Computers

I have had a couple of questions about computers specifically the new net books. I am not a computer expert and yet I am still a geek. My youngest son is an IT guy so I guess this qualifies me somewhat.

If you are considering the net books keep a couple of things in mind. They are not just smaller lap tops. They are net books. Many have limited memory and limited computing capability. They will run some basic software (if there is enough memory) however they will be slow. So here goes.

There are two types of drives available. Flash drives (built in) usually under 50gb drives they are solid state, no moving parts. These are lighter and smaller than the ones with a regular hard drive. The response time is a bit faster, but I haven't been convinced it is worth the extra money.

The other drive is a regular hard drive like in many lap tops. These will have more memory, be slightly slower in response time and usually are cheaper.

I have a Dell net book purchased from Sams for around $300. I tried to work with Out Look through a vpn and it was ardously slow. It works much better accessing email via web mail. This seems to be true of all the net books (as my son says "hence the name net book") It handles word processing and basic features ok yet slow. My computer has a 160 gb hard drive. Which is very handy.

The coolest one I have seen so far is the Sony net book. very small very cool and very expensive (around $900)

Battery Life : be sure to check the battery life of what ever computer you are considering a good measure should be about 2.5 hours or longer. Some of the net books with flash drives have a very long battery life.


So what do net books have to do with photography. As I travel I find my net book is excellent for additional storage, and viewing of files, (raw is a problem yet) and connecting to the web and email. That is about it. It is also light and easy to carry. I can view and edit files and it is a useful tool.

I have not heard favorable things about the Acer net books, but have heard good reviews of most of the HP, Sony, Dell ect.

My basic advice would be unless you absolutely need a net book don't, the current deals on lap tops are great. HP, Sony and Toshiba make some pretty good lap tops or notebook computers for around $600 and they are much faster and more versitile, and yes a bit heaver.. I would go with a minimum of 3mb ram, Core 2 duo processor, preferably intel, and the size screen that best fits you. Comp USA has some good deals on both net books and laptops. Don't get carried away with High Defninition laptops unless you are gaming or watching a lot of movies, for most work applications the High Definition is not necessary. The other good thing about a full lap top is you can run Photoshop on them and fully edit on the move.

As for operating systems, Be sure what ever you buy will allow you to up grade to Windows 7 when it is released. I am working on a pre released version of windows 7 as I write and will tell you it is much more stable than Vista ever could be. Windows 7 should be released in September. If you don't want to bother with upgrading later you could wait until then to get a computer with windows 7 already loaded.

Disclaimer, I have purchased 100's of comtputers for my former company over the last 15 years. I have opinions but they are mine. If you note I have trouble with the gb and mb designations. One is for hard drives and the other is for the ram. I never get those quite right. In a net book you need at least 1 gb of ram.... I hope this helps.....

Jack