Best Netbook for Laning/GPS

[DavejDavies]

My old Dell PDA is getting on a little so I've been looking at netbooks which seem very tempting, both price and features. Has anyone tried them laning and with MemMap via GPS mouse? They seem easier to fit inside the cab of a 90 without the bother of making a carPC or big laptop mounting?

The solid state versions seem ideal for the rigors of laning and rough treatment in general. The Linux versions are nice and cheap but I think I'd get one with the option of upgrading to XP if needed for MemMap or similar?

Any recommendations?

Cheers

[Paul Humphreys]

Try one before you buy, I think they are rubbish (for the want of a better word). Have a look on Ebay for a HP nc4200 (I think).

Paul

[Satancom]

Try one before you buy, I think they are rubbish (for the want of a better word). Have a look on Ebay for a HP nc4200 (I think).

Paul

I run a nw8000, its old but packs plenty of power. It will be getting a mount in the landy before long!

[DavejDavies]

Try one before you buy, I think they are rubbish (for the want of a better word).

Thats my worry - for a little extra I could buy a full laptop and use my old one for laning but I do like the look of netbooks, takes me back to the old Psion 3 clone I had years ago, great for typing on the move with its fine keyboard unlike a tounch screen PDA...

[shifty]

If anyone is interested I have an hp nc 4000 very small laptop with win xp 512mb ram.

Its going begging for £40.00 + postage

The only downside is...no optical drive.

Its got signs of wear and tear, but its still pretty good.

[Paul Humphreys]

I will have it.

Send me detail of payment. I can do paypal if you want.

Paul

[danward79]

I have an acer aspire 1 came with linux, that lasted about 5 mins and installed xp on it using nlite via usb stick, then upped the ram to 1.5gb, and it runs garmin mapsource ok. If you put xp on a net book you really have to spend time tweaking it and minimising the services, install size and driver writing that xp does.

To save more space I used portapps, worth looking at for anyone.

I love it, but do not expect much out of it. It is fine for routing, browsing maps, internet etc.

The solid state drives are not that great they are slow. If you buy a hdd replacement commercially they are a lot quicker.

In short I don't think I would use a netbook for live mapping, the processor is ok but I think the slow speed access (read) of the drive would hinder you.

[mojofilter]

I use Dell mini 9 for this very purpose, cracking little bit of kit.

[Scruffy37]

Anybody tried a tablet type pc in the Landy with a dock at home? Looks like they would be easy to mount in a visible spot for mapping etc.

[Dave-H]

Anybody tried a tablet type pc in the Landy with a dock at home? Looks like they would be easy to mount in a visible spot for mapping etc.

NO.....But THAT is a blinding avater you have there lol.. where did you get it?? :D

[Paul Humphreys]

Compaq/hp tc1000/tc1100 ;)

Paul

[duy]

So a mac book no good then?

[wytco0]

I am a big fan of netbooks, they are great for some things, in particular for traveling and battery life, I use an EEE 1000H and its great.

I don't have a PC in my truck, i would like one but I find that seeing the scree is very hard and especially so when its very sunny, the contrast just isnt good enough.

Tablets potentially could be good but they have not really taken off and I have a feeling that they would be hard to use unless they had software written so that you could prob a large area for a response rather than having to carefully move the cursor into a small box, if you see what i mean.

I am going to research carputers soon as I am sure that those people have solved a lot of the problems with having a pc in a car.

In a Landy there may be a few additional worries like ability to withstand shocks, solid state memory will help with that but its not great for a day to day PC yet.


What sort of stands do you use for your in car laptops?

[Scruffy37]

Dave H - no idea! A cocky nephew thought it was amusing having watched me on the computer and put it on for me. Teenagers......!
I've just retired an old computer and am debating what to do. Thought about canabalising it & trying to build a car pc for fun/as a project.
Then I got to thinking maybe it's replacement should be something I could use everywhere - I print out so many pages from memory map when I'm out & about. I have no sat-nav in the Landy and it comes in handy sometimes. Also it would be cool to use the nanocom properly & have access to my music library. Always fancied a reversing camera for when I'm hitching up. Just wondered whether it was possible to get or build something that would do everything.....

[magic]

landrover , laneing & pc's; avoid conventional hard drives! the landrover especially damages the surface of disk during read/ write with the hard suspension. typically you find your computer gets glichey or wont start properly, replacement drives are cheep but reliability is king in the field.
net books(or other pc's) excel with the use of solid state/ flash memory. sd memory can contain data like memory map the such and dont poke out like usb dongles.
regards
tony

[DavejDavies]

net books(or other pc's) excel with the use of solid state/ flash memory. sd memory can contain data like memory map the such and dont poke out like usb dongles.
regards
tony

For laning no hard drive seems to be the way but for general use solid state drives are slow and small....so, given how big (and cheap) SD cards are now and the different 'boot from USB' windows options out there I am tempted to get a netbook with a HDD but just remove it for laning and have a dedicated SD card with just OS and mapping?

Any thoughts?

[magic]

netbook with a HDD but just remove it for laning

you wouldn't need to physically remove your HD just make sure its not in use, when not in use the heads on HD park up tight and safe toward the center of the platters.
unless of cores your into really heavy spring breaking lanes then id be more woried about the landrover :)

tony