Netbooks vs Laptops for class suite

[Jollity]

Mrs Enjay has just bought an 11" Samsung, very nice piece of kit - £330 and weighing in at just 1.6KG.

Something like the 305U? They seem to have a range of them actually.

 

Actually, might be worth me giving PC world a visit, to do some window shopping.

[enjay]

Something like the 305U? They seem to have a range of them actually.

Yes, that's the one.

[enjay]

Okay - full disclosure time. Mrs Enjay has just returned her 11" Samsung, and we've bought a 13" instead.

 

She found the screen was too small, especially since the only resolution it could (sensibly) render is 1368x768 which is just a bit teeny on an 11" screen. She also found that the processor (AMD E450 1.65Ghz) couldn't handle Bejeweled Blitz, which is a total show-stopper :-)

[Jollity]

Thank you very much for coming back to update, Enjay. I'm sorry your wife had her shape matching interrupted.

 

I am a little concerned that the E-450 could not handle a Flash web game. However when I had a look at Bejeweled Blitz it does seem to use a remarkable amount of processing for what it is apparently doing. In what way did it not cope? Stuttering animation?

[enjay]

Bejeweled Blitz is oddly resource-intensive - I notice performance differences between my home computer and some of our older-but-still-well-specced PCs in school. On the school PCs, it just runs a little slower, taking a bit longer to drop the next pieces into place, but the on E-450 it was unplayable as it would take sometimes as much as a few seconds to move the pieces after clicking on them. So, I think that might be as much about the game as it is about the laptop; the screen size issue remains regardless though - 11.6" is small, and 1360x768 is a small resolution for a screen that size (I tried changing it, but the driver doesn't have any other widescreen options on it).

 

I think 11.6" is fine in some contexts, and have no problems using my 10" tablet, but I am conscious that when I use that, I am holding it much closer than I do with a laptop screen. The 13" she's replaced it with is much nicer (for other reasons, she got an Ultrabook rather than a "normal" laptop, and that is really nice too!).

[enjay]

Another point to note about these models (both the 11.6" 305U and the 13" 530U3B which we've replaced it with) is that the LAN port isn't full-size as standard, but includes a little flap which you need to pull down in order to make the cable fit (I'm not explaining that very well, I can take photos if you want!). I don't think that would survive very long in a classroom context before someone snaps it off, at which point I don't think the LAN cable would "click" into place any more.

[SimpleSi]

is that the LAN port isn't full-size as standard,

But generally the users don't use the lan port on a laptop so prob going to be OK

 

Si