It’s time to cut the crap — your laptop is chock-full of more junk than an inner-city garbage truck and heavier than an Ayn Rand novel. Between applications you don’t need, hardware you don’t use, and bloatware you don’t want, your thigh-busting crapbook has become a tail-dragging troglodyte. Don’t go extinct — try taking an evolutionary step with a netbook instead. These svelte machines typically have price tags south of the $500 and offer up feature sets that you’ll actually use. Here’s the verdict on six mighty giants that we’ve encountered this year. —The Editors
MSI Wind U100
Packing the latest 1.6-GHz Atom
processor and a roomy 80-GB drive, the Wind boasts some legit PC cred.
Yes, your iPod probably has more drive space, but the Wind is also running good old Windows XP, saving you from the frustrations of Vista, a Linux learning curve, or (perish the thought) the laughably underpowered Win CE.
The 10-inch widescreen can display most fixed-width web pages comfortably, and it lacks the extra-wide bezels that make other netbook screens feel smaller than they actually are. Of course, it’s not perfect. We would have loved to see a DVD burner included and with all its ports, a mini FireWire would be welcome. But if you want a cheap and tiny companion for uploading pictures during a Malaysian jungle trek, or
just a little buddy to hang out with you on the couch for IMDB searches, it’s pretty hard to be against the Wind. —Roger Hibbert
WIRED Grown-up looks. Full keyboard and the largest screen among mini-notes. Plenty of ports to plug away at. 2.3-pound weight and rounded edges make it simple to pack and lug.
TIRED Lack of a DVD is understandable, but it still makes us cry a little. Hard drive sometimes makes mysterious swallowing sounds. Two-hour battery life is OK, but three would be better.
$500, msimobile.com
Asus Eee PC 900
Asus’s 9-inch (well, 8.9-inch) version of its
groundbreaking Eee PC 4G arrives with all the familiar trappings
installed … only this time it’s a little bigger — in more ways than
one. Two inches may not sound like much, but in this case the bigger screen (and
larger resolution) makes web pages, documents and graphics files far
more navigable and legible. The keyboard, while technically the same
size as the 7-inch 4-G, actually feels a little bigger. Touch-typing is still an error-prone affair and though the CPU is the same as the 4 G (a 900 MHz Intel Celeron), the 1GB of RAM is a big help. The 900 boots noticeably faster, and
application lag is improved. Battery life also gets a big boost: We
eked almost four hours of video playback from the device, vs. two
hours, 20 minutes on the 4 G. —Christopher Null
WIRED
Positively pint-sized, just 3 ounces heavier (2.2 pounds) than the
seven-inch model. Window XP model available (same price, but drops
total storage from 20 GB to 12 GB). Excellent component upgrades over
7-inch model.
TIRED Price now flirts with full-sized notebooks.
No 802.11n. Multitouch-like trackpad features are simplistic and
underdeveloped. Some fan noise. Uncomfortably dim screen.
$550, usa.asus.com
HP 2133 Mini Notebook
Despite being one of the first netbooks we had a look at this year,
the 2133 still feels more fully cooked than many its bretheren.
Price-wise, HP kept it competitive with a $600 for the Vista Business
version. A Linux OS
is available for $100 less while a Windows XP "upgrade" will cost you
$100 more. And unlike many of its compatriots, this is one of the few
netbooks that doesn’t feel cheap and flimsy in our hands, due in no
small part to its fetching brushed aluminum and plastic outer shell.
Even more impressive is the fact that HP flat-out nailed the QWERTY
keyboard on its first try. In fact, we found the (almost) full-size
keyboard to be one of the most responsive and comfortable we’ve used on
a netbook thus far. The only drawbacks? A decidedly feeble 1.2-GHz Via processor and less than acceptable two hour battery life. —Bryan Gardiner
WIRED One of the most comfortable keyboards we’ve
used on any mini-notebook. Sleek and solid build makes other minis
seems like flimsy toys. Grown up hard drive means you’ll have 120- and
160-GBs at your disposal. Beautiful, scratch resistant 8.9-inch screen.
TIRED Feeble Via processor doesn’t do the job — at
least with Vista. Tiny trackpad and awkwardly placed left and right
buttons makes navigating difficult.
