These small sized, mini laptops also tend to be a little on the small side specification wise too, so at Horizon Flash Memory we’d thought that we’d take a look at them to see how they measure up and offer some advice on how to get the best for your money.

The humble laptop

Up until quite recently laptops were pretty expensive. You would normally pay about the same for a laptop as a typical desktop PC, except the laptop would be much less powerful.

Things have changed in the past year or so, the parts for laptops have come down in price and in turn the laptops themselves have dropped in price. Today £600 would get you a 2.4 GHz Quad Core processor with 3GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive in a desktop PC.

The same spent on a laptop would get a 2GHz Core Duo with 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. Although the desktop PC would be more powerful, to the average user there would be no discernible difference. But that has been the point regarding PC power for a few years now.

The Dell Mini 9 (pictured above) has a 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and a 8GB or 16GB hard drive; paltry compared to the PC and laptop mentioned above, but to the average user, perfectly acceptable. Particularly at half the price of the other two examples.

Gamers

The price decrease and also the popularity of the new netbooks is in part due to the fact that PCs and Notebooks don’t need to be as powerful as they now are, and Joe Public is catching on to this. Most users simply require a PC/laptop to surf the internet, check their email and carry out a little word processing. For these tasks a powerful processor, lots of RAM, a powerful graphics card and a large hard drive just aren’t needed.

In fact, despite what PC vendors may claim, the only thing driving up computing power in home computers today, are games. The netbook that started off this new trend was anything but powerful, the Asus Eee PC had just a 900MHz, 256MB of RAM and a 2GB hard drive. A specification that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a PC running Windows 98 a decade ago.

While adequate for surfing the internet, checking email and word processing, it wasn’t ideal.

Who for?

The next generation of netbooks have improved greatly in overall computing power, the Dell mini being a good example, but netbooks do have their drawbacks. The low price of these devices may be enticing but are they suitable for everyone?

If you are looking for a laptop for just surfing the internet, chatting to friends, checking email, working on office documents, then a netbook is ideal. If you want to play games, play CD/DVDs, do serious photo or video editing then you should look elsewhere. Netbooks don’t have CD or DVD drives, they don’t have the type of graphics card or the overall computing power to cope with even very old games.

Another often overlooked drawback to netbooks is the fact that many of them use SSDs (Solid State Drives). Although SSDs have many advantages over traditional hard drives, such as being shock proof, they are expensive and only available in comparatively low capacities. Even a 32GB SSD would cost about the same as the netbook itself (around £250).

This is why many netbooks seem to have very small hard drives, around the 4GB-16GB capacity. So if you are planning on using your netbook for a DVD repository or for storing your entire music collection, you may want to think again.

Secure Digital (SD)

There are however other alternatives to a bigger capacity solid state drive. Most netbooks have a card reader slot, and if used with an 8GB SD memory card it could double or even quadruple the storage space of some netbooks. More importantly, you can buy SD cards for less than £12. With SD memory cards being so small, the average user could carry a few around, containing DVDs, music, documents etc, and just swap them round when needed.

The high speed of SD memory cards means that there isn’t much difference between using one of them for storing information, or using your SSD.

With all this in mind, which are the best netbooks available?

The options

There are plenty of netbooks around, so here is our pick of the bunch.

Maplin minibook – £119.99

• Screen: 7in
• OS: Linux
• Max Res: 800×480
• Processor: 400MHz
• RAM: 128MB
• Hard Drive: 2GB
• USB: 3 ports
• SD Card Slot
• Battery: 3 hours

They are practically giving this netbook away, and on closer inspection it is clear why. The screen resolution is pretty low and won’t make comfortable viewing. The laptop has a version of Linux that can’t easily be added to, it has the Firefox 2 web browser installed but without flash, or the ability to update it, meaning that this is little better than a mobile phone for surfing the internet and about as powerful.

The MSI Wind – £299

• Screen: 10.2in
• OS: SUSE Linux/XP Home
• Max Res:1024×600
• Processor: 1.6MHz Atom
• RAM: 1GB
• Hard Drive: 120GB
• USB: 3 ports
• SD Card Slot
• Battery: 2.5 hours

A serious netbook, the 10inch screen has a pretty decent resolution, a fast processor for a netbook and a large amount of RAM, especially in comparison to the Maplin above, and a massive hard drive. Sadly the hard drive is SATA rather than solid state but not bad on a low cost notebook, let alone a netbook.

