Netbooks vs full size notebooks which do you use to write?

I have no idea what a 'netbook' is. Is that the same as a laptop?

I used to have an acer aspire. Now I have an acer travelmate 5720.

A netbook is a small laptop, mainly meant for surfing the web.

I'm someone without much money, space or technical expertise and I love my cheap little netbook. I use asus eeepc (linux)for surfing the net, writing (using openoffice) and the odd game of solitaire. It is fine for these simple tasks, and perfect for me as I don't want any fancy software or anything. Very tiny keyboard but I find it comfortable. Small screen but I don't notice it. Absolutely fine for throwing in a handbag or satchel and writing on the go - not too heavy or fragile. The OS is a bit weird but horses for courses, you could get one with windows if you so wished.

Hmm. Doesn't look like my old one. It was an acer something. Inspire, maybe.

Heh. Shows how much attention I paid.

Well I have a full size laptop and it works fine for carrying with me. I don't often, though, simply because it's an expensive piece of kit and I don't want to risk it getting bumped or broken when I take it out of the house.

I've used most of them. The Acer has a really nice extended battery available (6-8 hours real battery life).

I'm using an MSI Wind Machine. Real battery life, with wireless on, 3-4 hours. Has both wireless and bluetooth, and a webcam. Same size as the Dell 910 and a little larger than the HP Mini. But a bigger keyboard and larger real screen size than both, and I like that.

For serious writing sessions I carry a roll up keyboard that plugs in USB.

I use a laptop, an actual paper notebook, and a desktop for writing. Notebooks are generally when I get stuck, the laptop is when I don't want to be stuck at my desk, and the desk is when the kids aren't home (rare) and I can really focus and dive in. So the majority of what I write in on a laptop, if I was writing outside of home a lot, it would either be the paper notebook or I'd look into getting a battery with a longer life. Mine's just under 2 hours and that runs out fast when you're focused on writing.

Like mab, I use an asus eeepc. It fits in a small purse, backpack, saddlebags.... very handy. Open Office came installed and is easy to use. I really, really like my asus.

It's also handy for "next to the bed". If I have a thought, I can reach over and flip the switch. Since it has linux as the operating system, it takes 15 seconds to start up (instead of forever like windows). Shut down is even faster. 6 seconds.

A friend got a Dell mini a couple months ago and absolutely loves it.

It's just a matter of taste.

We have two laptops. The first one has a 14 inch screen. I liked that, but then the next one I got has a 17 inch screen and a full-sized keyboard with number pad. I LOVE that. Smaller, with my hands, doesn't translate into better.

A couple of other notes, related to the subject:

Have more than one back up, in more than one physical location. (Having two keys to the car doesn't help if they are both in a bag in the back seat.)

Entech Taiwan has a spiffy tool called irotate, that lets you, quickly, rotate the screen 90 degrees so that you can hold the netbook like a book, and read. It's currently free for personal use. As always-- your mileage may vary, use at your own risk, void where prohibited by parents, teachers, bosses or mittens.

I've used the eepc as well. I really liked it, in solid state form (Linux). Screen is a bit smaller, keyboard is a lot smaller.

The flexible keyboard works for me. But I have a heavy keystroke. Some folks don't like it. When I found it, I was looking for the smallest, full-sized keyboard I could find, to fit in the bag. It's bright orange, it's unusual, and it rolls up out of the way in the bag. So, it works for me.

Paper and pens are extremely cheap, light, portable, and have indefinite battery life as long as you bring enough ink.

I use a netbook specifically for writing. One thing you'll want to do is find a demo one and write a short document with it (two paragraphs or so) to see if your fingers are comfortable with the position of the keys. On Acer's, for example, it can be irritating because the shift button is half the size of that on a normal keyboard's, and it can cramp (my) writing style.

I have a msi Wind Notebook. It's very nice, with its (almost) full sized keyboard. And so small and cute.

Pamster said:

I can see where having linux would be a benefit. Can you port docs from the Asus to a windows desktop and still edit them in say Word or something? Or is the Asus your only system? Thanks for replying!

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Open Office is great.

I use MS Word on my desktop and on my full sized laptop. Open Office on the asus.

I don't even think about the program. Open Office opens and saves the documents just like Word. I use a flash drive to save my writing.

The last thing I do before I shut down whatever computer I am on is -
Save the current file to my flashdrive. (A copy is also saved to the computer).

The first thing I do when I start writing is -
Transfer the writing folder to the computer I am on.

So, my flashdrive and one of the computers always has the latest copy. As long as I transfer the files from the flashdrive to the current working computer, I am working on the latest copy.

(Can't forget to copy to the flashdrive before I shut down tho or I would lose a day of work.)

But, to answer your question, Open Office handles MS Word files easily without you having to worry about it.

I actually like it better than MS Word and don't know why I don't install it on my other computers. Lazy, I guess.

Hiya
Last year I bought an Asus EEE PC. I was excited about it, but it never worked (it reverted all my docs to blank unformatted files no matter what I did). i tried to reinstall Open Office, which was disastrous, then I tried to reinstall the OS which was even more disastrous. Now it's a really pretty brick.

I just got an Acer Aspire One. I love it! I want to dance around the room with it. I put Office 2007 on it, which works well. It's small and cute. I also like that it starts up in about ten seconds. One thing about it is that the keyboard is small. If your hands are much bigger than say, the average sized woman's hands, you might have a hard time typing. I do all right, but my hands are pretty small. (The keyboard for the EEE PC is even tinier) It also has a universal card reader, and a webcam, and great wireless reception.

I bought the Acer Aspire One netbook late November last year and love it. The smaller keyboard did frighten me a touch at first, but playing around with it in the store gave me enough confidence in it to move ahead with the purchase. It probably took me a couple of days for my fingers to get used to the smaller set-up, but I am pretty good now and near full typing speed.

It is super-light, which I also love, thus easy to carry around for folk like me who hate lugging a laptop. I installed MS Word 97 on it, so I am good there as well. It is pretty much a pure writing machine for me (trying not to add anything distracting to it).

So, netbook = love, love, love. Love.




-Michelle

I have a desktop (solely for writing) and a laptop (for writing & everything else). I also have a little QuickPad (think: knock-off of Alphasmart) that's supposed to be for portable writing, but is impossible to keep on my lap and type at the same time.

Pamster said:

Thanks for the awesome replies everyone! I feel confident the Acer Aspire is what I will buy when I'm ready. Along with a portable (though I know they're bulky) DVD RW drive. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with notebooks and netbooks. I wish I could afford it now but I have to wait awhile, but it will be worth it when the time comes. I can tell.

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I have a portable DVD drive as well, but I mostly leave it at home. It isn't something I really need every day, just occasionally.




-Michelle

Any netbook worth its salt should be able to run OpenOffice, no matter the OS. 1GB RAM is fine for word processing, which isn't that resource-heavy. Given the limited hardware, I do strongly recommend choosing Linux over Windows if you're given a choice.