Dell Unveils Inspiron 11z: Better Than Netbook?

[Trauma]

People, people, people......your not making much seance today. Your forgetting what a netbook is for. Its most common uses are not for powerful apps. We have our desktops and tricked out laptops for those purposes. Netbooks are for on the go web browsing and maybe some light apps. like word and excel. Save the dual cores and higher end video graphics for your desktop and/or high end laptop.

As was mentioned above I agree that the back bone of the netbook is its long battery life which can be extended with the proper underclock config string.

 

[pug_s]

This would compete with Acer timeline 1810T (in US is 1400.) Personally, this kind of low weight, low cost laptops are due because the laptop manufacturers made alot of money selling small laptops at premium prices over the past few years.

 

[pakardbell486dx2]

I guess the atom is not up to job when it comes to vista or 7. I am sure, given that the atom is cheaper than celeron (i think), dell would rather go for the atom but since M$ wont allow dell to use Xp anymore dell is forced to use celeron so that it will be enough for vista and 7. I own a HP mini 10 and it runs Xp with a battery life around 4 to 5 hours. With that kind of battery life why would any manufacture want scrap that and build something that eats more juice and cost more and at the dissatisfaction of its customers?
So i guess we have to blame M$ for this. But let me be clear here. I do like Vista and 7 even better, however i believe its a bad idea to force companies like dell and hp to switch over to power hungry hardware so that they can run their software on platforms that were designed to expand battery life. That's counterproductive.

 

[OvrClkr]

Why not use the Atom instead of that slow celeron?

 

[darth_zenophon]

[citation][nom]pakardbell486dx2[/nom]I guess the atom is not up to job when it comes to vista or 7...[/citation]

Actually, I've been running an 8.9" Acer Aspire One with Windows 7 RC for a while now. If anything, it's more responsive than XP on the same machine. However, there are still some moments where I notice the lack of power - given the limited range of tasks I perform on a netbook, this Celeron could conceivably have just enough power to really optimize the netbook experience.

[citation][nom]OvrClkr[/nom]Why not use the Atom instead of that slow celeron?[/citation]

The Celeron is based on the Penryn Core 2 Duo. Even though it has a single core and a crippled cache, it's still much faster than the Atom N270 and N280 in most netbooks. The Atom was designed for two things: low cost of manufacture and low power consumption. As such, it is very simple - I believe it's the first Intel CPU since the original Pentium not to feature out-of-order processing, for example. Core 2 was designed for efficiency and power - even if the Celeron isn't a full-blown Core 2 Duo, it still has the architectural advantage. That said, I would never consider a Celeron for a desktop or full-size laptop. But as it is undeniably a step up from the already adequate Atom, I see it as a nice option indeed for the netbook space.

 

[Trauma]

It will handle 7 without any of the eye candy albeit. I have an Eee pc that runs it just fine. Its underclocked and has a batery life of up to 9 hours. I only use it for on the go web browsing and some non power apps. like word and excel.

I have also used this with a wireless card and M$ streets and trips. It does a fine job.

 

[darth_zenophon]

I actually turn on pretty much all the Aero effects - Aero Peek in particular makes managing multiple windows so much easier. In that sense, I guess I don't consider it eye candy...maybe eye steak?

 

[nacho2k3]

I don't mind higher spec netbooks as long as they stay away from the smaller models designed for longer battery life and in the "Kinda" price range of about $400-500... Get smallish form factor without being stuck with "Subway Stamp sized" keyboard keys and low-level graphics/CPU performance. It fills the gap from 10-12 inches nicely.

There is oversaturation of netbook models, I'd say... Acer's Aspire One had 28 models?! Try three per manufacturer, base them on size, make color an option and not a model number, and we're good. But the high-end needs to be watched carefully: if the cost is equivalent to a larger notebook with the only mitigating factor being size, that netbook should not exist.

 

[cabasse]

i don't think this will have any issue running aero on win7 or vista. 64 bit processor, GM45 is faster than atom's 900/950. hell i'm running aero on my ma's el-cheapo 399 toshiba with the same card and aero runs beautifully...

 

[cabasse]

^that was supposed to be "vista premium on my ma's el..."

 

[alexmx]

maybe by xmas there will be some refurbs at dell outlet. A pentium SU4100 is not that bad, hope they're under 400 usd