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netbook questions

ThrowgnCpr

ThrowgnCpr

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My wife is currently looking into getting a netbook for field research. She'll be spending a couple months at a time in south america, but doesnt want to take her main laptop with her. Some friends had various netbooks while traveling there (the small size was convenient for field work).

I don't want to pay an arm and a leg for this, since it really is just for this purpose, but it would be nice if it were powerful enough to run ArcGIS. She'll mostly need it for some internet, data entry (MS excel, access) and mapping (ArcGIS).

Been looking at Asus Eee PC. Anyone have any suggestions / experiences with netbooks?
 
I had what was basically the very first netbook on the market, the Asus EeePC 701-B, which held up incredibly well for two and a half years until I finally killed it by spilling soda all over it a couple months ago. It basically woulda cost about $125 to repair, not worth it at that point. But there was nothing wrong with anything on it until I did that. I got sick of Linux after about a year and installed a slimmed-down version of XP on it later, which I loved. I had all the software on there I'd need to be portable (Firefox, Open Office, Pidgin, Skype, FL Studio, Final Draft, Filezilla, Kompozer, etc) and it all ran fine.

After I killed that, I bought a lightly used Acer Aspire One A110X, which I really love. It does all that my EeePC did, and does it better because it's not the first thing on the market. It's also running a customized version of Windows.

Now, my main piece of advice is get a netbook with a solid state drive. These are being phased out, and I have no idea why. Maybe people think they're too slow, maybe people think they actually NEED 160gb-250gb of built-in drive space on a fucking netbook. (For the record, I can't imagine anyone actually does, and if you need to expand past the limits of the SSD, they all have built-in SD card slots. I store all my files on a 16gb SD card.) But believe me, it's worth it. The EeePC basically just got bounced around in my shoulder bag for two and a half years straight, and never showed any signs of age. So far, the Aspire One is showing me the same. You might have to get one used, or refurbished, but if your wife is going to be taking it with her to a lot of places, it'll pay off in the end not to have moving parts inside the computer to worry about.

If you do get a netbook with an SSD, I can provide links for tips to make it speedier.
 
Everything the Rev said. As the wife needs to run ArcGIS, you should try and get one that runs either XP or Windows 7--preferably 7, as it can cope with SSDs better.
 
yeah. I've been looking at the Asus Eee PC 1000, which has a SSD, and I guess I can put win7 on it, but I heard a couple grumbles about that 40GB SSD. - basically that only 8GB was actually SSD?
 
The most important thing I installed on my Acer (didn't know about it when I had my Asus) is FlashFire:

http://flashfire.org/xe/

It speeds up the write speed of the SSD dramatically. Really dramatically. It's not totally bug-free. I've had one instance where the desktop wouldn't load, and I figured out that I had to start up in Safe Mode, uninstall FlashFire, let the system run a Disk Check and then reinstall it after rebooting normally. Annoying, but I didn't lose any data.

How big are ArcGIS files? Because, really, having stuff on the SD card is the way to go, I feel. I download stuff while I'm out on my laptop all the time and it's so easy to just pop the card into my desktop and get the files later.
 
An SSD is a RAMdrive or like a big USBstick - i.e. it uses memory instead of magnetic platters to store data. It should be MUCH faster - SSD's are normally the performance choice (think about your RAM speed vs HDD speed. RAM has no mechanical moving parts).
Of course, it all depends on the controller. Poor controller= slow read/writes and deterioration of the disk. Also depends if it's a true SSD or just a USBdrive grafted on to the motherboard (that CAN be very slow).

Windows 7 has the "TRIM" command, which apparently is very important (according to the PCFormat SSD roundup last month!).... So make sure Win7 ships with the netbook (and get it pre-installed - it's much cheaper than buying afterwards).
Also check if she can type for long periods of time - I find the keyboards way too cramped, and the screen too small. I rather use my phone for portability and have a 17" laptop.
 
ArcGIS files can really vary in size - a few KB for a vector line file (like roads, boundaries) to a few hundred MB (or GB+ depending on extent) for raster grids (digital elevation models) and aerial imagery.

I dont know that ArcGIS 9.x is going to be an option though. Its pretty big software, and if I really only have 8GB on the SSD for OS and software, and Win7 (need windows for Arc) eats up 6+GB?, I doubt I would be able to run it anyway. I can probably put the old-school ArcView GIS 3.2 on, which is tiny (and limited) but should do the trick for simple GIS tasks.

Thanks for all the tips guys, keep it coming :)
 
Where does it save its files? Nearly all netbooks have SD card slots and USB ports, so investing in a few high-capacity SD cards or an external disk drive might be an option.
 
the files for the software install would need to be on the C: drive i think. Any other files I use (vector shapefiles, DEM rasters, or aerial imagery) can be wherever.
 
I don't think it'll be a real problem then.
 
was that an Asus Eee you had at our place? if so, what are the specs on that one, and how do you like it?
 
Yes it was--an Asus Eee 1001HA. Unfortunately that specific model has been discontinued, but there's a new model out for the same price and specifications, the 1001PX.

It has a 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard disk (my only complaint) and comes with XP. I installed Ubuntu on a the handy second partition it provides.

I was looking on the Asus website and they only appear to do one model with the SSD - the S101. If you decide to get that one, you should get the Linux version as that has more disk space options. You can still install Windows later.
 
while I have 0 experience w/ netbooks, I do highly recommend ASUS products. Have a new ASUS laptop and a decent ASUS Video Card in my home rig. Both perform very well, if that helps you at all :)
 
Another thing about getting a netbook with an SSD is that you can afford to roughhouse it a bit. Apart from the cooling fans, there are no moving parts in it, and a drop of any description won't kill your data.
 
well yes, that is a biggy. Its not like she'll be playing "kick the netbook", but traipsing around through remote forest with this thing, any extra ruggedness is appreciated.

I'm not seeing that s101 many places. The few places I have seen it for sale have been around $700. I really don't want to pay that much for this thing. under $500 is needed, $400 is even better.

she doesnt need much HDD space, obviously thats not what a netbook is for, but she will need to run:

- web browser
- MS office (mostly just excel & access)
- some sort of GIS app (preferrably an Arc product - which will require a windows OS)
- skype

I think thats really about it. An SSD is quite desirable.
 
You could buy it from the UK.

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=asus ... d=0CB8Q_AU

The cheapest one there is £249, which is $387 according to current exchange rates. I believe the adapters are 100V compatible too (at least, mine was), so you can just swap out the power cable on the end of the transformer, or get a UK->US adapter.
 
Why not just get a portable HD and install your heavy software to that? 320G drives are down to $60 or so on sale.
 
It's that expensive because of the SSD. If that's too much then I suggest a normal HDD - the drop protection on new HDD's are pretty solid, and a drop that will kill the HDD is likely to kill something else as well (normally the screen!).
You can also back data up to an SD card.
(by the way the 40GB is 40GB, not 8 GB. You have the full 40gb to play with. They may have partitioned it to 8GB+32GB as operating software partition and data partition, but that can be fixed relatively easily. As an aside - why do laptop companies still do this (particularly Acer). It's useless and highly annoying!)
 
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