Who's Making The Best Netbooks - An Extended Warranties?

I've been looking around reading about all the netbooks out there now, of course Asus Eee had my eyes the most until I read on Asus' site that extended warranties don't apply to the Eee.

http://support.asus.com/repair/repair.aspx?no=201&SLanguage=en-us

Unless what I'm seeing here is not correct about the Eee and you can get an extended warranty I'm looking elsewhere.

Another interesting thing that caught my eye were these Acer extended warranties:

http://store.acer.com/product.asp?pf_id=11040536
[/B]
Also I see you can buy Acer extended warranties through online sellers:

http://computers.pricegrabber.com/warranty/m/336986/search=acer extended/st=product/sv=button/

Mail in extended warranty what is this suppose to mean?

Any input here would be greatly appreciated?

THANKS

 

I looked at the category for some time before pulling the trigger on a Samsung NC-10. I went with this one for the following reasons:

• Seemed to have the longest battery life with a standard 6 cell battery pack which keeps a decent small form factor.
• 10" screen. I really wouldn't recommend smaller. 10" seems to be a sweet spot (maybe 11" or so will really be it over time). 12" and you're really starting to touch conventional laptop dimensions. I wish vertical resolution was a little above 600 pixels, but this is pretty standard for the competition as well.
• Good sized keyboard. 93% full sized. Very usable, if I have to work and want to catch something TV, this is very usable for extended typing sessions.
• I toyed with a convention HDD vs SSD. Conventional is what is available on the Samsung and that's what I went with. In time, SSD's will displace HDD's in the mobile segment, but they're not quite there yet in terms of cost/performance balance (IMHO). Soon though.
• Bluetooth. Get a bluetooth mouse. Except for the Asus offerings, the touchpad is a weak link, but it goes away with decent small mouse. Got with bluetooth to eliminate a wireless USB receiver hanging off and occupying a USB port.
• Trivial and cheap upgrade by user to 2 GB RAM

I seriously examined all offerings from Asus, Acer, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Dell, and so on. In broad strokes, a 10" screen and keyboard in the 90+% usual size really does seem two nicely balanced traits. The key designs - the physical traits of the keys on the keyboard - do vary. Depending on typing style, some are more amenable to use than others. Sites to frequent include GottaBeMobile.com, jkkmobile, UMPC Portal, and linked like minded locations listed on any of those sites.

The other thing to pay attention to is wireless card support if you're planning to divert from the base OS install provided by the vendor. Some cards have more widespread support than others (arguably true of the choice in the Samsung NC10, but a new card is readily switched if it's a problem - it all depends on whether you like to muck with hardware and if you're planning somewhat exotic excursions in OS land).

Finally, extended warranties at this price point really don't make a whole lot of sense. Too little return for the price. Genuine hardware defect failures should happen in the normal warranty period.

The flood of new offerings has definitely slowed of late. Seems to be a good time to pick one up if the spirit and budget so moves.

Blue

 

Didn't know Samsung had a netbook.

Well I've seen many laptops fail in just over a year. I'd like to think I'll hang onto something like this for 2-3 years, that is why I want an extended warranty, also I think it gives it a better resale vaule too...

It's 2009 are we still thinking Pink is for girls? LOL...

 

NC-10 is a sound purchase...getting good reviews generally and my friend doesn't leave the house without his

 

I've always liked Samsung monitors and their HDTVs are great too.

Never realized till now they had a netbook, hehe...

 

I've been looking at netbooks, too, and didn't know about the Samsung. So thanks, Blue.

 

My pleasure.

For those looking, most of the key traits are very similar. You have a bunch with SSD's, and a number with HDD's. Most are currently Atom CPU's. I believe that virtually all come with 1 GB RAM and have one slot, so a RAM upgrade involves tossing the stock RAM. On the other hand, the 2 GB sticks are really cheap these days. Most of the differences revolve around:

• XP Home vs Linux and the flavor of Linux used.
• The wireless card employed (read up on compatibility if OS changes are possible).
• Keyboard design - there's a fair amount of difference here. It's probably the biggest area of difference.
• Power management and battery life - the mAh rating is the key number, although # cells is generally the quoted spec. My NC10 uses a 5200 mAh battery and I get 5-6 hrs, but that depends on what I do.
• Integrated bluetooth, some units now have built in 3G capability as well.

About the only thing I wish I had was tablet capability. They are really not there yet (there are a couple of convertible units available), although Asus has announced and shown a prototype tablet - so that's a way off. In the meantime, I'm filling that gap using another technology (see Livescribe Pulse smartpen - which is a very neat little device as well.

Blue

 

I am also looking at getting a netbook and have the Asus 1000HA in mind and can be had at 349.00 with free shipping from here.http://www.bhphotovideo.com

 

if you want to run a mac the msi wind was made to support it, you could triple boot it lol.

someone even made a video showing how to install it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYYJ0Bd_ik

edit: i'm not so sure about extended warranties with this though! i heard leo laporte talking about it, he saw lots of poeple with them at mac world and did it too.

 

OOOPS posted in the wrong place, sorry.

 

Oh by the way all these netbooks have 110C-240V power?

I need to use a netbook in the UK...

 

BlueZannetti did you compare the new Acer 10.1? It seems to be pretty much what the Samsung is and about $100 cheaper.

I'd like to hear how people think the Acer 10.1 compares to the Samsung, because from what I can tell they seem pretty much the same thing...

THANKS

 

Well, when I jumped, it wasn't available.

The variability of the options reside in a lot of small things..., such as:

• Standard battery option and operating charge time (Samsung was best in class by a large margin when I purchased - the competition is closing though)
• Matte or gloss screen (I prefer matte)
• Actual feel of the keyboard. There's a whole bunch of stuff here - size and shape of the actual keys, shape of the contact surface (i.e. flat or slight concave depression), tactile responsiveness, force required to press a key, detailed layout.
• Ease of user based changes to RAM/HDD
• Compatibility among OS options
• ....and so on

The big items are pretty comparable among the major market leaders.

Blue

 

I wasn't paying attention to the netbooks, none of them have a dvd-rw/rom.

Oh well I guess I'll be getting something bigger then...

 

incase you still want some more opinions there are lots of reviews on video sites, i always end up watching videos now-a-days!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=netbooks comparison&aq=0&oq=Netbooks
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=netbooks review&aq=1&oq=netbooks
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=netbooks vs notebooks&aq=2&oq=netbooks
etc

 

Like I said before I wasn't paying attention and I want a DVD burner, so it's either go with an external or buy a laptop.

So far I really have my eyes instead on the Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 - 405168U:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=470B0F10C05B42BF83330C5211DCE0FD

I saw some deals going for this laptop with coupons for $449 shipped, now that's a deal. To bad this deal expired last week, I'll just have to keep my eye out for another or contact Lenovo to make me the same offer.

I know this was suppose to be a netbook post, but if I can get a laptop with more features for just about the same, it doesn't make sense for me to get a netbook, UNLESS I was really after size, which I'm not...