look for intel atom processor at least 1.6 GHz, at least 1GB RAM, at least 120-160 GB HDD, wifi, bluetooth, USB slots, webcam and card readers. if you prefer windows, most come in winXP, you caninstall MS office for these if you don’t prefer openOffice. Go for bigger screen size, like 10-inch, not 8.9.

These can be bought at about your budget already.

Don’t expect the netbooks to be fast because it uses a low power Atom CPU. It is designed to be mobile, hence the screen is quite tiny. It is small enough to fit in a lady’s purse.

Also double check what is the maximum RAM supported by XP Home Edition. I remember it was 2GB. So upgrading to 3GB is wasting 50% of your purchase.

But another poster (mistakenly) said they’re not running Windows. Some do, some run a version of Linux. Linux tends to be lighter on the resource requirements, and netbooks shouldn’t be considered “primary” or full-fledged laptops. They are meant for on-the-move computing; light word processing, web surfing, etc. They are not meant to be multimedia players, database crunchers and so on.

My netbook is almost exclusively going to be used for web surfing and traveling note-taking.

Netbooks are small and portable, and come with lower specs. You won’t find a netbook at all with 3GB of RAM, as Microsoft has limited the specs of netbooks for OEMs to get a huge discount on Windows XP licenses.

In other words, you’re going to get 1GB or less of RAM, which is enough. You can upgrade it, but 2GB is typically the max that netbooks can handle.

Yes you can connect to the internet using the netbook. With the right upgrades, (RAM, monitor), a netbook can be just as usefull as a larger PC (I’m using a Dell netbook to write this)

Best of all, netbooks are VERY cheap. I bought two at $ 150 each, and they run fantastic.

Hope this helps

When I did product research, this Netbook seemed to be the best for my needs. It’s the newest version of the netbook.

1) A netbook is not just a mini-laptop. The processing speed is slower and sometimes the memory is smaller, too. It simply can not do as much as a normal computer, but if you’re not doing anything intensive like gaming you should be fine.

2) Mine has 3 USB ports, if that’s what you mean by a thumb drive slot. The one that the person above me recommended offers a 120GB harddrive. Mine has 160GB according to what I’m finding online now, though I thought it originally said 80GB, I may be wrong.

The MSI Wind has tons more harddrive space than any other netbook.

It’s a netbook so it does NOT come with a CD drive, however, you should be able to get a model that allows you to hook up external drives.

3) Windows XP, yes.

4) I find that when the battery starts running low, it acts a little wonky and starts freezing. I don’t know why. It happened a lot while I was in Central America, but not much since I’ve been home, so maybe the climate made a difference?

Besides that, it doesn’t freeze much.

5) You can open various programs at once, but I can’t guarantee that that wouldn’t freeze the computer. I don’t tend to compute that way, so I’m not one to give an opinion on this. Take a look at the specs for the model you want and make a decision about its’ processing capacity based on that. I’m computer illiterate so im’ useless in that respect.

6) Mine has word, but doesn’t give a key, only a trial version. LAME. I just downloaded OpenOffice

7) yes, mine has built in webcam, face recognition software so that you can lock your computer and have it unlocked through visual recognition. It has pretty dinky built-in speakers, but there are jacks tto attach external speakers. It also has a built-in Mic, but it’s not of great quality. It’s hard for people to hear you.
Battery life is better than with most netbooks. Mine is roughly 4 hrs, which is odd since they advertise six. Nevertheless, MSI Wind U100 has a battery life of about 3 hrs, depending on the kind of battery you get.

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