New updates on April 14, 2009

I recently spend sometime updating the links, showing the available AC Adapters for Acer Aspire One

and Laptop Adapters for EEE PC Mini Notebook

I also have the available AC Adapters for Dell Mini Notebooks

Both colors are available. They are CE Cerify, from a pretty reliable third party company we have been buying from for years.

Buying a laptop/netbook?

As the popularity of netbook surges, more and more users are switching to netbook (HP Mini 1000/Acer Aspire One) compared to traditional notebook (IBM T60/ Acer Aspire 4520/ dell inspiron 6000).   As a long time notebook user, I always want my notebook to be a multipurpose platform, having everything a PC have is a “basic” requirement.   However, looks like my requirement is kinda out dated, I know this is not other people thinks…

When we go pick up our favorite coffee in Starbuck’s, I ‘ve seen many small netbooks(ASUS EEE PC, Acer Aspire One), accompanying their owners to the coffee shop to browse the web.  As we sell adapters, we also see a growth in the needs of ac adapters for netbooks.   When I check the specifications of different netbooks, including Acer Aspire One, HP Mini 1000, and etc.

So what is a netbook?  The main difference of a netbook and a traditional laptop is, the physical size (I this this is rather obvious… A netbook is about 2.5lbs but a notebook is about 5-10lbs) but in fact when we look inside, there is another difference, which is the CPU (or the brain of the unit) make the big difference.

Netbooks generally uses Intel® Atom™ processor(1.60 GHz), this basically means it is not a fast processor.  Let me put it this way, the reason why we call it slow is because it is actually an older technology that was used a few years back.  The cycle of computation is comparatively slower.  However, it does satisfy the usage if used in a netbook, when all it does is going online, IM, listening to music, watching video or playing causal games (as stated in HP’s website).   Due to the fact that it is rather slow in nature, it couldn’t support an additional graphic card inside this unit, as a result, the unit relys on the shared grahpics supplied from the chipset.

However, due to the beautiful cover and colors, using a netbook has became trendy and fashionable which attracts young web surfers.   The convenience to share photos and music anywhere has made a gathering fun and unforgettable.  So if we have a few hundred dollars to spend, what would you choose?

Netbooks…
1.  Light weight (portable)
2.  Color (fashionable factor)
3.  Keyboard size (remember that deal to the small screen, the keyboard is smaller than a regular labtop)
4.  Cannot play mainstream games  (esp. 3D Games)
5.  Can use windows office.
6.  Can only use simple photo editing tool (photoshop or fireworks CS2/CS3/CS4) is for sure out of reach.
7.  Send and receive emails.

So if you are thinking of using a few hundred dollars (US$) to buy something, I suggest you can decide on whether you wish the unit
to fit in your backpack, or your handbag (for ladies) or the jeans pocket (for guys) depends on the usability.  If a bigger screen is  important, then you should get a laptop instead.  After deciding which one to choose, if you end up spending less money then you expect, then you may load up in the memory or hard disc size so that you can fit more nice pictures or your favorite videos in that netbook.

According to the website of these two units, both HP Mini 1000 XP Edition and Acer Aspire One can support up to 2GB, as for the hard drive, Acer Aspire One comes with a 250GB hard drive but the HP mini 1000 only has 60 GB hard drive.

Here are some interesting calculations…

1G = 1024MB

One song is about 5000-10000KB, let’s take 8000KB(8MB)
Acer Aspire One  can hold up to 128 songs* 250 = 32000 songs
HP mini 1000 holds up to 128 songs * 60 =7680 songs