Netbook anyone?

My daughter's 13th birthday is next month and I was considering getting her a netbook. I know that they don't have the power of a laptop or desktop and that they lack a CD/DVD player burner. I'm considering it because of the cost a portability. Do any of you have any experience with one?

No, but I have also considered one. I'd also strongly consider the Apple iPad. It is pretty much a net tablet.

I know of a couple folks who have them. Good reviews from them. They are very portable and with an external hard drive you could easily off load important data. Plus I think you can get a CD/DVD player for them via usb connection.

I am also considering one for a trip later this year. From the little bit of research that I've done, Amazon seems to be the cheapest if they carry the model that your interested in. Walmart on line also has a fairly good selection. Most people seems to recommend a RAM upgrade from 1mb to 2mb and that's as much as any of them will take. Also the 6-cell lithium ion battery will give you about 8 to 10 hours run time (so they say) against 3 to 6 hours for the 3-cell battery.

The bottom of the line entry model seems to be the Acer but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference between any on them in the $300 to $400 range. They basically all use one of the same two processors with the newer Atom N450 being a very slight improvement according to the reviews. Perhaps build quality has something to do with the price differences. They all seem to come with 160 gig or 250 gig hard drives and 3 USB ports. They all have wireless connectivity and some of the more expensive have Bluetooth if you want a Bluetooth wireless mouse without using one of the USB ports. Disc drives seem to cost in the range of $80. External hard drives or flash drives are small and inexpensive. Most seem to be using Windows 7 Starter Edition with 60 or 90 day trial versions of Office and Norton.

I'm still hunting around but I have to make a decision and order one in the next couple of weeks if I'm going to do it at all. It might be nice to get away from this computer for a couple of weeks so I'm still dithering.

You're right Frank, it seems like there is only a few differences, either 160 or 250 on the hard drive, 1 or 2mb on memory and the battery size. Since this is for 13 year old, I don't want to put too much into it. She has access to a desktop at her mom's and my Apple laptop at my house. She will be tickled to get this so that she doesn't have to fight with her little sister for computer access. If she had her choice she would ask for a MacBook Air, but that's not happening, at least not this year or next year or the year after that. Too much money for her to walk off and leave somewhere.