Netbooks

Hey,

What are you guys using for netbooks? Particularly when you're out on the road and want to empty your memory cards and do some light processing. I was thinking Lightroom, or even a dual boot with Linux to run Gimp. But either way, I'd like something sub-$400 to take on the road with me that I can atleast post web-suitable images with (and I shoot primarily RAW). I'm so tired of lugging around an 8lb laptop...

Just curious if anyone here is doing the same thing and can make some recommendations. I have a $75 Amazon giftcard to use towards it! :) But cheaper, the better.

I did a quick forum search for "netbook" and "netbooks." Didn't see too much..

Jared

Just got one, shortchanged on the OS because it's a 10" twist notebook/tablet but only ships with Windows 7 Stupid edition.
Sorry Starter edition. The one that they ship with a tablet to make it almost but not quite useless by leaving out the on-screen keyboard.

It struggles to run Lightroom, but because it has 2G of RAM it manages.
Biggest drawback is the wide but short screen, almost useless for any king of editing as it's the wrong shape no matter what software you're running.

And did I mention the touch screen fold-over tablet mode is useless without a Windows upgrade? That will certainly suck out all the remaining RAM and CPU cycles and make it slower than it is now ... all the "features" that get activated in the next version that I dont' want - all I want is the on screen keyboard!

Oh yeah, it's a Lenovo S10-3t - well built, nice shape, lightweight, 9 hours battery life on minimum performance, great surfing machine and has 250G HD.

Shame they totally pissed me off shipping a crippled OS with it.

I have a netbook. I am now using it to host my magicjack phone.

I have a "normal" portable with a 13 inch screen (SAMSUNG Q310 from mid 2009).

- It wieghs 4.4 pounds (still seems like a lot at the end of the day)
- Battery life is only 4-5 hours (but I have a second one if I need it)

However this system will run anything (4GB RAM, processor about 8x more powerful than a Netbook). The screen is just about big enough to do what I need, including Lightroom (minimum 1024x768 screen and 2GB of RAM - most Netbooks are 1024x600 and 1GB RAM).

If I don't want to take the portable I take an Android tablet. I can back up and view my JPG's (I shoot RAW+JPG), surf on Internet, watch films. The latest one has a 10 inch screen (ARCHOS 10i) and it only weighs 1lb. Of course it won't run PC applications and so far I haven't seen any serious photo editing applications on Android.

It pretty much blows your budget, but the new 11-inch MacBook Air is flying off the shelves into the hands of photographers. As small as a netbook but super fast and with an excellent screen and graphics.