Bought my wife a netbook yesterday for the kitchen (she has a MB Pro in her office/study but she didn't want to shlep it around for quick lookups, email, etc.). Got the Lenovo one (instead of the Acer Aspire) because the Lenovo came with Win7 rather than XP. $349 vs. 299 for the Acer, main difference was Win7 vs XP which I figured was a better long term starting point. Cool little machine, plus the Lenovo keyboard smokes the Acer keyboard IMO.
Anyway, set it up last night and even with 1 GB of RAM, this little Atom-powered gem is very snappy. Opens software quickly, surfing is quick, works great. Win7 starter is a perfect OS for this kind of device. No Aero - but it looks, feels and runs like a better version of XP, and in any case, the graphics on these things are pretty basic integrated graphics anyway. Frankly, I was pleasantly shocked that Microsoft would make a product that ran effectively and quickly on 1 GB of RAM.
Based on what I saw at Frys yesterday - people were literally lined up to get these netbooks over regular notebooks and desktops by a 3-1 margin. One family came in, for whom English was clearly a second language, with 3 generations of people and bought 3 of them. One guy was trying to buy 3 of the Sony's (much more expensive, but cooler looking, and a bit smaller). I think these things have a real place.
In short, I think Win7 Starter edition is a great choice for one of these devices, from a consumer perspective. For me, personally, I would have been just as happy with Ubuntu but that wasn't going to fly with my wife.
Just wanted to pass that along - don't dismiss Win7 starter out of hand - for the right application, its a pretty nice little OS.
Cheers
Anyway, set it up last night and even with 1 GB of RAM, this little Atom-powered gem is very snappy. Opens software quickly, surfing is quick, works great. Win7 starter is a perfect OS for this kind of device. No Aero - but it looks, feels and runs like a better version of XP, and in any case, the graphics on these things are pretty basic integrated graphics anyway. Frankly, I was pleasantly shocked that Microsoft would make a product that ran effectively and quickly on 1 GB of RAM.
Based on what I saw at Frys yesterday - people were literally lined up to get these netbooks over regular notebooks and desktops by a 3-1 margin. One family came in, for whom English was clearly a second language, with 3 generations of people and bought 3 of them. One guy was trying to buy 3 of the Sony's (much more expensive, but cooler looking, and a bit smaller). I think these things have a real place.
In short, I think Win7 Starter edition is a great choice for one of these devices, from a consumer perspective. For me, personally, I would have been just as happy with Ubuntu but that wasn't going to fly with my wife.
Just wanted to pass that along - don't dismiss Win7 starter out of hand - for the right application, its a pretty nice little OS.
Cheers
