Considering upgrading my laptop (14.1 screen) and get a slightly smaller unit such as one of these netbooks.
But, all the netbooks I’m seeing are running something called “Windows 7 Starter” which appears to be only available in 32 bit.
Anybody know of any manufacturers that are making netbooks that running full Windows 7 64 bit?
Any particular brand I need to look for?
There’s a whole slew of air-esque ‘ultra books’ that have been announced that should fill the gap between netbooks and full laptops
Oh, I hadn’t heard that…is that like a new trend in computing?
I’ll start searching using that phrase and see what I come up with.
And, I was also thinking to that I could live with a 12in screen…I just wanted to get something slightly smaller than my 14.1 Dell Latitude D630 that I got back in 2007.
It still actually works great, but it’s heavier than the new ones, the battery doesn’t go as long as the newer ones, and I’d like to jam some Win 7 Pro…
My current laptop will make a nice starter unit for someone as it’s not used that much.
At 10 or 11" w/ full-blown performance, the best bet would be a 2011 Macbook Air. They happen to be great windows machines at heart. In any case, it sounds like what you are looking for is what we used to call ultraportables, not a netbook.
OK, so I’m still having a hard time finding a netbook that…
Can run Win 7 Pro 64 bit
in a 10 or 11inch screen
Is this asking for the impossible, or does such an animal exist?
If it does, I’ve not be able to find it yet…
I heard atom n450 processors can run Win 7 Pro 64 bit, is this true?
Do they make mini laptops that can run Win 7 Pro 64 bit
as opposed to netbooks which seem to be sripped down
versions of slightly larger laptops?
The term netbook is getting real nebulous real fast here, but no reason they couldn’t presuming the processor was x64. You’ll probably want to tone down win7 quite a bit, starter edition is stripped down for netbooks.
Personally, I’d install ubuntu over full-blown win7. Much snappier on older hardware in general.
I did find a couple of netbooks (or maybe they were just small laptops) that were capable of running Win 7
I was hoping with today’s high technology I could get a small laptop that has just as much power and runs full Win 7 as a larger laptop. I wasn’t looking to use older hardware, but5 the new stuff.
The thing is that a new netbook isn’t as powerful as a new laptop. The reason is netbooks are for minimal activities like surfing the web and e-mail and not any type of intense data processing or graphics intensive tasks that someone would want in a laptop. People get netbooks for the same reason people would want a tablet. Windows gets more resource hungry with each new version. Naturally you would need a stripped down version more optimized for the lesser resources of a netbook. This is why installing some flavor of linux would be much more ideal (ubuntu or puppy linux even would be great for netbooks).
But, what IF someone wanted a small laptop…that had the power of a larger laptop. Doesn’t mankind now have the technology to do this?
And, with the advancements in processors and memory…why can’t a small laptop have plenty of power to run Win 7?
Seems like this would be available considering advances in hardware.
Here’s a Win7 64 bit netbook at
Newegg.com - ASUS Eee PC 1201N-PU17-BK Black Intel Atom N330(1.60GHz) 12.1" WXGA 2GB Memory 250GB HDD NetBook
1.6Ghz processor isn’t’ all that powerful considering your standard laptop nowadays has at least 2Ghz dual core processors. Hell my laptop is 2 years old and has such.
The reason why no one is making netbooks with the resources of a full laptop is that most of the manufacturers are targeting a particular market. If people want more processing power on the go they will get a laptop. If you are the casual browser who doesn’t want to spend 600+ on a laptop or desktop you will buy a netbook because most of them cater to such needs and not the power user.
I saw one the other day that had a 2 gig dual core processor and up to 4 gigs ram with a 12.1 screen.
I guess I’d just like to have a laptop…that’s slightly smaller than most laptops.
Well if you saw one with decent specs it doesn’t really matter if it had windows 7 starter on it or not. You could always install a different version of windows (or linux!) yourself.
Ya know, I keep hearing Linux…but for business purposes…I’ve heard there aren’t that many programs available for this OS. Is that still true?
I know, I should probably setup a dual boot so I can have Linux on my computer to play with so I can see for myself what all is available now.
I have Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit not 64-bit) on a little Dell Inspiron Mini 10, originally came with Windows XP on which was utter crap and slow. Threw Ultimate on it and it runs with Aero just fine, that is the key Aero. If the machine cannot run Aero then don’t bother.
Now, just so everyone knows, Windows 7 Starter is not actually a stripped down version it run pretty much the same things as Ultimate in the default state, minus a fet bits and pieces. The reason they use Starter is because it is CHEAP. Very very cheap. Alas Starter does not utilize Aero, which would make things so much smoother on these netbooks.
Aero is an un-needed resource hawg. I always set my computers to Windows Classic theme so it uses the least amount of resources.
On the other hand, I never cared about eye candy and would rather have performance.
You have it backwards I’m afraid. Not using Aero means all the graphical work of the UI is done on the CPU. Classic and Basic both use the CPU to render the UI, while on the other hand Aero uses the GPU and video memory. You actually free up resources when using Aero. On a CPU limited system like a netbook, Aero is a godsend. Freeing up as much of the CPU as you can is the best thing you can do.
GPUs excel at eye candy, the resources Aero takes is a walk in the part for a modern GPU. So if you care so much about performance then you should be using Aero, not the Classic theme.
I suppose I cannot blame you, there is a lot of misconception about Aero. Using the old thinking that eye candy can have a negative impact on performance.
There are a lot of programs available for Linux and mostly open source so you don’t have to shell out a ton of money for the M$ equivalents. If you are going to have a system for work Linux is very good if you have a more user-friendly version of it like the two I’ve already stated. Also you would be able to use a great deal of m$ programs under wine.
I’m still on Win XP Pro and the fancy eye candy slows it down…
Thanks for the tip on running MS compatible programs under “wine”…I’ll see what I can pull up on that.