Striker's thread just reminded me I wanted to ask for advice too. But I'll make my own thread to avoid stealing his.
I was considering the acquisition of a cheap netbook to be able to download the insane amount of pictures I expect to take while in the US. And get internet access while I'm at it. I originally thought of a Raspberry Pi because it is cheap+portable but I read they have some issues and also they are taking ages to deliver them.
So I went to the B&H site and looked up the list of netbooks, ordered by price. The cheapest was an Asus EEE PC that doesn't even have audio out jack, so I skipped that one. For a small difference, I found
this:
Acer Aspire One AOD270-1410:
$270
- Screen: 10.1"
- Processor: 1.6GHz Intel Atom N2600 Dual-Core
- Memory: 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, upgradeable to 2GB for some $20
- Graphics Card: Integrated Intel GMA 3600 with 64MB Dedicated
- Hard Drive: SATA 320GB@5400RPM
- Battery: 6-cell, 4400mAh, about 8h charge.
This should be more than enough for what I wanted, it's pretty portable, light and small, and relatively inexpensive, although more costly than what I originally intended to spend.
Then a friend came along and suggested I get a notebook instead, to replace my ancient desktop. About all of them are more powerful than what I have right now. But the cost goes up. I looked again and found
this:
Acer Aspire E1-531-4444:
$390
- Screen: 15.6"
- Processor: 2.1GHz Intel Pentium B950 Dual-Core
- Memory: 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, upgradeable to 8GB for some $25
- Graphics Card: Integrated Intel HD Graphics with up to 128MB Shared
- Hard Drive: SATA 320GB@5400RPM
* Optical Drive
- Battery: 6-cell, 4400mAh, about 4h charge
At this point you can clearly see I am going for price. I'd basically like to know if I'd really be missing out on a lot for those $120. I am a poor photographer and $120 does make a difference
I mainly need a thing to download my pictures into while I am away from home and the occasional internet access, and I intend to get a new desktop later this year if I can so replacing my desktop is not a real priority. But since I don't know a lot about current hardware, I ask for advice so as not to do something stupid.
As always, thanks for your attention