Cheap Netbooks: Mini 10v vs EEE PC 1005HA vs Aspire One AOD150

Finally the market offers real netbooks, I mean really cheap tiny laptops (max 1.3kg) with decent battery life (6 or more hours), good keyboard, enough display and processor power, enough for casual and mobile usage.
For less than 300 USD you have the chooce between Dell Mini 10v (Inspiron 1011), Asus EEE PC 1005HA and Acer Aspire One AOD150. If you want to spend 50 bucks more than the Samsung NC10 is probably the best choice, especially for the nice keyboard.
Until few months ago you had to spend 400+ dollars for a decent netbook, now we finally got below 300 dollars. This is what I consider a netbook price level.

Mini 10v vs EEE PC 1005HA vs Aspire One AOD150

• Processor: almost no difference, the EEE PC 1005HA is equipped with the new Atom N280 while Mini 10v and One AOD150 use the Atom N270.
• Noise: the Mini 10v is absolutely silent, I guess fanless; the EEE PC and Aspire One tend to be a bit louder under full load, nothing really annoying.
• Display: the 10-inch display of the EEE PC isn't as brigth as Mini 10v and Aspire One AOD150, in any case eeectl can help... at your own risk of course!
• Keyboard: Mini 10v and EEE PC 1005HA got a very good keyboard, 92% of full size keys, the Aspire One got slighty smaller keys.
• Touchpad: the EEE PC got a multitouch touchpad, nothing to say for Aspire One; I really hate the touchpad of the Mini 10v.
• Wifi: The EEE PC got the faster 802.11n (draft), while Mini 10v and Aspire One have only 802.11b/g.
• Battery: for the 300 dollars class the EEE PC 1005HA got a 8,5h battery life vs about 6,5 battery life for the other two netbooks with 6-cells battery. Be careful since Mini 10v and Aspire One AOD150 are also sold with 3-cells, giving you about 3h of battery life.
• Size, weight and remaining features are very similar: 1GB DDR memory, 160GB hard disk, Windows XP, 1.3megapixel webcam, SD-card slot, 3xUSB

My bottom line: if you want the most featured netbook for 300 dollars, take definetly the EEE PC 1005HA you won't be disappointed.
If you really need an absolutely silent netbook the Dell Mini 10v (Inspiron 1011) is the netbook for you!

The absolute topseller in the past 2 months is the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook - 10.5 Hour Battery Life for about 350 USD.

Fanless Netbook with Atom N270? - Dell Mini 10v / Inspiron 1011

I can confirm that the Dell Mini 10v / Inspiron 1011 is very very silent/quiet.
Actually I think that this netbook is fanless: I've never heard the CPU fan, even in really quiet rooms and with the processor (Atom N270) fully loaded for some minutes.

Other posts on Dell Mini 10v

• Follow up with what I like and what I don't like of the Dell Mini 10v
  
• First hands on the Dell Mini 10v
• NEW: Mini 10v vs Asus EEE PC 1005HA vs Aspire One AOD150
  

Intel Atom N450 and N470 (Pineview) vs Atom N270 and N280

UPDATE: First Atom N450 Benchmarks with the ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE
demonstrate that the Pineview Atom N450 is positioned at the Atom N280 performance level, it means slightly above the N270.
See also the articles with the benchmark results

• Intel Atom N450 (Pineview) vs Atom N280 vs N270 Benchmarks
• Intel Atom N470 Netbook Expected Benchmarks/Performance

It seems that with the Pine Trail/Pineview architecture we're going to see some performance boost in netbook processor performance.
The Intel Atom N450 and Atom N470 will take advantage of the integrated memory controller, the lower DDR access latency will definetly improve single thread performance. Other hand hyperthreading will be relatively less efficient.
While the Atom N450 will still be clocked at 1.66GHz (as in Atom N280), the real boost is expected with Atom N470, getting clocked at 1.83GHz.

* Atom N270 vs N280: almost inesistend performance adder.
* Atom N270/N280 vs N450: here I see some advantage of the N450 especially vs N270, not dramatic tough.
* Atom N270/N280 vs N470: here we should see a measurable performance boost, given the 10% higher clock.

That said, don't forget that Intel don't have interest on a very powerful Atom processor to avoid competition with Core Solo ULV processors. The Atom processor got a simple in-order architecture, it means that (for example) a 1.6GHz Core Solo processor is much more powerfule than a 1.6GHz Atom.

Related posts

• HD Video for Netbooks: with Atom Nvidia Ion or ARM CPU?
  
• ARM11 vs Cortex A8 vs Cortex A9 - Netbooks processors
  
• Nvidia Tegra 2 for Dual Core Netbooks/Smartbooks in 2010

External USB DVD Burner for Netbooks

IMHO DVD-ROM is an obsoleted storage medium, USB memory sticks are much more flexible, reliable and portable. Furthermore a DVD player/burner require space, has an impact on battery and has a cost. That's why netbooks don't necessarily have to integrate a DVD player/burner. Actually there are only a couple of netbooks integrating DVD player/burner.
On the other hand we won't get rid of optical disks in the next couple of years (many of us got huge DVD/CD collections, printed magazines still distribute premium content using optical disks and many other reasons...)
A portable DVD burner with USB interface is very handy, especially if only USB bus powered. For this reason I prepared an Amazon bestseller list of external DVD burners.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10v - Review after a few days extensive use

Follow up from my post on Dell Mini 10v vs Asus EEE PC 1008HA

Actually the Dell Inspiron Mini 10v (Inspiron 1011) netbook fulfilled my expectation.

What I liked so far

• It's very silent, you barelly hear the hard drive
• Even if the display isn't the brightest ever seen in a netbook, it's enough even with sunshining
• Long battery time, with display dimmed to half I get 6 to 7 hours
• Bluetooth included
  

What I didn't like

• The surface is easy to scratch and you see the fingerprint
• The touchpad is horrible, I can't get used to the "buttons", you move the pointer instead of "clicking", I mostly use a small mouse.
• Suboptimal "standby", from time to time I see that the standby doesn't work well. The Mini 10v draws much current while in idle, sometime reboots after idle. I'll investigate more
• No hard disk LED
• Stupid powe supply LED, it is on even if not plugged
  

Neutral opinion

• Resolution, ok after resizing the system fonts
  
• Size and weight
• Webcam quality, actually not a surprice for a netbook, poor image quality and no image at all in low light conditions
• Only 802.11bg wifi, not 802.11n

NEW: Mini 10v vs Asus EEE PC 1005HA vs Aspire One AOD150