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Question: Is a netbook right for this?

(Posted by: Zerachiel on 2010-02-06 23:18:08)

With our tax rebate in i'm in the market for a inexpensive laptop (mine is broken) and i'm sick of sharing a computer with the rest of the family. i don't have alot of money to spend, and i'm not looking at a gaming comp (already have one) but i need something that has the power to run Photoshop and Sai painter. i know little about netbooks but it's hard to find any laptops under $400 and i don't have that much to spend. would a netbook work alright with those higher programs or do i need to just save a few more paychecks and buy a laptop?

Posted by: Junk McGruff on 2010-02-06, 23:26:36

With the programs you mentioned I would say a netbook isn't going to do you any good. Netbooks are made to mainly just surf the web and handle a few light programs. Anything that has to do with editing needs more power than a netbook supplies. pctechland.net

Posted by: JaCe on 2010-02-06, 23:27:35

Netbooks tend to pride themselves on their lightweight, long-battery life and portability (small screen and keyboard). If you are planning to do graphics work, you'll probably end up going for a larger screen model (11.6 ") but these netbooks (such as the Acer Aspire One 751h) tend to come with the Atom Z520 CPU which is even slower than the Atom N280 CPU and definitely going to suffer when you try to do any kind of graphics editing on a decent scale. It sounds like you are looking for a more hardcore device and would be better suited to a normal laptop with a standard CPU, possibly a graphics accelerator, but without the portability. For similar prices to the good netbooks you should be able to find a decent specification laptop with a big screen. Try visiting retailers which stock laptops in your area and look for models which aren't the latest- you should be able to get a good deal on laptops which are a few months old but will offer considerably more processing power than available under any of the netbooks.

Posted by: Masked Musketeer on 2010-02-06, 23:40:58

Photoshop + Plugins = massive RAM usage. For $450 you can get this laptop: newegg.com/ Product/ Product.aspx?Item= N82E16834146706 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 gigs of high speed DDR3 RAM, and a 250 GB hard drive Compare this to a $400 netbook, which only has a 1.66 ghz Atom (single Core) CPU and slow-as-molasses 667 DDR2 RAM. Consider this instead if you think you can stretch the budget to $450.