<p>I was wondering if there were any current students out there that are using just a netbook at school? If so, what has your experience been so far.</p>
<p>I was thinking of just buying a netbook and combining that with an external monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse for my daughter.</p>
<p>My only concern is would it be powerful enough. I know they are getting more and more power these days. I especially like the new Asus coming out next week that lasts up to 10.5 hrs on one charge and weighs in at only 2.5lbs</p>
<p>netbooks are great, but you shouldn’t even consider having ONLY a netbook. one major flaw is that most of them don’t come with CD drives, so this makes it really difficult to install new software without having another computer to transfer it from. plus, HD video can be a stretch for the current generation of netbooks, and this is important since most internet video is moving to HD.</p>
<p>personally, i’m going to take an inexpensive desktop and a netbook. that way i have the power of a desktop computer and the portability of a netbook (smaller than the average textbook)</p>
<p>If your daughter really doesn’t do anything besides browse the Internet, I guess a netbook would be fine. However, they are very limited in terms of capabilities and computing power. </p>
<p>What is your budget? The summer before my freshman year my parents gave me a $1000 computing budget for my four years at college. I ended up spending about $800 to build a desktop, and spent the rest on a really good deal from a trusted friend on a netbook. If you are looking to save money, however, I think that your daughter would be far better off than an inexpensive notebook than just a netbook. These days you can find laptops that are ‘good enough’ for $300-$400, not much more expensive than netbooks. </p>
<p>Also, your daughter’s computer usage may depend on her major. For instance, engineers tend to use software like MATLAB, Solidworks, ANSYS, etc, which require some power. I would not run those applications on a netbook.</p>
<p>right…if you sign up for newegg newsletter you will see amazing laptop steals for under 500$ </p>
<p>netbook is good only for typing notes, surfing internet websites, torrenting, and watching non-HD videos!</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I actually was using a netbook today and was able to easily run outlook, 3 word documents and 2 excel spreadsheets and surf with IE 8.0 without any noticable problems.</p>
<p>I was really looking at it more of a way for her to have something small to carry around with her.</p>
<p>I will have to give it some more thought perhaps. I have a couple 13.3" or 14.1" laptops that might be better. That isn’t really that much bigger or heavier and it would probably be better to have everything all on one anyway.</p>
<p>thanks for the suggestions</p>
<p>the all day netbook is a great accessory…why strain your eyes on an iphone when you have a netbook? :D</p>