Anyone Using a Netbook???

Hi: For the past few years, for my charts when observing, I have been using a Sony Clie with running Planetarium, PleiadAtlas and Astronomist. There's a lot of info in there and it fits in my pocket so I can use it while seated at the scope. The only real down side is the small 320x480 screen requires the use of glasses and it could be slightly faster...

But the truth be but I am getting the itch to pick up one of these cute little numbers with the 8.9 LCD screen so I can run my favorite PC programs like Cartes du Ciel, etc. These seem like a nice size, handier than a laptop....

Anybody using one out under the stars??

Jon



http://jkontherun.com/2008/08/12/things-i-like-a/

My son bought a Samsung netbook off Newegg a month or so ago and I liked it so much I bought one for myself a couple weeks ago in time as a write-off. The Plan is to use it for work and in the Observatory but it hasn't gotten there yet as I'm still importing some stuff from my desktop and playing with the darned thing.

I own a small cable TV/Internet/Phone installation contracting operation and purchased 8 of the small Acer Aspire One netbooks for myself and my techs about 3 months ago. 1 gig ram, 120 HD, wireless, cam, etc. Got a good discount from 349.95 to 329.95 for quantity.

They are sufficiently ABUSED on a daily basis for what I consider a good solid 3 month evaluation.

Had to send one out of eight in for repair. Display went dead on it when one of the guy slammed on brakes and it hit the dash lol. Other than that they have been excellent. Portable DVD player cases sold for 24.95 at Best Buy fit them perfectly.

Recommend you find one with XP on it and keep away from Vista lol.....still lots out there with XP....

Ours are used constantly for wireless internet, GPS mapping and troubleshooting on a daily basis. Good product for the money....

Greg

The Atom-based netbooks are surprisingly capable in terms of raw performance, but most have 1024x600 screen resolution and size issues with the keyboard and trackpad. I have an Aspire One that runs TheSky and other camera control apps better than an older HP laptop it replaced. In the observatory it's hooked up to an external mouse, keyboard, and monitor so I don't have to deal with the limitations of the built-in stuff.

Jon,
I have an Asus eee PC90 (900mhz cpu, 1 gb ram, 12 gb sshd, WinXP). I use it primarily for travel since it's so light and the sshd can take the abuse of bouncing around the motor home. The 12 gb is a limitation, but as I said, since I use it mainly for internet access in campgrounds as we travel and for plotting itineraries using MS Streets and Trips I don't need a lot of hd space. I do have SkyMap loaded on it, although I typically use TheSkyPE on an old HP Jornada when I'm at the eyepiece.

The newer netbooks by Acer and HP look very attractive, and I probably would have gone that route except I liked the idea of the sshd rather than spinning platters for my particular use. I guess I should have posted my answer down in the RV forum ;-)

Jim

I'm using an eeePC 901 running linux (I bought the version with linux because I run linux at home and it came with a larger solid state hard drive since you're not paying for windows.) This model has a 6 cell battery, and I get nearly 5 hours of run time with the display brightness down and wireless networking off. I installed a different linux distribution (Ubuntu for the eeePC) to be free to install my own software most importantly kstars which I find to be a good open source planetarium program. I've only been out with the combo twice for observing, but found the work model of locating the object with kstars on the 901; noting which way was up; and turning the Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas that way up for star hopping to be highly effective with my dobsonian. I've attached a screen shot of kstars on the 901 with it moderately zoomed in on NGC 2042 in Orion.

The 901 is also one of the netbooks that runs on 12V and has a power connector you can find at RadioShack which is nice. I've seen generally favorable reviews of the Acer Aspire One which has a slightly easier to type on keyboard than the eeePC, but several people did not like the mouse buttons which are placed to the left and right of the touchpad instead of below. The Aspire One (with a 3 cell battery) has just had it's price cut to $300 at MicroCenter.

Regards,
Richard Kline

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