Netbook suggestions?

[Starky]

I've been eyeballing the Asus 1201N dual-core netbook but it seems a little pricey for what you get. Are there any other comparable netbooks out there which offer similar performance? If the 1201N were in the $350 range I would be all over it.

I have borrowed a single-core Lenovo netbook from a coworker that I used for a week to see if I could get any work done. Having multiple word docs, excel spreadsheets, pdfs and FF with multiple tabs seemed to suck the life out of it.

I know some will recommend an ultra portable but I'm not able to spend a grand right now. Any help is appreciated.

Starky

Edit: Sorry, wrong forum, move if needed. Thanks.

 

[Starky]

Ok, so I ran across the Dell Vostro V13. It's slightly larger than the 1201N.

Asus: 12.1" LED display, 3.2lbs, dual-core Atom 330 1.6GHz
Dell: 13.3" LCD display, 3.5lbs, single-core Celeron 1.3GHz

The base model Dell is $450. It has a single-core CPU with a single thread. I found the Asus for under $400 on Google shopping and it has a dual-core CPU with 4 threads. Even though (I think) the Celeron is a better CPU will the four threads with the Atom enable better multitasking usability? Also the Asus has better video.

Thoughts?

 

[pukemon]

How important is battery life? Atom-based anything should get better battery life, especially with a 6-cell or more battery pack.

Note that base model Vostro V13 includes Ubuntu Linux which is cool if that's what you want to use, but to get Windows 7 and a faster processor, the price goes up very quickly.

 

[cdmccool]

You should also consider the Toshiba Satellite T115D-S1125 and MSI Wind12 U230-040US. Both use an AMD Athlon Neo X2(better than Atom), and come with a better gpu than anything from Intel.

The Toshiba can be had for $438 from tigerdirect.com after Bing cashback.

 

[JimKiler]

You should also consider the Toshiba Satellite T115D-S1125 and MSI Wind12 U230-040US. Both use an AMD Athlon Neo X2(better than Atom), and come with a better gpu than anything from Intel.

The Toshiba can be had for $438 from tigerdirect.com after Bing cashback.

Agreed, I am a happy owner of the MSI Wind U210 which only has the ATI Radeon 1200 (although i have read 1250 and 1275 in documentation, whatever those numbers are) GPU's and I can watch a quicktime 720p video as long as I have no other open apps, the newer U230 with the 3200 GPU should be even better!

I am glad I waited for the 12" 1366x768 screen netbooks, while still small I would not want anything smaller. The larger size helps the keyboard as well.