Too bad many non-stop plane rides of the length (~15 hrs, perhaps on A340-500 LAX-BKK or NYC-SIN) that would require this amount of battery life would have power sockets.
I understand that there might be economic (mass production) advantages to using 16:9 since that's the HD TV standard, however, it's not a good format for a computer display. Until about 12 months ago, widescreen computer displays were 16:10, which is close enough to 16:9 to allow watching widescreen TV/DVD/Video with only a small bar at the top and/or bottom. In fact, that extra height could be used to display the controls for the player.
As another poster noted, extra screen height is generally more useful for computer work than extra width. Let's go back to 16:10.
Given a 16:10 aspect ratio, a 10"-14" screen should be no less than 1280x800. 1440x900 might work on the 12"-14" models, it certainly works well at 15"-16".
Second, why would I want a machine with a GMA 500? Aside from it's HD H.264 decoding, it's significantly worse than the awful GMA 9x0, and X3100 IGPs. Even if you're not a "gamer" (and I'm not), the X3100 still sucks and it's the fastest of that group. Anything less than a 4500MHD is unacceptable. Nvidia's 9400M chipset is really the way to go unless you're going to a dedicated GPU or using an AMD platform.
I recommend getting the Acer 1410. You can get it on sale for around $400. It has Core 2 Solo processor, GMA 4500 graphics, 11.6" 1366 x 768 Display, 2 RAM slots, HDMI and VGA, Gigabit, Wireless N, Vista Home Premium so free upgrade to Win 7. The keyboard is really good as well with almost full size keys, I'm typing on it right now.
Battery life is still good but not quite as good as smaller Atom based computer with a 6 cell battery. It's rated at up to 6 hours but i typically get around 4-5. You can always get a bigger battery in it. The European version is called the 1810 and comes with an 8 hour battery. The extra power and capabilities are great and make it an all around great computer. I have played some H264 1080p videos through the HDMI port to my HDTV and got smooth frame rates. But I mainly watch 720p, which look great on the built in dislay. I don't mind the 16:9 aspect ratio and I highly doubt the manufacturers will go back to 16:10 so you might as well just make do.
I've found playing any game prior to 2004 or 2005 work great with the 1.4Ghz Core 2 Solo and the GMA 4500. I think the processor and graphics chips are quite balanced. I don't see any need in getting the Nvidia graphics chip in it unless the processors get better. This is my first laptop I've ever owned Ive always used a desktop. Ive never found laptops portable enough and I found the early netbooks not powerful enough. But I love the compromise between the two that Acer makes. But if you don't mind spending some more money, I would recommend waiting for a dual core version which should be along soon enough.
I'm not sure who's been teaching people here nath, but 1024 x 600 isn't 16 x 9. That would be more like 1067 x 600.
I'm inclined to agree, though, that 600 vertical resolution is just too small. Also, the damn glossy screens seem to have become standard.
I don't know why they just make netbooks for people that have no money. They're better than normal laptops in two things - they use much less power, and they're more portable. They're worse at a lot of things too, but, my point is, someone might actually prefer a nettop over a laptop even at the same price because battery life is really important.
Once Intel actually has a decent chipset to go with the Atom, I hope there will be more upscale nettops. I really want one, but I can't get myself to buy one with all the compromises. A decent sized, anti-glare screen, with a decent chipset/video processor should not be too much to ask for. It would be too much to ask for a mini-blu ray disk for these devices though, but, that would make them even better since people probably wouldn't mind using them as a portable movie watching device.
For a laptop that augments a desktop, performance isn't necessarily as important as battery life and portability. I wish they would go a bit more upscale with these things. They have more compromises than they need.
You'll note the little "~" in front of 16:9 in the table. It's not 16:10, which would be a 1.6 AR, and it's not 16:9 which is 1.78. Instead it's 1.71. That's close enough to 16:9 for me; otherwise we'd have to put a silly 16:9.37 or just reduce it to 128:75 and call it quits. :-)
As far as upscale netbooks, for years we had 11-12" ultraportable laptops that would cost closer to $2000. I'd be happy with a decent screen on *any* laptop/netbook, but they're few and far between. And I'd rather rip a disc to my hard drive and leave it at home -- DMCA be damned!
