Practically speaking, which option?

[chanchan05]

As some of you guys may know, I had a thread here on choosing some laptop models. I basically chose the Vaio. However my mom and I were having a talk the other day, since I needed a new laptop with both mobility and power for various reasons. She suggested why dont I just buy a netbook and a desktop, which I could have for the same price as a new mid-range laptop. I thought about and it and though there are advantages and disadvantages, I'd like some other people's opinions as well.

What do you think? What are the pros and cons of having a desktop+netbook combo as opposed to having just a laptop with about the same specs as the desktop in this case?

 

[kmote]

Netbooks are pretty limited unless you are really quite serious about mobility. It might be a bit more money but a low cost laptop would be better pair that with a mid price desktop for back ups and gaming and you have a winning combo.

 

[Lexluethar]

A netbook WILL NOT run any games. I've seen netbooks that can't run the newest office products (it couldn't run excel). So if you are content with using the netbook just for the internet and typing up word documents then yes, get a netbook and do everything else on the desktop (games and anything needing to process more than a word document).

If you have the idea of playing some low level games on the netbook you are in for a rude awakening, netbooks are not designed for that and you'll be extremely dissapointed.

 

[chanchan05]

Well, I plan on bringin the net book to school, and use it for office apps, reading pdfs, surfing, and basically typing. If I'm gonna play anything on it, it would be something just to kill time, like games from popcap (insaniquarium, zuma, plants vs zombies, etc), as I am not likely to have actual gaming time in school. When I get back home I can play on the desktop as much as I want. Hmm, the only low cost laptops here for me would be a compaq, since as I said before I dont like going to brands without customer service. But I'll see if I can find something that weighs less than 2 kilos.

These are the units I'm planning to buy:
Desktop:
HP Pavilion p6100 Desktop PC series Home & Home Office
-I'm still trying to decide if I should buy the first one and upgrade the RAM and vcard later or just get myself broke for the moment and buy the second one. LOL.
Netbooks:
VPCW125AG : W Series : VAIO Notebook & Computer : Sony Philippines
or
HP Mini 311-1000 PC series specifications - HP Home & Home Office products

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Well, I plan on bringin the net book to school, and use it for office apps, reading pdfs, surfing, and basically typing. If I'm gonna play anything on it, it would be something just to kill time, like games from popcap (insaniquarium, zuma, plants vs zombies, etc), as I am not likely to have actual gaming time in school. When I get back home I can play on the desktop as much as I want. Hmm, the only low cost laptops here for me would be a compaq, since as I said before I dont like going to brands without customer service. But I'll see if I can find something that weighs less than 2 kilos.

These are the units I'm planning to buy:
Desktop:
HP Pavilion p6100 Desktop PC series Home & Home Office
-I'm still trying to decide if I should buy the first one and upgrade the RAM and vcard later or just get myself broke for the moment and buy the second one. LOL.
Netbooks:
VPCW125AG : W Series : VAIO Notebook & Computer : Sony Philippines
or
HP Mini 311-1000 PC series specifications - HP Home & Home Office products

A netbook would be perfect for the tasks you mentioned (with the exception of gaming) as long as it has at least a Atom for the cpu and 1gb of ram which nearly all netbooks do. I have a MSI Wind with the older Atom N270 and it has absolutely no problems running Office 07 (including Excel) and doing other basic tasks.

If you can find one I highly recommend going with a Asus or MSI netbook as they both offer far better build quality than HP or Sony.

 

[chanchan05]

well, according to the squaretrade analysis asus has the toughest computers but sony is tougher than msi. Hp is worst but i dont know how skewed that is with the volume of low end units they sell. Besides either brands does not have an official service center in my country, only sony and hp does.

But what do you guys think of the units? One note though, my mom wont allow me to buy a non branded desktop so i cant build my own, and sony is **** expenive so im stuck with hp until i manage to find where did dell go. They used to have a service center here gefore the economic crisis but it disappeared from its old place.

 

[zmatt]

A netbook WILL NOT run any games. I've seen netbooks that can't run the newest office products (it couldn't run excel). So if you are content with using the netbook just for the internet and typing up word documents then yes, get a netbook and do everything else on the desktop (games and anything needing to process more than a word document).

If you have the idea of playing some low level games on the netbook you are in for a rude awakening, netbooks are not designed for that and you'll be extremely dissapointed.

That simply isn't true. netbooks can run office apps fine, and they can do older games. The Atom is comparable to an old Athlon XP or P4 and the graphics card varies.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

^ To be specific, the Atom is comparable to a p4 ~1.8-2.0Ghz

 

[chanchan05]

Well, yeah. I've seen some guys playing Left4Dead on the dv2 which had ATI graphics and a single core 1.6ghz amd proc, so I guess the newer netbooks can take some games, not that I play those kinds of games anyway. Also, my friend's netbooks run office pretty well (ASUS Eee PC), and since the two units I've posted have somewhat better or equal specs, I think its fine. However my question still lies unanswered. Would buying a desktop+netbook combo be more practical than buying a full powered laptop>?

EDIT: I noticed that Compaq Presario units have almost the same price or less than HP Minis? Whats with the price? Are they like easily broken or something?

 

[zmatt]

Well, yeah. I've seen some guys playing Left4Dead on the dv2 which had ATI graphics and a single core 1.6ghz amd proc, so I guess the newer netbooks can take some games, not that I play those kinds of games anyway. Also, my friend's netbooks run office pretty well (ASUS Eee PC), and since the two units I've posted have somewhat better or equal specs, I think its fine. However my question still lies unanswered. Would buying a desktop+netbook combo be more practical than buying a full powered laptop>?

EDIT: I noticed that Compaq Presario units have almost the same price or less than HP Minis? Whats with the price? Are they like easily broken or something?

In short yes. Dedicated systems will always get the job done better than one do-it-all. I see people on campus and in lecture lugging around monster 17 and 19inch laptops because they thought they could do it all. You get bad battery life, mediocre gaming, a burned lap and a sore shoulder.