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Very small laptops that weigh hardly anything

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  • Angel_Treats 25 Aug 2008 20:28:48 11,072 posts
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    My mate is moving abroad next month and her current laptop weighs about the same as a small car. She has a very limited baggage allowance and is wanting to buy a new laptop that weighs as little as possible. I was thinking of an eee PC for her but she will probably want to store photos on there so she might need something that has a bit more storage - any ideas? I think it wouldn't be a problem if it didn't have an inbuilt optical drive as I can install whatever she needs on there for her before she goes with an external drive. But it does need to be a PC and not a Mac.

    BTW I saw those eee PCs in El Corte Inglés the other day for the first time in real life. They're rather sexy, I was tempted even though I'd never have a use for one. And they came in Linux flavour too.
  • lost_soul 25 Aug 2008 20:32:34 9,369 posts
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    She could always plug an external hard disk into an Eee - you can get external 250gig laptop drives for not very much money thses days.

    Another option for the Eee would be to boost the storage space with a 16gig SD card (should be available for under £50).
  • Mr-Brett 25 Aug 2008 20:35:37 11,493 posts
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    lost_soul wrote:
    She could always plug an external hard disk into an Eee - you can get external 250gig laptop drives for not very much money thses days.

    Another option for the Eee would be to boost the storage space with a 16gig SD card (should be available for under £50).
    Thats a good idea, and if she got a passport drive it would weigh significantly less.

    Please don't use the delete button, think of the children.

  • Angel_Treats 25 Aug 2008 20:35:47 11,072 posts
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    Hi Losty :)

    It's not actually the money, it's the space (and more importantly the weight) so she might not want an external drive. Although I suppose she could get a USB one that didn't need an external power source and therefore not need a charger.

    16GB SD card for under £50? God. The price of memory these days is ridiculous isn't it? I got 2x 2GB cards from play the other week for about £6.
  • FFS 25 Aug 2008 20:41:42 650 posts
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    How light are we talking? My lappy weights 2.8KG and is pretty standard for a new one.
  • lost_soul 25 Aug 2008 20:42:57 9,369 posts
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    Sorry, yeah - I meant a laptop sized external disk. I have a couple myself and they're great for travelling with; very small, cheap, large capacity, and they only need a standard mini USB cable.

    SD card prices are crazy cheap (except the 32gig ones, which are crazy expensive). I remeber a friend paying a couple of hundred quid for a 128meg one a few years back :-/

    And hi to you, Mrs M. :-)
  • Angel_Treats 25 Aug 2008 20:44:56 11,072 posts
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    FFS wrote:
    How light are we talking? My lappy weights 2.8KG and is pretty standard for a new one.
    Well she's got 25kg absolute max of checked in baggage and 8kg of hand luggage, and apparently Luftansa are very strict. So really as little as possible. 2.8kg would be quite a lot when you're trying to fit everything you need for two years into 33kg.
  • FFS 25 Aug 2008 20:48:54 650 posts
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    Get someone to send the laptop?

    Or order one over there?
  • Angel_Treats 25 Aug 2008 20:50:07 11,072 posts
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    She's moving to a very very poor African country, so probably not possible to order it there and we don't know if the postal system is trustworthy.

    (She will be teaching kids as a kind of volunteer.)
  • valli 25 Aug 2008 20:50:39 14,044 posts
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    There are a few other ultra portables with about same weight, price and specs as the Eee:

    Acer Aspire One (with 120GB HDD)
    MSI Wind (80GB)
  • PinkSpider 25 Aug 2008 20:52:37 3,341 posts
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    I had a go on that Acer Aspire One in PC World on my lunch. Slightly larger that the EEE but I think I want one more.

    Deffinately very cool things, and cheaper than my girlfriends shite laptop.
  • FFS 25 Aug 2008 20:54:38 650 posts
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    Being there for 2 years, I'd not want to run out of space on a laptop.

    There will be somewhere to pick up the laptop postal-wise. I just checked Australia (furthest away) for 3KG and <a href=http://sg.royalmail.com/portal/rm/PriceFinderResults?pageId=pc_sltc_rm_results&keyname=rmPriceFinderResults&catId=23500532>it's £31</a>.

