No need to snap at someone when they were just trying to help you zmot. As Eric pointed out, we see these types of posts all the time. Which netbook should I buy, which netbook is right for me, perfect student netbook... Both Eric and I have helped out others in the past regarding this very same question. In fact, my normal statements tend to be regurgitated every time someone brings up a topic similar to yours.
Additionally, also pointed out by Eric, your budget represents the extreme end of the netbook market where you would be better off getting an actual notebook even if it had a 12-13" screen. The Intel Atom processor was designed to perform the bare basics of computing tasks while consuming drastically low amounts of power. It allows manufacturers to push the 10 hour boundary with their netbooks while sacrificing greatly when it comes to performance. You can't directly compare GHz to GHz of processors, that is not how technology works.
Back in the day (2005) when I purchased my notebook, it came with a 2GHz Pentium M processor. That was the second fastest Pentium M chip at the time with another one beating it by a lowly 100MHz. I purchased the 17" notebook to replace my desktop that had a 2.5GHz Pentium 4 processor. Despite the Pentium M clocking in at a slower speed, it ran circles around the Pentium 4 in my desktop and could even compete with the higher end 3GHz Pentium 4 chips.
Just like with the Atom processor, it is not going to perform as well when compared to even slower chips. As I said; the dual-core AMD Neo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Duo ULV, Core i series, Core i ULV series, Pentium ULV, Core 2 Solo, and Core 2 Solo ULV are all going to outperform the newer 1.8GHz dual-core Atom processor.
The new dual-core Atom processor has two advantages: it consumes less power than all the previous chip lines and each core is hyper-threaded which means that they can handle two streams of instructions at once. This means that the processor itself is better for multi-tasking. Given that, it will still take longer to actually run a process when compared to ALL the chip lines I mentioned. So the multi-tasking capabilities don't outweigh the slow chip.
Given your price, you should not have any trouble finding a 12" notebook with great specs. If I were going to buy something on a $550 budget now, it would be the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-3927. It has a 12" LED LCD display at 1366X768, gigiabit ethernet, 802.11n wi-fi, 2GB of RAM (support for up to 3GB, you don't need 4GB unless a specific program requires it and there isn't going to be a single program requiring 4GB of RAM that will run on ANY Core i3 or i5 system), Intel HD graphics capable of playing 1080p videos (both YouTube and videos stored on your computer), multi-in-one card reader, 8 hour rated battery life (which means you should get around 6-7 hours of real world usage), 320GB hard drive, and the new Intel Core i3 ULV 1.2GHz processor. The processor is dual-core and hyper-threaded which means not only would it be worlds better than the Atom (and even a dual-core AMD Neo) but it can also multi-task with ease.
The whole ultra-thin notebook comes in at 3 lbs which is 0.2 lbs more than a typical netbook. The end price on a few websites is $599 but you should be able to find it for less from other retailers (I was using Newegg.com and they tend to be expensive with newer products).
|