technology

thoughts on buying a Netbook

Written by Sarah Blake LaRose on . Leave a comment



I ended up not upgrading the computer so fast. That turned out to be a good thing. I hope to keep both the te chies and the non-techies on board here–it is a challenge to talk to both groups in one post, but we will see how I do.



People often ask me for recommendations on buying a computer, and in particular whether I’m happy with my Netbook and whether I think it can do X, Y, or Z. Often they’ve heard that a Netbook is only good for surfing the Net and checking email, that it runs too slowly, etc. I posted a review of my new machine on Amazon, and I hope it has been beneficial. My experience with Netbooks has been extremely positive. I previously ran very expensive laptops with 3GB of memory, 3GHZ processor, etc. Basically I ran desktop-replacement machines so that I could edit audio and scan and OCR books on the laptop. I wanted the same performance out of my Netbook. I have always gotten it.



So what did I buy? This paragraph will satisfy the techies… I got the next generation of the Asus: the EEE-1015PX-PU17. It has an Atom N570 processor, which is faster than the N550 in the machine I last posted about. It also has the DDR3 memory. It comes with 1GB installed and I upgraded to 2GB. I am not certain whether other brands have expansion options for memory, and this has been important for me.



For the non-techies, whether things like the processor and amount of memory really affect your experience depend a lot on how you use the computer. Are you the type of person who has 12 windows open at once and likes to load up YouTube videos or play games with lots of multimedia? If that is the case, you likely want a machine with a dual core processor and plenty of memory. I am not convinced that the processor speed (1.5 vs. 1.66GHZ) makes a huge difference, but I took the better option for myself in case it does.) You also could get in the habit of closing unnecessary windows when you aren’t using them. (Do you really pay attention to *ALL* those windows? I’m practicing this myself, as a veteran 15-window geek.) On the other hand, if you primarily check your email and Facebook and use your machine to run MS Office on the go, you really will not find it slow at all–the extra memory may make a bit of difference, but Office has other reasons for running slow.

About Sarah Blake LaRose

Sarah Blake LaRose teaches Biblical Hebrew and Greek at Anderson University School of Theology and Christian Ministry in Anderson, Indiana. She is one of three blind academic scholars who received the Jacob Bolotin Award from the National Federation of the Blind in 2016 in recognition of innovative work in the field of access to biblical language texts and tools for people who are blind. In addition to her work as a professor, she provides braille transcription services specializing in ancient languages. Her research interests concern the intersection of disability, poverty, and biblical studies.
Hide Author Bio

About Sarah Blake LaRose

Sarah Blake LaRose teaches Biblical Hebrew and Greek at Anderson University School of Theology and Christian Ministry in Anderson, Indiana. She is one of three blind academic scholars who received the Jacob Bolotin Award from the National Federation of the Blind in 2016 in recognition of innovative work in the field of access to biblical language texts and tools for people who are blind. In addition to her work as a professor, she provides braille transcription services specializing in ancient languages. Her research interests concern the intersection of disability, poverty, and biblical studies.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *