Netbooks

[fearmeforiampink]

Am considering getting myself a netbook/similar at some point in the next few months, as while my current laptop is lovely, and I love the ability to lean back in a comfy chair with a powerful and large screened computer, I'd also like one I can take everywhere without noticing, for taking it to gaming nights and so forth.

Stuff I'm after, in no particular order

• Cheap. Doesn't have to be high spec, I want something that doesn't set me back too much


• Light. Being utterly tiny isn't so much a thing, as my bags are reasonably large, but I don't want too much weight


• Decent for reading PDFs from, as this will be one of its major roles


• Viable for dealing with email on (though doesn't have to be great for writing long long replies)


• Tough. This is fairly high priority, as I can be rather hard on my possessions

Tablet could work as long as it's not too expensive. Would consider an iPad, but the lack of true multitasking for swapping between character sheet and PDF would be annoying, and I don't need the apps.

So, what would people suggest?

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

One of these?
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/tablets/asus-eee-pad-slider-sl101-1036296/review

I have an iPad2 as a pdf reader for role-playing. It does some things brilliantly (battery life, actually viewing the pdf, zooming in etc) but it's bloody annoying in other ways. iPads for example don't have any sort of file manager. Neither do they have any sort of removeable media slot. So to get a pdf file (or several hundred pdf files) from PC to iPad, rather than just dragging-and-dropping to copy the folder across, or even copying them from SD card or USB stick, you have to use iTunes to associate the files / folders with a particular iPad application and then synchronise them between the two devices. iTunes is a perfectly serviceable program for playing music files, but it's no substitute for a proper file manager. I believe that you can get file manager apps for Android devices. (This whole setup serves to confirm my view that Apple does hardware really well, but software quite badly.)

Not sure how well Android does multi-tasking. With the iPad, it's not as bad as is popularly believed. Switching between applications is pretty quick (and when you switch back to your pdf viewer app, the last file you looked at will be open. Also, the pdf viewer (at least the one I use - GoodReader) uses a tab system rather like a modern web browser, with a document open on each tab. So it's easy to have several pdfs open at once and flick between them.

[fearmeforiampink]

The main thing that puts me off there is the low amount of hard disk space; I don't need terabytes thereof, but I do have a fair amount of gaming books I'd like to put on it, and a certain amount of other stuff, and I have relatively little need here of the fast startups or super-fast response that the SSD delivers. Thus the stuff with something in the region of 80-100 gigabytes of space or more is what I'm after, I think.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You must have a big collection! I've just checked the size of mine and it came to somewhat over 17gb. That includes (for example) pretty much everything ever published for Traveller between 1977 and 1995.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Having said that, I did go for the 64gb iPad rather than a smaller one.

[fearmeforiampink]

Aye, my collection is fairly huge. It could fit onto 64 gigs (possibly with some leaving unneccessary stuff out), but it'd then be taking up most of that. At which point having music or movies or a few low spec games on there is less viable.

Essentially, I'm looking at tablets versus netbooks. Sure, tablets have the 'ooh shiny' factor, but beyond that, I don't really need their other features (sometimes larger screens, quick startups, etc).

And for less than a 64 gig tablet would cost, I can get a netbook with 100+ gigs, and the side benefit of a keyboard.

[hawklord2112.livejournal.com]

So to get a pdf file (or several hundred pdf files) from PC to iPad, rather than just dragging-and-dropping to copy the folder across, or even copying them from SD card or USB stick, you have to use iTunes to associate the files / folders with a particular iPad application and then synchronise them between the two devices.

dropbox? if you have a 3g ipad, or wifi, or a smartphone that can tether the content?

[fearmeforiampink]

Unless they have other options available in the iPad version of the Dropbox app, it's still a one by one process.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yes it is (as far as I can see). I use dropbox a lot - I even paid for extra storage. It's fine for making sure that a particular pdf is on every device I use, but it doesn't allow me to get all the files I want into GoodReader easily.