Need help picking a netbook for my mom

[Savi]

hey, need help picking a netbook for my mom, if it was a reg pc i could just build it but she wants a netbook, her laptop atm is falling apart its just to old atm she uses a 14inch dell its like 6 years old

all my mom does is surf the web, watch youtube vids, face book, and lots of typing. She says she wants a purple netbook ive looked but purple seems to be hard to find thats in stock

i can spend about $400 will buy in the next 2 weeks, 3 at the latest
I want it to be a win 7 and fast enough to run firefox, and word and avast anitvrius, and maybe spybot search and destroy

found this one but not sure if its any good i realy have no clue when it comes to netbooks never used one b4 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Dell-Mini-1018/15902911?sourceid=1500000000000003142050&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=15902911

i heard windows 7 starter is not realy good, they took to many small things out like changing wallpapers along with other stuff not sure if its true

any help be nice ty

 

[starhawk]

TBH, all you need for what you described is...

...a six year old laptop running WinXP.

I've never used 7 so I don't know why it's "better", but what I can tell you is this: Win7 takes up waaaaay more space than WinXP, both in terms of hard drive capacity and in terms of processor overhead.

I have two laptops in my house, both with Pentium M CPUs. One is a Sony VAIO VGN-S360 that likes to go "om nom nom" with hard drives. The other is an HP-Compaq tc4200. FWIW, I also have an HP Pavilion s7220n. The "s" means "slim". It has a Celeron M and a slightly unusual distro of Linux (specifically, it's Puppy Linux). All three computers (compensating for failing HDD on the VAIO and Linux on the Pavilion) run at about the same speed -- assuming they all had XP, they'd be the same speed and responsiveness to the user (although the Pavilion might be a little slower...)

So, all in all, you should probably look into an older "ultraportable" (12-14" screen size) laptop on eBay. If she's dead set on a new netbook... get her an ASUS. Those things rock, although I can't say the same of tech support. As for the "purple color" requirement... all I can say is, Krylon + Masking Tape

Good luck!

EDIT: BTW, if you buy a computer at Wal*Mart... well, all I can say is, you deserve what you get. Ya'll folks ought to know better if you've been around here.

 

[GushpinBob]

i heard windows 7 starter is not realy good, they took to many small things out like changing wallpapers along with other stuff not sure if its true

It's true. There's also no desktop composition, no WMC, no built-in mpeg-2, mpeg-4, h.264 codec support, no Fast user switching, no mobility center, and no support for multiple monitors. If your mom can live without those features then by all means go with a netbook with Windows 7 Starter. Otherwise, take about $80 off your suggested budget because that's how much you will spend for an Anytime Upgrade to Home Premium.

Now there exists some 3rd party utilities that allow you to change the desktop background in Starter, though a lot of them require you to jump through some hoops e.g. logging out/in just to change the background.

GL with your netbook search. My mom's been using an ASUS eee 1000HA with Windows 7 Pro as her main computer for almost 2 years and she's never had a problem with it.

 

[thecrafter]

Google Chromebook if she doesn't need to install any specific programs. Word can be done on Google Docs but it kinda sucks honestly. But if she only needs it to do a resume then it'll be just fine

 

[silkshadow]

Consider an Asus Transformer. Got one for my Mom who has similar needs (minus facebook) and its working out great for her so far.

I know you said Win7, but that's what my mom thought she wanted too but she is so happy with the transformer because its so much more portable than anything with Win7 we could get. Android has a Firefox client, but I setup my mom on Lastpass a while back and Dolphin allows her to continue using it still only needing to remember 1 password.