$600 as tested, HP
Intel Classmate
Intel’s entry into the
starter PC market has a secret weapon: It runs Windows XP. Whether you see this as benefit or a hindrance depends on your
affinity for Microsoft, your need for broad compatibility, and your
fear over how Windows might perform on ultra-low-end equipment. In my
tests: Not as bad as you’d expect. It immediately dies on benchmarks,
of course, but apps load relatively quickly (including Microsoft
Office, preloaded on our test machine) and even full-screen video and
Flash vids didn’t stutter. Of course, it’s still a machine designed for
kids in a classroom environment: The ultra-small keyboard won’t do
grown-ups’ hamfists any favors, but for a Windows-centric school
environment, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate notebook. (Dig the
handle and the rubberized case sleeve and the battery-powered pen that
converts scribbles into digital files on the Classmate.) Besides, who’d
have expected The Man to be the budget machine on the block? —Christopher Null
WIRED Runs Windows XP, allowing for easy app
expansion and sharing with the PCs students may already have at home.
(And Linux available if you want it.) Very rugged. Solid, responsive
keyboard and touchpad. Almost as cute as the OLPC XO. Competitively
priced with OLPC and cheaper than the Asus Eee. Exception battery life
of 3 hours, 40 minutes.
TIRED Comparatively loud and hot. Tinny speakers.
Not nearly enough storage space (just half a gig available to the
user). Why must the screen be so super-tiny?
$300 (as tested), intel.com
Everex Cloudbook
Everex’s Cloudbook is a scrappy fella with an 800 x 480 7-inch
display, 1.2GHz Via C7 chip, 2 USB ports, ethernet, a webcam, and 512MB
of RAM. Unlike the Eee PC, it has a 30GB hard drive. The Cloudbook is also loaded with links to Google’s online
suite; it’s
well-aligned with web-app lovers needing a budget backup machine. For
the rest of us, OpenOffice, the Gimp, and all the other FOSS favorites
are pre-installed and ready to roll. But that’s just frosting on an otherwise disappointing core. WiFi connections drop
frequently — the software that controls wireless connectivity is seemingly unable to play
friendly with secured networks. The first shipment is set to a desktop
theme that’s confusing to use at the native display resolution.
Wal-Mart shoppers just getting used to the $200 Everex desktop will find themselves facing a different window manager on its $400 laptop. —Rob Beschizza
WIRED So small you don’t know it’s there. Decent keyboard. 30 GB of storage puts it in a category of its own. Cheap and cheerful.
TIRED Software setup not fully baked. WiFi
stability roulette. Slow to boot, slow to launch. Mangy desktop
configuration. Small, oddly-placed trackpad.
$300, Wal-Mart
Sylvania G Netbook
The Sylvania G Netbook is a fairly direct response to the Asus Eee
PC 900 series, with an 8.9-inch screen, Linux OS and chicklet keys that
make touch typing a fever dream fantasy. And while some of Sylvania’s
choices here are merely dreadful (the arrow keys are a mere 12mm wide —
thinner than my pinky), it’s actually the OS that royally blows it for
the Netbook. Ubuntu — known for being a stable and simple versions
of Linux on the market — is turned into a nightmare
on this system. For a computer ostensibly designed for inexperienced
users, it’s a disaster. I had trouble with the Ubuntu installation on
the Netbook from the start: Blank screens on bootup. MPEGs wouldn’t
play and codec installations repeatedly failed (or even crashed the
machine). Help files weren’t installed. And most annoying of all, the
battery meter couldn’t decide whether the computer was plugged in, and
pegged battery life remaining at 0 or 2 percent no matter how long we
charged it.
—Christopher Null
WIRED Has a real hard drive (80 GB) instead of
flash storage. Includes three USB ports and an SD card reader. Comes in
colors. Bright screen for this category.
TIRED Slower than a sedated slug at just about
every app despite 1.6-GHz Atom chip and 1-GB RAM. Cartoonish styling. Considerably heavier
than advertised (and the Eee PC 900) at 2.6 pounds. Far too buggy to be
taken seriously.
$370 (as tested), Sylvania
Posted under Gadget Reviews
Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
