Does anyone know about netbooks?
We are thinking of buying a netbook for our 8 year old son - and would like some help working out if they are any good.
All he wants to do with a computer is download music & videos, play games, and produce word processed documents.
Does anyone have any views on whether netbooks are worth using, or would we be better off waiting till he's bigger then buying him a full spec computer?
Not being at all techie, I could also do with some advice on to what extent anything produced on a netbook running Windows CE or Linux would be compatible with our main Vista PC.
Any advice would be really appreciated.
(onefishtwofish Redfishbluefish, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 9:18, 7 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

If he want's to play games
get a desktop, the laptop equivalent spec to play recent games will be much more expensive than a desktop setup.
(Bazongaloid, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 9:46, Reply)

plus laptops are more breakable
he is 8, at that age I only had access to a dragon 32
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 9:54, Reply)

This, I brought a high end gaming laptop.
And I could only play games about 2 years old from when I brought it.

A netbook won't be able to handle much more than flash (website) based games. Plus the screens are to small to make out any detail.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 12:22, Reply)

Netbook + games?
Forget it. While the specs are equivelent of a laptop a couple of years ago, playing games is not really feasable on such a small screen. Depending on what he wants to play (I'm assuming not L4D or the like here) it is possible they'll run it, but the graphics device on most are absolutly shocking. Best of getting a cheap desktop for a couple of hundred, then putting a dedicated graphics card in it.
(stimpy, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 12:23, Reply)

If you want games
you'll need a substantial PSU to power most modern graphics cards, plus a lot of them need two motherboard slots, so there isn't really a cheap way of getting a high spec gaming machine.

Buying a console for games would be the cheaper alternative.
(Bazongaloid, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 12:33, Reply)

I agree totally.
One thing that really cheese's my goat is that you can't use a keyboard/mouse with games on the PS3, but you can use it for other things.

The keyboard/mouse on that game that makes me drink milk without giving a shit would be ultimate win.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 15:17, Reply)

If it were me
I'd get him a refurbed desktop for most of the reasons above - There's a site called bigpockets which is good ..... I got my laptop from them and it's spot on.

Netbooks, while handy, strike me as a bit ELC
(SpunkyMcSpunkbubble Diddled your nubbin on, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 16:13, Reply)