The card reader slot allows expansion of the inbuilt memory through an SD memory card, but with 120GB hard drive it isn’t really likely to be needed.

The ASUS Eee PC 901 – £275

• Screen: 8.9in
• OS: Linux/XP Home
• Max Res:1024×600
• Processor: 1.6MHz Atom
• RAM: 1GB
• Hard Drive: 12GB(XP)/20GB(Linux)
• USB: 3 ports
• SD Card Slot
• Battery: 8 hours

The Eee PC is the one that started the netbooks craze, and it is clearly one of the best. It matches the MSI wind, has a SSD hard drive and has much better battery life. The SD memory card slot also accepts SDHC cards, meaning up to 8GB SD memory cards can be used.

The Dell Mini 9 – £299

• Screen: 8.9in
• OS: Ubuntu Linux/XP Home
• Max Res:1024×600
• Processor: 1.6MHz Atom
• RAM: 1GB
• Hard Drive: 16GB(XP)/8GB(Linux)
• USB: 3 ports
• SD Card Slot
• Battery: 5 hours

Another good netbook and virtually the same specification as the MSI Wind and the Eee PC. Again the SD card slot is SDHC compatible meaning that even with the Linux option of just 8GB of hard disk space, a couple of cards can seriously increase storage space.

Highlights

There are some great options when it comes to netbooks, but with many of them having similar specifications, what are the most important features?

Battery power

This shouldn’t be understated, after all what is the use of an ultra mobile, ultra portable laptop that doesn’t last more than an hour away from the plug socket? Manufacturer’s claims about battery life should also be taken with a pinch of salt. A 3.5 hour battery may last 3.5 hours at first, after a few months 3.5 becomes 2.5 as battery capacity diminishes over time, at a rate of about 20% per year.

With new batteries costing almost as much as a netbook itself, you’ll want a netbook that has a bit of leeway with the capacity. The Maplin minibook has 3 hours, the MSI Wind just 2.5 hours, neither would be very useful for watching DVDs or on a long train journey.

Processing power and RAM

Even surfing the internet and checking email requires a slick processor occasionally, after all no one likes a lag when opening pages or email attachments. A 1.6GHz processor and 1GB of RAM would be ample for everything other than games or photo/video editing. The Maplin minibook is shockingly low powered, even at that price and with just 3 hours battery, you just won’t have the time for the processor and RAM to chug along.

Hard drive

The hard drive is very important, after all this is where all of your music and movies will be stored when you are on the go. Sadly few of the netbooks offer the kind of capacity needed for storing even a couple of DVDs. But this is where the SD memory card slot comes in handy. If the netbook has a small hard drive, like the Eee PC and the Dell Mini 9, make sure that the card slot accepts SDHC memory cards to boost the hard drive. You’d need at least 8GB hard drive for most purposes, and then a couple of 8GB SD cards to cover any extra music and video files, which should be plenty for most people and at around £12 each, not likely to break the bank.

Although smaller capacity than the standard hard drives, SSDs give better performance and battery life, perhaps why the Eee PC has 8 hours, the Dell mini 9 has 5 hours but the MSI Wind just 2.5 hours. So whilst a 120GB hard drive has its advantages, you’d be much better served by a solid state drive.

Operating system

Most people tend to just go with an operating system that they are used to, which usually means Windows. As the netbooks don’t have powerful graphics cards or processors, they are unable to run Windows Vista, which just leaves Windows XP Home Edition. But with Linux laptops being cheaper, and ones such as Dell’s mini 9 having the user friendly Ubuntu installed, Linux netbooks may be worth a punt. There are drawbacks however, things will be laid out differently, favourite programs such as Internet Explorer and Outlook and many of your favourite programs just won’t be work on Linux.

However if you are ever going to move away from Windows and try something else, a low powered laptop that won’t play games anyway, just may be the time to do it. Linux doesn’t have spyware or adware, or viruses, or the need for an expensive anti-virus or firewall package. It doesn’t need activating, in fact copying the discs and giving them to friends is actively encouraged . It also looks better than the seven year old Windows XP, is free to upgrade, and all the software is free.

