the ATT connection is almost standard across netbooks. For ATT broadband connection you'll need to see if ATT offers any netbooks. I think T Mobile has a netbook with its braudband built in. Or was that Verizon. Could be both. But the best the netbook has is an SD card slot. You could always purchase a 3G USB dongle from ATT. But keep in mind netbooks only have 3 USB ports.
-No back light KB but you could lawys attach a book light to the monitor to illuminate the keys. Or there are USB lights you can use. http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/5a84/
-Netbooks don't have optical drives. The smaller laptops with 12" screens will have optical drives. There are 11" laptops but they are like large netbooks.
-Most if not all netbooks have a 1.6Ghz CPU which is plenty of power for your needs.
-Stick with a netbook and the weight won't be an issue.
-Netbooks come with Win7 starter. Some offer an XP option. The only thing about the starter edition is some of the customization features are disabled. So if customized backgrounds and icons aren't important then your good to go. But you can always spend the extra $80 to upgrade it.
-Most come with at least a 150Gb HDD to 250Gb HDD
-The standard is 1gb but RAM is cheap and the most most of them can handle is 2Gb.
-Netbooks are about as ruged as most laptops. I suggest getting your hands on it before you buy it. Then you can gauge its toughness.
-Netbooks are cheap.
-As mentioned before, get your hands on it first. The KB is the main thing that varies widely from one netbook to the next. Make sure you get one your comfortable working on.

Just purchased a netbook before Christmas for my wife. She loves it so much she never even touches her 17" laptop unless she wants to play WOW. She was very picky when it came to the KB. She fell in love with this Toshiba that we picked up at BestBuy for just under $400.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834114735

 

[Rottie]

ATT does sell netbook with HP and Acer brand name...but no illuminated keyboard

 

[Massive Overkill]

If you can find one in stock: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-658-_-Product

Completely obliterates my old Aspire One D250

 

[bob4432]

thanks for all the info. will do a bit more research and get some feedback from the main user - the wife i did check out att's offerings and they seem a bit lacking - can you change the batts in these units or are they kind of you get what you get - no upgrading or aftermarket upgrades on the netbooks?

not sure how i feel about staying w/ att as now they require a data plan for every smart phone, and i need 2 new ones - i use the smart phones as a phone and organizer and none of the "features" like browsing or anything like that, and for me, the $30 data fee per phone is a waste considering i have a 1400min/mo plan that i don't even exceed the mins and may use at most 400txts between the 2phones - don't need to pay for more stuff i don't use. sorry for the off topic tangent, but just getting annoyed w/ att.

massive overkill - i was looking at that unit, seems like it has just about everything i am looking for

 

[Savarak]

IMO, just get a new battery for the T42 and use it till it really truly dies... and even then its quite easy to fix for less than 100 bucks (I fixed 2 T41 laptops for only $60 each with replacement motherboards)

 

[Hacp]

Theres a new dell machine, 11.6 inches that has a backlit keyboard. Its kinda a gaming machine though, all those flashy leds and red lights -_-. Sounds like it meets your specs though, should retail for a bit less than 1k.

Alienware M11x is the name I think. 6.5 hours or so dell says.

 

[bob4432]

IMO, just get a new battery for the T42 and use it till it really truly dies... and even then its quite easy to fix for less than 100 bucks (I fixed 2 T41 laptops for only $60 each with replacement motherboards)

actually we did just replace the battery probably 3mos ago, but now it is getting to the point that it seems whatever switch or connection is made to come out of standby when it is opened is going bad. you literally have to push in all sides of the laptop sometimes when it is closed to get it to wake up when opened as sometimes even when open, the actual power button will not bring it out of standby.

 

[Savarak]

icic, i'll take that old t42 outta your hands when you do get a new one

 

[Parasitic]

not sure how i feel about staying w/ att as now they require a data plan for every smart phone, and i need 2 new ones - i use the smart phones as a phone and organizer and none of the "features" like browsing or anything like that, and for me, the $30 data fee per phone is a waste considering i have a 1400min/mo plan that i don't even exceed the mins and may use at most 400txts between the 2phones - don't need to pay for more stuff i don't use. sorry for the off topic tangent, but just getting annoyed w/ att.

massive overkill - i was looking at that unit, seems like it has just about everything i am looking for

T-Mobile was the first carrier to implement mandatory data plan on smartphones they sell, then Verizon followed suit. I think Sprint is the only other nationwide carrier that doesn't force a data plan, but I may be wrong.

You could get by the "mandatory" data plan requirement with AT&T by buying an unlocked, non-AT&T branded smartphone. Nokia has a ton of Symbian S60 smartphones and those offer sync options with Windows (via Outlook) or OSX if you only want the PIM options. If you got a smartphone that AT&T doesn't sell then you can just get the $15/mo unlimited data plan instead.

 

[Hacp]

massive overkill - i was looking at that unit, seems like it has just about everything i am looking for

Just from reading stuff on notebook review it looks like the build quality is pretty bad. People have also had problems with the keyboard.

 

[bob4432]

icic, i'll take that old t42 outta your hands when you do get a new one

it may become my unit.... if i do get rid of it i will keep you in mind

the area that does seem need to be compressed more is around the hdd, so i may pick up a old pata 2.5" hdd and see if that fixes it or if the problem persists, this thing needs to last until i can find a replacement. i originally bought her a t400 which was much larger than we thought it would be compared to the t42 - the t400 i ordered has an extended battery and larger display, so even an inch here and there it really makes the machine a lot bigger and won't fit in her purse that the t42 was held in, plus the t400 is a bit heavier, so i inherited it - good machine and good for me, but not so good for the lady's purposes

T-Mobile was the first carrier to implement mandatory data plan on smartphones they sell, then Verizon followed suit. I think Sprint is the only other nationwide carrier that doesn't force a data plan, but I may be wrong.

You could get by the "mandatory" data plan requirement with AT&T by buying an unlocked, non-AT&T branded smartphone. Nokia has a ton of Symbian S60 smartphones and those offer sync options with Windows (via Outlook) or OSX if you only want the PIM options. If you got a smartphone that AT&T doesn't sell then you can just get the $15/mo unlimited data plan instead.

thanks for the info. i have had very good luck w/ the htc winmo phones but don't want to pay the $$$ for a new one. may look online for a older 8525 or something similiar and unlock it and put my sim in. kind of pisses me off that the phones run so much when you know they are so cheap to produce, but i guess that is the way it goes. thanks for the info - any issues w/ the nokia and calendering issues like i have read about w/ the iphones? i have ~600+ contacts and years worth of appts/reminders in the past and in the future, some w/ no end date and they need to be g2g

Just from reading stuff on notebook review it looks like the build quality is pretty bad. People have also had problems with the keyboard.

thanks for the info, will need to do more research on them as the unit needs to be tough - the t42 has been dropped more than a few times and is a robust machine. guess i need the build quality of t42/t400 or better in a smaller package.