[Tfug] Netbook with a good screen? y3a6a3a9

[John Gruenenfelder]

Greetings TFUG,

I'm looking for some recommendations on an upgrade to my
netbook/laptop.  Something with a better and/or larger screen.

Back in '06 or '07 I replaced my (badly) aging laptop with a Dell
Inspiron E1405.  This has a Core 2 Duo running at, I think, 2.2 GHz
with 2 GB of RAM and a 1440x900 pixel display.  It's a good machine,
but I found its weight in my backpack (5.5 pounds, 6.4 pounds with AC
adapter) rather uncomfortable.  About 2 years later, I also bought an
Asus EeePC (1008HA) with a dual-core Atom (32 bit version) running at
1.7 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and a 1024x600 pixel display.

I like the EeePC quite a lot.  It weighs much less (2.42 pounds, about
3 pounds with AC adapter), it's small, the battery life is quite good,
and it wasn't very expensive.  There are some minor issues, of course,
but overall it has been a good machine.  The display resolution, on
the other hand, is by far the biggest problem.  It's tiny.  *Very*
tiny.  I have also encountered more than a few poorly designed GUI
programs, often dialog windows, that do not handle small displays well
at all.  The most common problem is buttons (OK, Cancel, etc.) being
cut off because the window is taller than the screen.  This is a
problem in both Linux and Windows, and even though windows generally
default to being resizable in X (unlike Windows), that usually isn't
enough to fix the problem.

The display resolution on the Dell laptop is better, but it's still not great.

So, my problem is trying to find a small laptop with a good display
with good resolution.  In general, I'm happy with the specs I
currently have with the two existing machines.  There's enough CPU
power, enough battery life, and so forth.  I usually get by with 2 GB
of RAM with no problems, too.  The only time 2 GB becomes an issue is
when I'm doing some development work.

What I would like is something comparable to my current netbook, but
with a better display.  Obviously, a new machine would certainly be
more powerful than my existing netbook, and that's fine.  Looking
around online, however, I just don't seem to be finding anything that
matches this and doesn't cost over $1000.  Netbooks are still around
and still inexpensive, but they all *still* have tiny displays.
Larger laptops have better displays, but they still weigh a lot more
than I would like to carry around.

There exists a new category of portable computers now called
"ultrabooks" and this, as best I can tell, is the name given to
machines that wish to compete with the Macbook Air.  They are
certainly nice computers, but they also carry rather hefty price tags.
 For example, most of these computers are ultra slim and have nice
brushed metal or aluminum body construction.

Does anybody make an inexpensive netbook-like machine with a good
display?  That is, a plastic body, a non-SSD hard drive... things of
that nature.  Features (or non-features, I suppose) such as these are
why netbooks are inexpensive.  Does such a class of machine even
exist?  Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place?

The computer that is closest to what I would like is the Asus Zenbook
UX31.  It has a Core i5 CPU, 4 GB of RAM, weighs less than 3 pounds,
and, best of all, has a wonderful 1600x900 pixel display.  The
downside is, of course, the price.  At just over $1000 for the most
basic model, it's definitely up there.

My goal is to replace both of my current laptops with a single new
portable.  I was hoping that selling both would cover nearly all of
the cost of the new machine.  If my hoped for machine class simply
doesn't exist, then I suppose I'll have to look towards the
ultrabooks, but that will mean a much larger expense than I was hoping
for.

To summarize, does the class of computer I'm looking for exist?
Either way, I would appreciate any recommendations you might have.  If
what I would like does in fact exist, please point the way.  If not,
does anybody have any experience with the UX31?  Are there other good
ultrabooks with good displays?

And, just so I'm not needlessly blocking out some machines because of
terminology, the machine need not be an "ultrabook".  It just needs a
good display, meaning *at least* 1440x900 (but bigger is better), and
should weigh less than four pounds.  Computers in the 3-4 pound range
are light enough that I can just drop it in my backpack and take it
wherever and not worry about the weight making my shoulder sore by the
end of the day.

Thanks in advance for any input!


--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
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