I wanted the Acer Aspire One with Linux and 8GB SSD, partly to be robust in transit (as well as online!) and partly to learn about Linux as i've only ever used windows. Asda are doing the 150 with HDD and Windows cheap (£150, six in stock at my local branch) but no-one seems to stock the variant I wanted and Acer aren't the nicest people on the phone to deal with. I found one stockist at about £230 and thought given the low price of the HDD with Windows tax that this was unrealistic.

Had a EEE PC 900 16GB, and it was dire, the performance of the SSD drive is shockingly bad. Managed to sell it on for what I paid for it (£199), and bought a HP MiniNote 2133 from ebuyer for £190. The HP Mininote is fantastic, it came with OpenSuse, but I zapped that, and put XP Pro SP3 on it, and it runs very nicely indeed (after upping to 2GB of RAM). I wouldn't want to run Vista on it, but it runs XP great, the screen is much better resolution that anything Asus has chucked out, the sound quality from the speakers is excellent, and the build is very good, with proper aluminum case.

I might be tempted to upgrade to a Mininote 2140, if the price is right, and it comes with Windows 7 :-)

Paris because her brain is underpowered, just like the HP Mininotes, but it does not matter too much!!!

I view a netbook as the most tech you can get for £200 in a small notebook form factor (not iTouch or Nokia 810 things)

With Asus and Acer now starting to increase the spec and the entry level price point to £300 we need a new champion and I found the following while looking for info on the Ubuntu Remix.

Sylvania Meso 8.9-Inch Netbook

In the US it is $300 from Amazon (US) and getting a lot of positive reviews I hope it comes to the UK.

My ideal would be the Aspire One 8.9" but with easily upgradeable memory for £200. I don't trust myself to take it apart wihout causing serious damage.

I don't need 10" with the same resolution.

Now. Of those 35-54 year olds who own a netbook, how many have kids and bought it for them.....?

Oops.

Which Asda still has them in stock? vanished incredibly quickly up my way.

@M7S - just thought I'd let you know that the ASDA special offer Aspire One's (£150) are the Linux (not Windows) versions, with 512Mb RAM and "officially" 120 Gb HDD (although many, including the one I purchased a week ago from them, actually have 160 Gb HDDs).

I'm very happy with mine - I'll be upgrading soon to 1.5 Gb RAM (which sounds fun!) and installing VirtualBox (see: www.virtualbox.org) so that I can run Windows and other versions of Linux inside a "virtual machine".

First impressions: a very nice mini-laptop!

imo, these are what laptops always should have been..not the 15.4 hordes that seemed to be out there..

i got an HP2133 mini-note, bit gutless, prob better served by atom or twin-atom, not the anemic, but miserly via c7m, but nice 800 verticle res..

..and the via cpu's are soldered in, so you can't plop another one in (wtf is up with that?). i know because i've opened it up!

cheers,

bill

p.s. stuff and nonsense (and lot's of reg stories!): http://www.eupeople.net/forum

baby laptop thread: http://eupeople.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=487

South Woodham Ferrers in Essex (Sarf of Chelmsford, innit). It appears from other comments I may be in error about the OS. Use the Asda website storefinder for the phone number. They are kept behind the audio/video desk.

If anyone's feeling generous, we're after one for the unfunded ambulance motorcycle. One of the reasons we think SSD would be a bit more durable!