Well, ultra-portable is one thing, but, they never had this type of low power setup. If you could run them 10 hours on a battery, you were connecting to your car battery (and hopefully have a stick and are parked on a hill).
With a high-end nettop, presumably you'd want a SSD, not a Winchester, due to power use, and size. So, for people like I, there wouldn't be so much hard disk space on this type of machine. I'd like to have something like a 1.5" optical media for something like that, even if it could only hold what a DVD does. On a small screen like that, would it matter much?
Also, a smaller optical disk size would lower power use of the device. Again, I don't expect it, and won't wait for it. I'm just waiting for a decent chipset for the Atom. That would push me to buy it, if I can still get an anti-glare screen. The glossy screens are fine if you really want them, but since these things are used outside of the home, in well-lit situations, it's getting disturbingly difficult to get the anti-glare screens.
We really need to set a minimum screen resolution at 1024x768 for any retail computer. This x600 crap and all the compatibility issues it brings is ridiculous. I like the 10", but even at 10", that's x600 is EXTREMELY low resolution.
I've never found vertical resolution to be much of a problem, I'm much more concerned about horizontal. I have 3 screens that only run 480px vertical (800x480 on my MP3 player and carputer, 640x480 on my phone) and find the limited horizontal width to be far more annoying.
Not sure how useful the ability to decode HD is when there are no digital video outputs. Suppose it could be useful for streaming online video, but would be a lot more useful if you could get it to a TV.
I agree with you on that one. I love my Eee PC 900 HA, but the 600 vertical resolution gets incredibly frusterating at times. I really wish someone would come out with a SMALL (8"-10") netbook with a 768 vertical that did not cost nearly $1000. Is the extra resolution really that expensive?
Panels are standard.And they are going with 16:9 aspect ratio (they discovered they are cheaper to manufacture this way). So the best you can get is 1366x768, but that's 11.6" for now. Everything that's out of this rule will be 50% more in price (at least).
You can say that 1366x768 is the new 1280x800 :-) :-) :-)
Not to most people. Look at the page you are typing on, what do you need more, horizontal or vertical pixels? Most people are not watching widescreen videos nor tiling windows beside each other on netbooks the majority of the time.
Unfortunately the shape of the human hand resulted in keyboards wider than they are deep, otherwise we could have 9:16 ratio, it would be much more useful than 16:9. The cruel irony is that even if you elect to pay more for a tablet with a swivel screen, it usually only swivels the wrong way to be helpful.
Dell has a Mini 10 with a http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx...">1366x768 LCD, though of course it's more expensive. I figure if Dell offers that LCD upgrade, others will follow at some point. It's a shame that model costs $500 (even after the current sale).
I'm not sure anyone will do an Ion netbook... something about how Intel deals with their partners. Ion nettops are okay, but the dual-core Atoms for example apparently aren't supposed to go in anything other than a nettop style device. Put one in a netbook and Intel will do their best to not help you out or something. LOL We'll see if this changes at all in the future, but while I'd love to see an Ion netbook I don't think it's anywhere near happening.
Hopefully you guys will test it with the same metrics that Apple uses to determine their Mac battery life. I think Sony this year also moved to that same real world metric for determining actual duration.
PS: Does anyone know if the MSI U110 has any driver incompatibles if I were to install OSx86 on it?
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
24 Comments
Back to Article
Zoomer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Too bad many non-stop plane rides of the length (~15 hrs, perhaps on A340-500 LAX-BKK or NYC-SIN) that would require this amount of battery life would have power sockets.maomao0000 - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
http://www.myyshop.com">http://www.myyshop.comQuality is our Dignity; Service is our Lift.
