My niece has asked if I can get her a laptop/netbook for Christmas.

Now from what I can gather she wants to use it for word, excel, general web browsing and Facebook.

Question is should I go for a Netbook or a cheap laptop?

Thoughts?

Has anyone got a netbook they can comment on?

It depends,if you can stretch to £350 then most defiantly a laptop, if £250 is breaking the bank its a netbook.

Whats the budget?

Hobgob.

Well can push the boat out to max of £400

How old is your niece and how "serious" is the work it's going to be used for?

If it's for uni or for a situation where she's moving away and is relying on that as the only computer, i'd get the laptop. Typing up a uni report on a laptop isn't exactly the best, and i can imagine that on a netbook with its even smaller keyboard and screen to be much worse .

I suppose a good question is how often she'll want stuff installing on it or if she'll want a DVD drive for whatever...

For £400 you can get some pretty good laptops nowadays, I would say its no even a question, laptop all the way.

Horizontal scrolling = FAIL!

Hobgob.

I think the main question is where will she be using it?

Carrying around a 14" laptop with a 2hr battery life is a lot less fun than carrying something a fraction the size with with a battery that lasts all day.

As to screen resolution, my netbook is 1280x768 exactly the same as my laptop. It's just the pixels are a quarter the size. I'm guessing your niece still has decent eyesight?

A compromise will always have to be made. I rather like the look of the Dell Inspiron 11z which is a "big netbook", but still has 1366 x 768 screen resolution and is just in budget. It also comes in pink.

I've never actually used one though - I just like the look of it!

As much as I love my Eee PC 1000 running Ubuntu I'd say cheap dual-core laptop, she'll appreciate the screen estate much more, especially if multi-tasking with MSN open etc.

Using it at her home.

She is at what I would have called "High School" - not sure what they call it nowadays.

Sounds like a cheapish laptop is the way to go - was thinking about this one http://www.dabs.com/products/samsung-r5 ... 0-46290000 or possibly this Asus (but running Win Vista ) http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-t4200 ... 0-46290000

Another possibility, although for the extra I'd probably go for the ASUS you linked to.

Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 (1.83MHz) Processor
2GB DDR2 667 Memory
160GB SATA Hard Drive
DVDRW optical drive
ATI Radeon X3100 128M/512MB
15.4" WXGA CrystalView Screen (1280x1024)
Intel PRO Wireless LAN 3945 a/b/g
Windows Vista Premium.

http://www.portableuniverse.co.uk/All+L ... I2515.html

Vista again, but then TBH I'd rather have Vista than a Celery (Celeron).

1) Tell your niece you're not made of money.
2) Laptop over Netbook every time.

She is not usually too bad - in fairness she has not asked for much at Christmas before so don't mind pushing the boat out for her for a change.

My nephew, on the other hand, thinks money comes on trees

Give him a load of Monopoly money and watch him try to spend it in the shops....... or is he too old for that trick?

The Asus would be a better bet, you could upgrade it to windows 7. Most manufacturers will supply you with an upgrade disk but it may be worth phoning them first. PB would like to charge your £20 p&p!

Hobgob.

I would like to nominate the Toshiba NB200 in the netbook category. We've got them in work and they are really nice machines; notably better than the NB100 they have succeeded.

I should point out that I do tech support for Toshiba, so I am somewhat biased