Netbooks
I read something the other day saying people are spending more time researching for a mobile phone purchase than when buying a home or car. I'm having that trouble with a netbook purchase!
My daily commute is just over an hour door to door, of that around 40 minutes or so is spent on a train (and for most of the journey, I'm lucky and do get a seat). I typically read or listen to podcasts on route, but feel I could make better use of the time. And with the iPad recently released, got me thinking whether that or a little laptop could fit the bill.
The plan would be to use it for writing (for example blog posts), listening to podcasts, watching webcasts, and perhaps a little programming - which is kind-of useful for code-related blog posts. Now for all but the last requirement, I'm sure the iPad would fit the bill. But I doubt Eclipse will be making an appearance on the iPad any time soon.
So I've been looking at netbooks. I've not really looked at them before, but they are certainly cute! I began with the small 10.1" models. Typically, they appear to come with 1Gb RAM, and some Intel Atom processor. Looked OK to me, perhaps 1Gb is a little small these days. After some research and talking at work, I'm concerned these may be too small for any type of development at all. The screen is probably going to be too small and the machine is probably going to struggle.
I'm now looking at the slightly larger 11.6" models, which are also a little meatier, but still light enough to carry around. The two I've got to pick from are the Toshiba Satellite Pro T110 and HP Pavilion DM1. I'm off to the shops to see if I can find them on display to see how they feel, the weight, the keyboard, etc. Then I can hopefully make my decision.
