Thread Approved

My Suggestion:

Sony VAIO YB Series VPCYB35AN Laptop: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Sony Notebook

We have one in the family, my father uses it. Bought it for 22.5k back in January from a Sony Center 'brick and mortar' store.

We have added 2 extra gigs of RAM and upgraded the OS to Windows 7 Home Premium. Now we have a full featured laptop equivalent to a Core 2 Duo laptop with dedicated graphics and, of course, 4 hours of battery life. You can find a extended battery for this if you look hard enough bumping up the battery life to over 7 hours.

what about using a big tablet phone...

otherwise, what antz suggested is good along with a lot of other options available in market.

if you want cheaper, you can try acer.

Thanks for Approving Anant!

That's an excellent suggestion, The only downside I see is the lac of 64 bit architecture. Battery backup looks decent but not so good. I see an unused slot available and so there is room to expand the RAM. What is the expandable limit? and how much did that extra 2 Gig and OS upgrade cost you..

Found HP 4003au on Flipkart
HP Pavilion DM1 Series DM1-4003AU Netbook: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review HP Netbook

Comparison:
Sony VAIO YB Series VPCYB35AN Laptop vs HP Pavilion DM1 Series DM1-4003AU Netbook: Compare Computers: Flipkart.com

I see the HP 4003au has good batter backup and 64 bit architecture for the same cost and also beetle speakers are good add-on.


I am not a touch fan-boy and my fingers often get rough enough for the touch sensors to not recognize after wearing leather gloves for long hours...
More over the reason to go for a laptop is Lightroom and photoshop along with the ability to document and work on some official stuffs when needed.
I set a limit upto 30K if not my choice would be the Macbook Air..

The reason I wanted this thread here is to share the user experience of those bikers who own minilaptops and how comfortable it had been to carry and use during travel.

I use this Aspire One 722 | Models

I wouldnt suggest laptops simply cause they are heavy. I carry this around all the time both official trips and roadtrips. Am not sure about photoshop but it plays HD movies while using gmail and word/excel docs. its light at less than 1.5kgs and lasts a good 6hours ! I even use it to charge my phone/camera on the go as it has a always ON usb port. and ofcourse the price !

The lack of 64 bit on the Vaio is a typo. I can vouch that Win 7 64-bit works (because I have tried it out ). Both use the exact same CPU (AMD E-450)

Back in January, Sony were the first people to launch an E-450 based netbook so thats the one we picked. The rest, at that time, were E-350 based which is substantially less powerful. I would have really picked the HP too had it come with E-450 back then.

There should be competing models which come with the same configuration from Lenovo, HP, Asus. You can check those too.

The one yellowspunk mentioned is based on the AMD C-50 which is actually equivalent to Intel Atom Dual core. E-450 is in a different league altogether in terms of processing power.

This one offers the best value amongst the E-450 based netbooks:

Samsung NP305U1A-A07IN Laptop: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Samsung Netbook

6cell battery, bigger hard drive than competition, the same 2GB RAM (but no expansion slot) but the lowest pricing of 23.3k on flipkart.

Here are the best of the rest:

Sony VAIO YB Series VPCYB35AN Laptop vs HP DM1-4109AU Netbook vs Samsung NP305U1A-A07IN Laptop: Compare Computers: Flipkart.com

Edit: As far as my upgrade goes, the 2 gig DDR3 RAM costed 800odd. After several hours of fruitless conversations with Microsoft (who told me to contact Sony) and Sony customer care (who claimed that my laptop will not work with any other OS and told me to contact Microsoft), I had to resort to using Windows Anytime Upgrade and a crack patch because apparently, no brick and mortar store in India has Windows Anytime Upgrade keys for sale and Microsoft sell them online only in 17 countries but unfortunately India doesn't feature in this list.

I did the patching only yesterday, and all I can say is that both upgrades are very much recommended.

We also have a first generation Intel Atom (1.6 GHz single core) based Acer Aspire One in the household but the performance on that one is not even in the same zip-code.

Not much of Tech Savy but here is my suggestion..

Asus Eee PC 1225C / Atom Dual Core / 2 GB / 500 GB / Linux Laptop: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Asus Netbook

Have used Asus for 2 years & was very happy with its performance. It is very Light & has battery back up t0 6Hrs easily.

The main reason I am looking for a netbook is my 17" Dell Laptop which is as heavy as carrying a suitcase without a handle.

Appreciate your effort in taking time on this. Thanks!

The newer Aces 722 comes with AMD C60 and does it makes it comparable to E-450?

I don't know if the samsung NP305U1A is missing the Graphic prcessor information or the graphic processor itself? and the extra memory and battery life costs 0.5Kg increase in weight.

Linux.. Not sure how functional this will be for the majority of microsoft users like me. Are you using Ubuntu?

Yuv, I use a Sony VAIO Y Series 11" Laptop (11.6" to be precise)

It weighs 1.5 kgs or so - light & agile.. It can run on CS6.. do Youtube watch for hours, really nice battery back up.. but not as fast as other laptops..

So, my advice would be to look for a MacMini (13") or a similar mini Laptop than a netbook which will be slower than the Mini Laptops..

Only downside on the Sony i own is : Hangs a bit if i open up 10+ full size pics on CS6 or play Games + run PhotoShop + other s/w's at the same time.

You can check out my Sony on a trip and then decide if you want

Hi there, yuv.

I have been using an ASUS 1005HA (Atom 1.66/1GB/160GB/10.5inches)since 2009. It had a few keyboard related issues but these were sorted out within the warranty period. It came with Win XP which I changed to Win 7.

I have used it for my MBA study period and it was excellent at basic jobs - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and browsing the Internet.

Your needs of LR and PS may not be satisfied by a relatively low-powered netbook, spec PS which needs some good hardware. BTW, I have not tried PS on my ASUS till now.

there is a very good website, that tests and ranks CPU's aross the world. make a list of various processor options you have in market and check the list on website to find out their performance and ranking.
this is the website--> PassMark Software - CPU Benchmark Charts

very trustworthy site, i always use it.

another website from same company is -
PassMark Software - PC Benchmark and Test Software
PassMark PerformanceTest - PC benchmark software

you can download the software very similar to the one they use and install and run on your PC to check its performance score. the software will give you individual CPU performance and overall PC performance, so you can know where is the bottleneck in your PC. also if your CPU is not listed on their website your can upload your result to help others. they will verify and approve it.

bottomline is check CPU score before purchasing-

example-
PROCESSOR--------------SCORE --------------RANK

AMD E-450---------------739-----------------938
INTEL ATOM N2800-------676-----------------956
AMD C-60----------------558-----------------1010

Remember, higher score is better and lower rank is better.

Need a laptop/netbook..

Usage:
Heavy internet browsing.
xBhp
facebook
Youtube
Skype-webcam interface
Ebooks
MS Word,Excel, Powerpoint
Photoshop CS3
Loads of typing-therefore, a full-fledged keyboard
Loooong battery life

Have a strict budget of 20k. Too less, I know. But thats it for now.

this is not a strict budget at all, provided you just want to do what is listed above. even a little outdated dual core or core2duo processor based laptop can do all this easily. and you can easily get it in 20000.

try acer brand. they are the cheapest ones.

Sent from my GT-S5570 using Tapatalk 2

Speed is the concern here. I would be connecting to the internet using a 3G phone as modem.

Thanx with the reply, but is there anything you'd recommend?

@Nonu: Have a look at this:

Samsung NP300E4Z-A06IN 2nd PDC /2GB /320GB /DOS Laptop: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Samsung Notebook

(very slightly over the budget though )