Suggest Notebook For Daughter
 

A few years ago, I bought my then 8th grade daughter a HP mini netbook, beefed it up with a SSD and extra DRAM, and she used it happily through half of high school. But mini has sustained some damage and much wear and tear, so it is time to buy a replacement.

The parameters are: PC or Mac, an actual computer able to run Windows or MacOS applications, not a "tablet", very small and light (netbook or thin&light size), suitable for a high school kid to carry around in a backpack with heavy books, and $500 or thereabouts. I'll put another SSD in it. Needs to last two years at least. Doesn't need much horsepower.

What's interesting out there? Ultrabook? Netbook? I haven't kept up with PCs. I doubt a MacAir will be cheap enough and a standard MacBook is too big/heavy.

Refurb'd Mac Air. 11" (2011) $749 and you don't have to do the SSD.

I'd go with the macbook air. More $$, but you get what you pay for.

Mac Air
 

Love my Mac Air 13". I will never need another PC.

Don't get me wrong, I like macs, but for my HS kids I bought rather inexpensive laptops $300-350, with the best deal I could find at slickdeals.net

In a HS backpack they are going to get banged around, possibly stolen, etc.... and it only has to last two years. Max out the ram, memory is so cheap these days. You will probably need to get a new one for college, with my kids the schools had specific requirements for the computers.

Even the cheap laptops are powerful enough to run most software..... my two year old $300 Toshiba runs Solidworks fine.

Or check the Dell outlet, and sometimes you can find a 20 or 25% off coupon on Slickdeals. That's how I bought my last laptop: http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&brandid =2201&fid=914

The cheaper refurb'd MacAir only has 2GB RAM. Anyone running the latest MacOS on 2GB RAM? How is it?

John, read thru this first...

FixYa outs top user gripes about Ultrabooks and the MacBook Air | PCWorld

I've been getting refurb HP Folio 13s for around $650-700 as they come available.

They have an i5, 4GB, Win7 Pro, 128GB SSD, and run 5 hours + on battery.

The only real downsides for me are the typical 1366x768 screen that 13" ultrabooks typically have, and lack of a touchpoint. I'll just end up getting a Lenovo to solve those problems, though they are over double the price.

If you buy a Dell as a "small business" you get a slightly better grade hardware and an awesome next day on site parts replacement warranty. Does not cover accidental damage, but we've had a screen and a mobo replaced on the daughters laptop.

For "thin and light" but still usable w/ decent performance, I'd look at the 13" & 14" ultrabook segment. For under $600, Vizio's new 14" offering looks like a pretty good bang/buck ratio. The new Dell XPS 13 is a bit more $$, but was a contender when I was looking. I settled on a Samsung Series 9 13". It's pretty sweet, but you definitely pay a premium for "bleeding edge" tech.

Also, keep in mind that you sacrifice other things if you want thin/light (no internal optical drive, etc.).

Staples has decent new laptops for $350 when they change over their stock. HPs with 15 in screens. That's what I get.

another consideration: she will likely stay with whatever general system (mac vs. Windows) she starts out with

I doubt that the ultrabook makers can ever catch Apple - Apple has leveraged the supply chain and can also cut prices at will

Apple makes the very best laptops without a doubt - does she want or need that is the real question...

fwiw, I bought my 18y/o niece a lightly used Dell XT2. (ebay) She loves it.

I liked it so much I found one for myself. 128Gb SSD, 5Gb ram, 64bit, outdoor display with multi-touch and pen input. (it's a convertible tablet.) Both had the additional 'slice battery' which snaps to the base for all day use. The Power supply is tiny. It's a great little travel computer. ~$550 used (add $1k for new)

A convertible - interesting idea. I'm looking at some different models on eBay now. Thinkpad X220?

Nice; an i7 processor! Does she need that?

I went with the Dell because the super bright display. (hard to find on the Thinkpads) Also, the Dell is not that typical high gloss screen, which also helps readability outside in the sun. --not all XT's have the daylight display.

i will also suggest that you get her going on OneNote. --it's great for classes. She can take notes while recording lecture. Then later, just point to a note/graph/diagram and it will recall the audio of when the note/graph/diagram was created. (among other productive tools for class)

There are some convertibles w/o the pen. I really like the pen based versions. (palm-hits go away) And I use Evernote's RitePen, which allows text input anywhere one the screen. (fast)

Need? Nope, her nearly late and soon-to-be lamented Atom netbook was good enough. But I loved my old Thinkpad X41 Tablet so am considering introducing daughter into the awesomeness that is a Thinkpad tablet.

The MacBook Air is the other option, it is a LOT thinner and lighter, her backpack weighs 30 lb already.

heavy packpack on growing child = probems

i agree, its like child soldiers.

Definitely go with the MacBook Air. That will save over a pound in travel weight.

of course if you are considering that price range, I would look at some of the Sony's with CF body.

...or just get the Mac.

Wouldn't that bust your stated budget (I'm not up to speed on current MBA prices)?

FWIW, my Samsung Series 9 13" (np900x3c) is thinner and lighter (by nearly .5lbs) than a MBA. 1600x900 res. matte screen is awesome as well.

You realy need to check out the Dell XPS 13z Ultrabook. I am blown away by the build quality compared to any PC I have ever owned. Nothing wrong with the Air if she's a MAC person but seriously the Dell is way way way different than any of their previous offerings (and I have owned a half dozen of them).

I should add that it's a 13" screen but the frame is so small I keep it in a Neoprene Macbook Air 11 case (yes 11).

New is $850 and up or so, refurb prob much less.

I suppose this is out of the question?

http://www.sandandsociety.com/wp-con...l-moleskin.jpg

House is littered with those things.

I just noticed that Microsoft's "Surface" tablet is now available for pre-order. Attachable keyboard, runs Windows RT, which means it runs a version of Office, $500-700. Later there is supposed to be a version that runs full Windows 8, but it may not be within the budget or time parameters. Whaddya think?

I know, it is not a PC or Mac, but I thought I should learn about these things.

30% off any Dell Outlet Inspiron R series laptop - Slickdeals.net

30% off Dell outlet Inspiron outlet.

Pre-orders were just launched this week for compact convertibles from Sony, Lenova, etc. running Win 8, i7 or i5, 8gb ram, 750g - 1Tb hd, prices $750 to $950. I would think the i3 to be released with small capacity SSD will be $500-$600 machines common.

Shopping right now too to replace an older AMD multi-core powered 12 inch screen HP magnesium case tablet / PC that was running Win 7 Ultimate. One of the favorite and most used machine in the house but after going though three m.boards, were done.

That RT version comes with MS Office --That looks like a great deal. ...perfect for a student.

Much lighter than even the Mac Air too.

http://surface.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/Content/pbpage.Surface

The PC industry is really in the tank this year, with units down something like -8% - think, PCs are now a shrinking industry - and the industry needs to come up with innovative, exciting, cool and affordable products if it wants to avoid a painful decline. It may be too late for some. Dell has failed in every single attempt to make a music player, smartphone, tablet, or other consumer device other than a conventional PC. HP is no better.

Yes, I'm interested in the Surface RT, but also in the Surface Win 8 version coming later. She has on occasion had to use specific software for classes, like a data logging application. Those are for Windows and sometimes MacOS but probably not for Win RT.

Yeah, a 1.5 lb / mm's think tablet isn't going to have an old-school serial port.

fwiw OneNote has built in OCR. (data logging/conversion from pictures possible)

Regarding OneNote (if you go that route):

If you haven't purchased any MS Office software yet, you might source a copy of MS Office Pro "Plus". I am not sure if it's available at retail/brick n' morter stores, or just available as an Enterprise license. However, you can get a legit disc/key online for (relatively) cheap these days. The "Plus" version will give you Outlook, Word, PP, Excel, OneNote, SharePoint, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, Groove, and probably a couple others I am forgetting.

