Cheap Netbooks Deals

The Toshiba NB505 that’s recently released to the market is a cheap netbook designed for budget-minded consumers. The MSRP (Manufacturer suggested retail price) for this netbook is $299.99 but we can currently get it for only $279.99 on Amazon.

Here’s the rundown of the NB505′s specification:

• Intel Atom processor N455 1.66 GHz, 512KB L2 Cache
• Configured with 1GB DDR2 (works at 667MHz, max 2GB)
• 250GB (5400 RPM) Serial ATA hard disk drive
• 10.1″ diagonal widescreen TruBrite display at 1024 x 600 native resolution (WSVGA) with a 16:9 aspect ratio and LED backlite
• Genuine Windows 7 Starter 32-bit with a 6 cell/48Wh Lithium Ion battery pack; Battery Life (measured by MobileMark 2007): 8 hours, 21 minutes

No, it’s certainly not the most powerful netbook on the market, but Toshiba has made this netbook to be a low-cost computer that’s practical for everyday use. First, its 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and Intel GMA3150 graphic chip is not going to provide you with sufficient power to run full HD 1080p video. Serious gaming like Far Cry will not work on this machine as well. If you need a computer that’s capable of doing these activities, the Toshiba NB505 is not for you. However, if all you need is a portable PC for web surfing, chatting, checking email, social networking (Facebook, twitter), or taking notes / making presentation slides using Microsoft Office, the NB505 will be a perfect choice for you that can do all tasks and will not burn a hole in your wallet at the same.

One of the thing that we like about the NB505 is the extremely long battery life. It has a 6 cell/48Wh battery that Toshiba claims to deliver up to 8.5 hours of battery life. That’s the maximum battery life they are talking about of course. The actual battery life will be around 6 to 7 hours, depending on your screen brightness setting, Wifi usage, and some other factors. But overall, it has a pretty good endurance that should have no problem to stand one whole day of usage without re-charging.

Is Toshiba NB505 for you? Yes if you are looking for a portable PC for productivity works instead of entertainment (e.g. gaming, watching movies, etc.).

Hands-on review for the Toshiba NB505:

The Asus Eee PC 1001P is one of the best budget netbooks in the market. It’s one of the few netbook models that get the Editor’s Choice award from Laptop Magazine, and is highly rated by most customers on Amazon. If you are looking for a 10-inch netbook that costs under $300, this netbook is highly recommended.

Specification
The specification of the Eee PC 1001P are as below:

• 1.66GHz Intel N450 Atom Processor (512KB L2 Cache)
• 1 GB DDR2 SODIMM memory, Max Capacity upto 2 GB
• 10.1″ WSVGA (1024×600) Color-Shine, w/ LED-backlight WideScreen LCD
• Intel GMA 3150 Graphics Controller
• 250 GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

While there’s nothing special about the specs (most netbooks on the market has the same specs), the Eee PC 1001P has a few things going for it. First, it’s cheap with a starting price of under $300. Second, it has a matte lid which helps to reduce fingerprint, and a matte display which makes it possible to be used under sunlight.

Touchpad And Keyboard
Both the keyboard and touchpad of the Eee PC 1001P is large and easy to use. The keyboard has a traditional design instead of the more commonly used island style design on most of Asus’ netbooks. The keys are large enough to be used comfortably, and more importantly, the right Shift key isn’t shrunken. Its touchpad measures 2.5 x 1.4-inch which works perfectly for multi-touch gestures.

Performance
In terms of performance, the Eee PC 1001P does a great job in handling general computing tasks such as web surfing, document processing, email checking. Even for light gaming like Counter Strike is possible on this netbook. Streaming high definition video (720p and above) from YouTube however is not recommended. Check out the following video for a series of performance test using the Eee PC 1001P.

Battery Life
Despite its low price, the Eee PC 1001P comes with a 6-cell battery that Asus claims to give 11 hours of battery life. In real life test however, it gets around 8.5 hours of battery life. This is still one of the longest battery life netbook that you can get at this price.

What Other Customers Say
Reading customer reviews is one of the best way to find out the quality of a product. The Eee PC 1001P gets more than 100 customer reviews on Amazon and the overall rating is 4 out of 5 stars.

Click to read 48 customer reviews

Compare To Acer Aspire One 532h
In terms of performance and battery life, the Eee PC 1001P is pretty much the same as the Acer Aspire One 532h, another budget netbook that I reviewed recently. But when comes to design, I prefer the stylish design of the Eee PC 1001P, as well as its matte lid and display. Also, the Eee PC 1001P has a larger hard drive (250GB) compared to the Aspire One 532h (160GB) although it’s slightly pricier.

If you are looking for cheap Acer netbook deals, then you should definitely check out the Acer Aspire One 532h-2588 which is currently on sale for just $273.99 and free shipping!

Acer Aspire One 532h Review
The reason I highly recommend this netbook is not just because of its low price — it has almost everything I would recommend for a netbook!

Specification
Lets first look at its internal component:

• 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 Processor
• 1GB DDR2 Memory
• 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
• 802.11 b/g/n Wireless Certified
• 10.1″ WSVGA Acer CrystalBrite LED Display
• Intel GMA 3150 Graphics
• Windows 7 Starter
• Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life

The specs itself is a pretty average in today’s netbook market. Browse around netbooks of other brands and models (Amazon sells almost every netbook models available on the market at the lowest price most of the time) and you will notice that most of them have almost the same specs as this Acer model (some have even lower specs), but you can hardly find any of them at this low price.

Touchpad And Keyboard
Due to the compact size of a netbook, there’s limited space for keyboard and touchpad. It’s important for the netbook manufacturer to optimize the available space to design a keyboad and touchpad that are large enough to be used comfortably. Acer has done a pretty good job in this area.

As you can see from the picture, Acer make use of the available space very effectively by stretching it from one end to the other. Both the Keyboard and touchpad are pretty spacious to be use comfortably. Also, the touchpad support multitouch gestures so that’s another big plus.

Performance
Performance wise, the Acer Aspire One 532h is as good as all other single core Atom based netbook. You can do tasks like surfing the web, listening to music, checking email, and chatting through Skype without any problem with this netbook. What you cannot do is watching high definition videos and playing high-end games like Crysis on this netbook. It just does not have enough processing power to handle those demanding tasks, which is also the case for all other single core Atom based netbooks on the market.

Battery Life
One of the reason that I love this netbook is its excellent battery life. I have not tested this myself but the folks at LaptopMagazine has managed to squeeze 8 hours and 36 minutes of battery life out of the Aspire One 532h. What they did was to continuously surf the web over WiFi until the battery used up. I am really impressed with such long battery life for a netbook at this price!

What Other Customers Say
That’s all for my review. If you want to get opinion about this netbook, read the customer review. Hundreds of customers have purchased this netbook, many of them left their reviews on Amazon. As of now, the average rating given to this netbook is 4 out of 5 stars based on 119 customer reviews.

Click to read 119 customer reviews