I know I’m reviving a dead thread, but I was looking for some info and came across this. Wanted to add my $0.02.
I’ve heard a fair amount of commentary on a variety of boards about the notions that (1) web browsing takes little to no computing power, and (2) netbooks can to little more than browse the web. Both of these suppositions are much more debatable that one may realize. The amount of processing that can occurs a typical web surfing session can be far from trivial with use of streaming video and animation. A dual-core Atom is about as powerful as a Pentium 4, but designed to run cooler. Though a P4 is ancient in CPU years, those processors can still do well, given enough RAM. People were able to run plenty of productivity software with on a P4.
What netbooks were NOT originally designed to do is run Windows. They were initially designed for the One Laptop Per Child project to run Linux distributions using kernels with reduced bloat. Netbooks are actually quite snappy with Linux. Currently, I run Mixxx in Ubuntu 10.04 on a N270 netbook (single core), and although latency could be better, I’ve generally been quite pleased. Mixxx WILL slow down if I can a lot a crap running in the background, but that can be managed.
Windows XP on an N270, on the other hand, is a fat bastard. My wife has it on her dual-booting netbook, but we avoid using it at all costs. Newer dual-core Atoms and the faster AMD’s E-series chips should significantly outperform the hardware I’m using. If you’re currently considering buying a netbook new, ignore the single-core variants.
A netbook may not be the ideal solution for a lot of people, but they’re much more capable than people give them credit for, given appropriate expectations and usage. The experience that synthet1c posted above is typical of the netbook experience. It can work, but don’t expect world. If you use a lot of effects concurrently, get a REALLY good laptop. If you’re into beatmatching and loops, a netbook can do the job. The same way you would go about considering a MIDI controller based on your needs and budget, consider netbooks and laptops as well.