Pulled trigger on Thinkpad X200 convertible tablet/notebook, $300 used. Only a core 2 duo, but with 4 GB DRAM and a SSD I suspect it will be plenty fast, anyway a step up from the Atom netbook w/ 2 GB RAM and SSD that she's been using. Flip around screen, touchscreen w/ stylus.

And it's a Thinkpad! Best damn notebooks made, IMO better from a hardware and reliability perspective than anything else including MacBook.

Will look into the Office version mentioned.

I wonder if Win 8 can run on this thing, when it is available?

Fits the budget even w/ adding SSD.

What I'm seeing w/ HS kids now is they use Google Docs and Google Mail primarily. They don't need Office anymore. I put Open Office on her netbook for the times that she needs to work on stuff without being online.

I will, however, buy One Note 2010 unless you guys think the 2007 version is better.

go with OneNote 2010

You may want to revisit
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/597257-inking-dead.html

Unless you are installing Win8. (I find Win 7 w/ Ritepen to be more productive)

Oh, and there are tricks to using Ritepen in Onenote. Let me know if you need my input on that input.

John - my cardinal rule is to never "update" the OS on a computer (just buy a new computer); it has never worked out well for me (I mean to a whole new version, not a service pac)

for others who are thinking along the same lines, the Chromebook looks very bang-laden for the buck

Ordered 120GB SSD. By next wkend, daughter is going to have a pretty nice machine. I'll probably need help on the best inking software, as you mentioned. Not sure what Ritepen is, how it layers over Onenote, but we'll find out. Edit: reading about it now - sounds cool. Also going to introduce her to voice recognition aka dictation software.

Her netbook completely died last night, keyboard non-responsive, case crunches and splinters like a crushed turtle, screen is almost falling off. She really has thrashed that poor little guy, I'll need to pull the SSD and retrieve any docs not backed up, then I think we will have a ritual burial. That's why I bought the X200 first thing this AM, no time to mull over the choices any more.

Oh, tangentially on the topic of SSD

Sandisk is forecasting 2013 NAND bit supply growth only 30-40%. Micron and others are forecasting 2013 NAND bit demand growth 60-70%. If even sort of true, NAND price will go up and all the NAND makers will make tons of money, the biggest OEMs like Apple and Samsung will be fine, the small OEMs will be hurting, and this time next year consumer SSD will still be $1 per GB. By the way, HDD makers will make a ton of money too, even with the awful PC market - the large majority of Ultrabooks sold will have hybrid SSD/HDD rather than pure SSD. Consumer loses out.

In case anyone's curious.

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QqAEfQoCKtM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ritepen layers over just about everything except Onenote.

In Onenote there is 'competition' for inking on the 'paper' portion of OneNote ...which causes problems for Ritepen. (priority goes to OneNote) The solution is to do the writing off the 'paper' area.

Here is a screen capture showing the solution.

Note the green pen input.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1350685832.jpg

The circle and Arrow are from Onenote ... the cursive is from Ritepen. (auto switches by region)

Onenote can also do pen to text directly on the 'paper.' It involves lassoing the inking and selecting to convert. (I don't like that)

I ordered a Surface RT today - we'll see how it goes. My colleague swears by OneNote, and we're collaborating on multiple projects so I may give that a go. I presently live my live in my email in box. No folders, just search. It is getting unwieldy as I get more balls in the air.

That said I just got the Evernote Moleskin and that is pretty damn slick. You get to actually write on paper, snap a photo, then you not only have the image but Evernote does OCR. Nice hybrid of analog and digital.

How good does your handwriting have to be? Can you post some examples?

If you're asking me, this is from the Moleskin notebook, picture taken with iPhone 5 within the Evernote app. It found the words blue, magic, skies, and monkey when searching.

http://nostatic.com/photos/ocr.jpg