Myyshop.com commodity is credit guarantee, you can rest assured of purchase, myyshop will
provide service for you all, welcome to myyshop.com
Air Jordan 7 Retro Size 10 Blk/Red Raptor - $34
100% Authentic Brand New in Box DS Air Jordan 7 Retro Raptor colorway
Never Worn, only been tried on the day I bought them back in 2002
$35Firm; no trades
http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s14">http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s14 (Jordan)
http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s29">http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s29 (Nike shox)
gstrickler - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
I understand that there might be economic (mass production) advantages to using 16:9 since that's the HD TV standard, however, it's not a good format for a computer display. Until about 12 months ago, widescreen computer displays were 16:10, which is close enough to 16:9 to allow watching widescreen TV/DVD/Video with only a small bar at the top and/or bottom. In fact, that extra height could be used to display the controls for the player.As another poster noted, extra screen height is generally more useful for computer work than extra width. Let's go back to 16:10.
Given a 16:10 aspect ratio, a 10"-14" screen should be no less than 1280x800. 1440x900 might work on the 12"-14" models, it certainly works well at 15"-16".
Second, why would I want a machine with a GMA 500? Aside from it's HD H.264 decoding, it's significantly worse than the awful GMA 9x0, and X3100 IGPs. Even if you're not a "gamer" (and I'm not), the X3100 still sucks and it's the fastest of that group. Anything less than a 4500MHD is unacceptable. Nvidia's 9400M chipset is really the way to go unless you're going to a dedicated GPU or using an AMD platform.
daveloft - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
I recommend getting the Acer 1410. You can get it on sale for around $400. It has Core 2 Solo processor, GMA 4500 graphics, 11.6" 1366 x 768 Display, 2 RAM slots, HDMI and VGA, Gigabit, Wireless N, Vista Home Premium so free upgrade to Win 7. The keyboard is really good as well with almost full size keys, I'm typing on it right now.Battery life is still good but not quite as good as smaller Atom based computer with a 6 cell battery. It's rated at up to 6 hours but i typically get around 4-5. You can always get a bigger battery in it. The European version is called the 1810 and comes with an 8 hour battery. The extra power and capabilities are great and make it an all around great computer. I have played some H264 1080p videos through the HDMI port to my HDTV and got smooth frame rates. But I mainly watch 720p, which look great on the built in dislay. I don't mind the 16:9 aspect ratio and I highly doubt the manufacturers will go back to 16:10 so you might as well just make do.
I've found playing any game prior to 2004 or 2005 work great with the 1.4Ghz Core 2 Solo and the GMA 4500. I think the processor and graphics chips are quite balanced. I don't see any need in getting the Nvidia graphics chip in it unless the processors get better. This is my first laptop I've ever owned Ive always used a desktop. Ive never found laptops portable enough and I found the early netbooks not powerful enough. But I love the compromise between the two that Acer makes. But if you don't mind spending some more money, I would recommend waiting for a dual core version which should be along soon enough.
szefte - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
EEE 1101HA is 16/9 with 11.9"TA152H - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I'm not sure who's been teaching people here nath, but 1024 x 600 isn't 16 x 9. That would be more like 1067 x 600.I'm inclined to agree, though, that 600 vertical resolution is just too small. Also, the damn glossy screens seem to have become standard.
I don't know why they just make netbooks for people that have no money. They're better than normal laptops in two things - they use much less power, and they're more portable. They're worse at a lot of things too, but, my point is, someone might actually prefer a nettop over a laptop even at the same price because battery life is really important.
Once Intel actually has a decent chipset to go with the Atom, I hope there will be more upscale nettops. I really want one, but I can't get myself to buy one with all the compromises. A decent sized, anti-glare screen, with a decent chipset/video processor should not be too much to ask for. It would be too much to ask for a mini-blu ray disk for these devices though, but, that would make them even better since people probably wouldn't mind using them as a portable movie watching device.
For a laptop that augments a desktop, performance isn't necessarily as important as battery life and portability. I wish they would go a bit more upscale with these things. They have more compromises than they need.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
You'll note the little "~" in front of 16:9 in the table. It's not 16:10, which would be a 1.6 AR, and it's not 16:9 which is 1.78. Instead it's 1.71. That's close enough to 16:9 for me; otherwise we'd have to put a silly 16:9.37 or just reduce it to 128:75 and call it quits. :-)As far as upscale netbooks, for years we had 11-12" ultraportable laptops that would cost closer to $2000. I'd be happy with a decent screen on *any* laptop/netbook, but they're few and far between. And I'd rather rip a disc to my hard drive and leave it at home -- DMCA be damned!
