Toshiba, HP, or Asus Netbook??? Suggestions appreciated!

[GeekChic]

I am a Tech at two elementary schools and have been put in charge of ordering replacements laptops for our Mobile carts (Carts filled with about 20 iBooks hooked to power and printer, etc.). We have decided to purchase Netbooks to replace the iBooks and I have narrowed it down to three that would work for us and have done so much research on them that it would be nice to have the opinion of others working in the field.

Toshiba NB505

HP Mini 110

Asus Eee PC 1001Pxd

 

I have about 100 I need to order between the two schools. I think I am leaning toward the Toshiba or HP, as I have read reviews about netbooting being kind of a big pain on the Asus. Not too fond of all the bad customer service reviews with Toshiba and HP either.

 

All we need them for is basic computing, Internet, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and maybe 1 or 2 small educational apps.

 

Does anyone have an advice, suggestions, etc. to help me decide?

 

Also, all come with only 1GB memory, do I upgrade right off the bat, or do I wait a year or two??

 

Thanks for any help, I am a Tech, new to working in a school district....Corporate work experience....Totally different!

Thanks again!

[BKGarry]

Have you looked at the Dell Inspiron Mini 10, we purchased about 60 a coupe of years ago for around £250 ea, they are great as long as your turn off the multitouch tech in the trackpad drivers. the one really good thing about them is they have hard plastic over the LCD. I have actually seen one dropped down 5 stairs and survived.

[soraya66]

Not sure if you've made your decision yet but I would say the easiest way is to test them. Get an eval unit of all manufacturers you are looking at and test them in situ, this will give you a much better idea of whether each one suits your needs.