    And you can get insurance. Can't you just pay a little extra to take more stuff on the plane? Is she going alone (get travel buddy ti pack it). Or see if the lappy will go with her stuff by weight beforehand.
  • Angel_Treats 25 Aug 2008 20:56:40 11,072 posts
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    That Acer looks like a good idea, thanks Valli, I'll pass that on.
  • Red-Moose 25 Aug 2008 21:01:25 5,331 posts
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    Angel_Treats wrote:
    My mate is moving abroad next month and her current laptop weighs about the same as a small car. She has a very limited baggage allowance and is wanting to buy a new laptop that weighs as little as possible. I was thinking of an eee PC for her but she will probably want to store photos on there so she might need something that has a bit more storage - any ideas? I think it wouldn't be a problem if it didn't have an inbuilt optical drive as I can install whatever she needs on there for her before she goes with an external drive. But it does need to be a PC and not a Mac.

    BTW I saw those eee PCs in El Corte Inglés the other day for the first time in real life. They're rather sexy, I was tempted even though I'd never have a use for one. And they came in Linux flavour too.
    I have an Advent 4211 (MSI Wind rebadged). It has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom, 80GB 2.5" SATA (upgradable to including the new 500GB Samsung F6s), 1GB RAM and Vista Ultimate. After 6 weeks of using it is has become a pretty much essential tool for work and I leave my hulking XPS1730 at home now.

    It is the lightest "proper" small laptop (i.e., HD size, CPU speed) - 1.04kg with the standard 3-cell battery (aroudn 2-2.5hrs use) (i.e., lighter than a Macbook Air).

    Also has 3x USB2.0 ports, and plays DivX and MP4 video very nicely. Gfx is Intel 945 onboard, so no signifcant 3D acceleration but I did get 56 in 3Dmark06 :)

    I find the Eee a bit too small and toy like, and the SSD is small (I prefer a big HDD). Vista runs perfectly on it, including Aero and the extras.

    Used for MS Access, Word and Powerpoint and usually also IE, WMP and Skype usually running simultaneously. For €379 I can't recommend it enough. WiFi, BT are all there as well of course.
  • brokenkey 26 Aug 2008 10:55:57 6,317 posts
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    @RedMoose - could you run WoW on it? (serious question).

    And Vista - I thought it ran like a one-legged pony on 1 gig.
  • siro 26 Aug 2008 11:10:46 1,818 posts
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    brokenkey:
    No
    and
    I also can't believe that it runs Vista well.
  • figgis 26 Aug 2008 11:18:55 7,368 posts
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    Acer stuff is less than reliable. Getting stuff returned and fixed is impossible in this country never mind somewhere in africa.
  • brokenkey 26 Aug 2008 11:22:04 6,317 posts
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    re: WoW - actually it look like you can.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWdiex-CSRQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FLQC1qZiCY&feature=related

    Where did you get it from with Vista - PCworld are selling it with XP, as are most places.
  • Sandbox 26 Aug 2008 11:38:49 328 posts
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    Wife got an Aspire One yesterday (albeit the Linpus one) for £199 in PC world. She needed something light to carry to work as she has done her shoulder in and her macbook was just too heavy.

    Cannot comment on the XP version but generally is's a well built machine, has a very usable keyboard, nice screen and at 900 grams is very light. On Linux it boots in about 15 sec's which is great. Only thing I would say is the track pad is very small, so for prolonged use I would get a mouse.
  • asphaltcowboy 26 Aug 2008 11:42:40 5,099 posts
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    My gf borrowed a Dell XPS 1330 from work. It's super-light and small - less than 2kg - she just put it in her backpack!
  • Articulate-Troll 26 Aug 2008 11:57:24 3,044 posts
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    A_T, if all your friend needs is the most basic applications such as photo viewing, then it's worth noting that the eeepc is still the cheapest you can buy, by a good fifty quid at the lowest end of the range.

    It's also reliable, and the battery is easily upgradable, which is a huge bonus for travelling. The default Linux OS is incredibly easy and fast to use so there's very little time wasted waiting for the thing to boot up or navigating the menus.
  • Jonsend 16 May 2009 16:17:28 698 posts
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    ^ You're about 8 months late.
  • Retroid Moderator 16 May 2009 16:24:29 44,231 posts
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    /Nukes spammer
  • Cloudane 17 May 2009 11:48:50 1,974 posts
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    Angel_Treats wrote:
    My mate is moving abroad next month and her current laptop weighs about the same as a small car.
    Thanks for the laugh.

    Is your friend ok?

    It has been nearly a year now since she disappeared hasn't it?
  • Deleted user 17 May 2009 11:53:06
    I have an Acer Aspire One too and am very pleased with it. Got the 120GB version and put Windows XP on it myself.
  • Deleted user 25 November 2010 10:54:52
    Post deleted

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