That said those who buy Linux netbooks are apparently three times more likely to return them than those running Windows, so perhaps you do get what you pay for.

Sadly, these experts rarely come cheap and fixing hardware and software problems can cost an arm and a leg. There are some PC problems that are easily solved however, such as the inevitable slowdown every PC seems to go through at some point – usually after its owner has had it a few years.

There may be many reasons for such slowdowns, but invariably a sluggish PC is down to a lack of RAM. Of course it was slick and smooth running when it was first taken out of its box, and probably for some time afterwards, but the more memory hungry applications that are installed, the more RAM you are going to need just to keep it ticking over.

Fortunately these days RAM is cheap, so cheap in fact that it is possible to effectively double the performance speed of many laptops and notebooks, for less than £20.

But how do you know what type of RAM to buy without opening the case and taking out what you already have?

Peeking Inside

There are easier options than simply opening your tower and taking a look inside, besides, there is no guarantee that the RAM inside your PC will have a nice sticker on it detailing what type of RAM it is.

This is where software such as SIW (System Information for Windows) comes in handy. This is a free program, it contains no viruses or spyware, it doesn’t ask for your email address and it can tell you almost instantly what type of RAM is installed on the PC you are using, and therefore what sort of RAM you need to buy. You can download the program directly to your desktop (or wherever you want to) and just double click it to use, it doesn’t need to be installed.

SIW is very complex program able to gather information on almost all aspects of your PC. However we are only interested in one section, the RAM.

Click to Enlarge

When the screen opens scroll down to the hardware section and locate the section entitled memory. This will then display some information, but the first section we’re interested in is the bit under Memory Summary.

There are several bits of information here that are needed. Firstly there is the Maximum Capacity, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem with modern PCs and laptops, but this PC is quite old and has a maximum capacity of just 1536MB (or 1.5GB), coupled with the last line, Maximum Memory Module Size, this shows how much memory can be added, and what size memory sticks. In this case no single sticks of RAM higher than 1024MB (1GB) can be used.

Memory Slots tell us how many memory slots there are, in other words how many sticks of RAM can be fitted, in this case just 3. Lastly there is the Error Correction (EC) section, which says None, so for this PC we’d need NON-EC RAM not higher than 1GB per stick or 1.5GB in total.

All this is very useful as it would have meant digging out the motherboard manual, if there ever was one, or just ordering some RAM and hoping for the best.

Matching RAM

Next we need the information below that and although it looks complicated, there are only a few sections that we need be interested in.

As you can see, all three of the available slots in this computer have been filled. In Slot 1 under Capacity we have 256MB of RAM, the Memory Type is SDRAM DDR and the Speed is PC2700 (166MHz).

The two most important pieces of information are the Memory Type and the Speed, they show what RAM we need to purchase and what speed RAM is already in the machine. In this case we will need to purchase DDR RAM of about PC2700 in speed.

Another important point to note is the capacity of the RAM already there, Slots 1 and 2 have 256MB of RAM, but Slot 3 has 512MB, giving a total of 1024MB (1GB). As this PC only has a maximum capacity of 1.5GB there isn’t much room for expansion, it is probably easiest to buy one stick of 1024MB (1GB) and replace Slot 3′s 512MB, which I could then sell on eBay for about £10-£15.

Performance Boost

Armed with the knowledge that I need DDR RAM, NON-EC of about PC2700, I am able to shop around for a good deal, knowing precisely what I want. At Horizon Flash Memory I can get one 1GB of PC2700 DDR RAM for £21.49, which coupled with the fact that I will make some money back selling the old RAM on eBay is a remarklaby good deal.

I will have boosted the performance of this ailing PC by half as much again, all for about a tenner.

RAM is quick and easy to replace and more importantly it provides a noticeable difference. When you increase the RAM of your PC, you should immediately notice that programs start quicker, you are able to open more windows without slowing the PC down and you should also notice that the PC boots up faster.

Upgrading RAM is by far the simplest and and most cost effective way of improving performance and a program such as SIW makes it even easier.

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