TA152H - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Well, ultra-portable is one thing, but, they never had this type of low power setup. If you could run them 10 hours on a battery, you were connecting to your car battery (and hopefully have a stick and are parked on a hill).With a high-end nettop, presumably you'd want a SSD, not a Winchester, due to power use, and size. So, for people like I, there wouldn't be so much hard disk space on this type of machine. I'd like to have something like a 1.5" optical media for something like that, even if it could only hold what a DVD does. On a small screen like that, would it matter much?
Also, a smaller optical disk size would lower power use of the device. Again, I don't expect it, and won't wait for it. I'm just waiting for a decent chipset for the Atom. That would push me to buy it, if I can still get an anti-glare screen. The glossy screens are fine if you really want them, but since these things are used outside of the home, in well-lit situations, it's getting disturbingly difficult to get the anti-glare screens.
firepower9966 - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Correction: HP5101 has no HDMI , VGA onlygipper - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
We really need to set a minimum screen resolution at 1024x768 for any retail computer. This x600 crap and all the compatibility issues it brings is ridiculous. I like the 10", but even at 10", that's x600 is EXTREMELY low resolution.strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I've never found vertical resolution to be much of a problem, I'm much more concerned about horizontal. I have 3 screens that only run 480px vertical (800x480 on my MP3 player and carputer, 640x480 on my phone) and find the limited horizontal width to be far more annoying.Not sure how useful the ability to decode HD is when there are no digital video outputs. Suppose it could be useful for streaming online video, but would be a lot more useful if you could get it to a TV.
firepower9966 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
HP 5101 has vga and HDMISpringfield45 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
I agree with you on that one. I love my Eee PC 900 HA, but the 600 vertical resolution gets incredibly frusterating at times. I really wish someone would come out with a SMALL (8"-10") netbook with a 768 vertical that did not cost nearly $1000. Is the extra resolution really that expensive?Roland00 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
The new sony's (the p series) have a 1366x768 resolution. They start at $499Mugur - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Panels are standard.And they are going with 16:9 aspect ratio (they discovered they are cheaper to manufacture this way). So the best you can get is 1366x768, but that's 11.6" for now. Everything that's out of this rule will be 50% more in price (at least).You can say that 1366x768 is the new 1280x800 :-) :-) :-)
samspqr - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I hate 1366x768, it's a horrible multiple of anything you really want to use, I won't buy anything that has thatthere's no new 1280x800, apart from 1920x1200, which is too much for such a small screen
IvanAndreevich - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Sure beats 1280x800, 1024x768, and that 1024x600.mindless1 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Not to most people. Look at the page you are typing on, what do you need more, horizontal or vertical pixels? Most people are not watching widescreen videos nor tiling windows beside each other on netbooks the majority of the time.Unfortunately the shape of the human hand resulted in keyboards wider than they are deep, otherwise we could have 9:16 ratio, it would be much more useful than 16:9. The cruel irony is that even if you elect to pay more for a tablet with a swivel screen, it usually only swivels the wrong way to be helpful.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Dell has a Mini 10 with a http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx...">1366x768 LCD, though of course it's more expensive. I figure if Dell offers that LCD upgrade, others will follow at some point. It's a shame that model costs $500 (even after the current sale).firepower9966 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
HP 5101 is 10" and has 1366x768 res and intel atom N280, i am waiting for ion based model with same specsJarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I'm not sure anyone will do an Ion netbook... something about how Intel deals with their partners. Ion nettops are okay, but the dual-core Atoms for example apparently aren't supposed to go in anything other than a nettop style device. Put one in a netbook and Intel will do their best to not help you out or something. LOL We'll see if this changes at all in the future, but while I'd love to see an Ion netbook I don't think it's anywhere near happening.trueimage88 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
hasn't it been announced already with the HP 311?Synaesthesia - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
OSx86 won't work - the GMA 500 is not supportedsolipsism - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
Hopefully you guys will test it with the same metrics that Apple uses to determine their Mac battery life. I think Sony this year also moved to that same real world metric for determining actual duration.PS: Does anyone know if the MSI U110 has any driver incompatibles if I were to install OSx86 on it?