12" fusion laptop as an only computer?

So, as the title suggests I was thinking about getting an Asus 1215b (or one of the similar laptops) for school. Does anyone here have experience with using a smaller, low-powered laptop as their only computer? It will be coupled with keyboard/mouse + screen at home, so that's not an issue.

The things that I think could be annoying is that:

• The E-350 is not exactly the fastest thing out there
  
  
• Maybe it will be annoying to constantly have to connect/disconnect the laptop?

How 'well' does it work to take notes and work a couple of hours after school on laptop like/similar to the Asus 1215b?

I was thinking of either coupling it with a console for gaming, or a desktop. The console would satisfy all my gaming needs & is relatively cheap, while a desktop costs more but gives more possibilties.

 

the asus has a annoying keyboard, if i were you i'd go for the lenovo X120e. What is your budget by the way? i ask because i managed to get my lenovo x201 for a good price on ebay which is what pulled me away from getting a fusion based ultraportable.

anyway, to answer your original question, the E350 is plenty powerful for general computing. just make sure it has enough ram and it'll serve you well.

 

Well 12" ultra portables aren't exactly designed to be your normal computer. E-350 should be fine for normal tasks, office, email that sort of thing. No you won't be rendering HD movies or doing CAD on an E-350 but it isn't designed for that.

Also have you tried cleaning up all the bloatware on your ASUS? Usually ASUS has alot.

 

1.6 dual core (not atom dual core) connected to external monitor and keyboard is fine. especially since it can do HD decoding with its graphics unit. im confident it will be enough unless the user is intending to do stuff like video editing, cad etc like you mentioned.

while not identical to having a fusion notebook, i frequently use my X201 with the CPU limited to 1.1ghz to prolong battery and even with 30+ tabs open, skype, msn, word, adobe acrobat, and windows media playing, it rarely goes above 40% usage

 

Here in Sweden the x120e is not available, or else it would absolutely be my 1st pick!
I don't really have a set budget, I could get a regular laptop for (equivalent to) ~1000$ but I'm not sure if that is really necessary, since I don't really do anything heavy daily, and my current computer is really weak. ^^

E-350 laptop + console goes for like 5,6k SEK, if I were to only get a laptop it would be minimum 6-7k SEK and that would still not provide any real gaming capabilities. Something that makes the e-350 so appealing is that its got good battery life and comes in a small packages, all good things for a school laptop. If I want a laptop capable of gaming I need to shell out like 9k SEK for something like the MSI G620DX, but the downside with that is that it's a 15,6 (and ofc the price tag).

Yeah, I know it's got its limitations, I don't want to be stuck with a computer that is too weak to really feel useful, or too small to be comfortable, though it seems pretty ok.

Yeah, the e-350 seems pretty capable, it's supposed to be able to handle all office tasks, up to 1080p-video and even some slight gaming, the netbooks up until now have been to weak to be an all-in-one solution IMO.

How does it feel to use a laptop of that size for longer periods of time? Does the screen/keyboard size get annoying?

 

my X201 was my main laptop for a month while i was waiting for my M4600. i travel around the world for long periods of time so i cant have a desktop. so my m4600 is my "desktop" and my X201 is my portable university/park/library/coffeeshop laptop.

the key thing about the X201 is it has a full size keyboard, and not only that, a keyboard that is among the best of any laptop of any size. so its a joy to use for long periods, i use it to work on my 12+ hour intercontinental flights. if import taxes for your country is not too high, i suggest importing a X120 or X220 from the US. You can get a X220 complete with the i7 processor for under $1000

 

Yeah, I know about the great keyboard quality (and the overall quality) of thinkpads which is why it sucks even more that it isn't available here.

Import taxes, unless avoided, will raise the price by 25% and on top of that there's shipping which I guess is around 50$ or so. Another downside with importing is that the keyboard layout is different, the special signs above the number row differ and the three characters "Å Ä Ö" are missing, a replacement keyboard would be another 50-75$ I think.
And I just can't help but feel weird about spending ~1k$ and still not have a gaming-capable machine. It's not the most important thing for me, but I do enjoy it.

I was looking to see if there were any x120e's at ebay (Europe) but didn't see any, would be really optimal if it was released in Sweden. I Actually just e-mailed them about that but the most likely answer is probably no/we can't answer that.

Well, I've still got a couple of months so maybe things will have changed a bit by then.

Edit: Seems like there is a successor to the x120e, the x121e that has been released in europe (germany), hopefully it shares the quality of its predecessor. Price incl. shipping is 400€ so that's nice.

 

they sell the X121 in europe. slightly different design, they have AMD and intel i3 options. they're on the UK site. maybe you can try ebay.co.uk? but yes, you'll have an issue with the keyboard.

Lenovo launches 11.6-inch ThinkPad x121e for Europe, the Japanese market -- Engadget

also i just saw a X201 go on ebay.co.uk today for 370 pounds, which is 3835 swedish kronor.

LENOVO X201,i5-520M(2.4Ghz),160GB HD,4GB RAM,12.1 / 3G | eBay

for the X201 if it was sold in sweden you can probably get a replacement keyboard pretty cheap

 

Yeah, the x121e seems to be available on a number of german sites now so that's a plus, I'll email Lenovo and see if it will be coming to Sweden later on, we're always a bit late so hopefully it'll come here too (so far we only have the c-50 and i3-versions). ^^

About the x201: To be honest I'm a bit tentative when it comes to buying used items since I havn't had any good experience with it in the past, so I mostly avoid it if I can, thanks for the tip though!

 

yea this was my first used laptop purchase. but the price was irresistible and with 2.5 years remaining on the warranty the risk is minimal. it did arrive in mint condition as the seller said. the battery only had 2 cycles on it!!!

 

Oh, so you have also bought a used x201? Or am I missing something here?

 

yes, it was 6 months old second hand. i was set on buying the X120e, but then i saw this X201 going for almost the same price on ebay so i bought it. no regrets at all. probably the best value for money laptop i've ever got

 

Some German resellers offer student prices AND they'll fit in SWE/FIN keyboard for small fee so you don't need to bother about it.

I just can't remember the name of the reseller right now but I'll get back to you...

Edit: found some, here's some student versions:
https://www.lapstars.de/index.php?cPath=392&osCsid=2bf36fe4ed0d88ad5878c00e808a60f0
http://www.campusdiscount.de/index.php/cat/c10_Lenovo.html/sort/products_price-asc

I haven't bought personally anything from those, I've just followed a thread in Finnish forum where people have just the same keyboard problem as you

 

Yeah, I don't doubt that. Thinkpads are generally durable machines and I guess it's nice to get a barely used machine at a hefty discount! =)

Thanks for the links! I checked out campusdiscount earlier but they only had the i3 version, but lapstars was new to me, thanks! They had 'right' version and shipping isn't to dangerous either.

I won't be buying right now but it feels good to have a general idea of how the situation is.

I guess what remains is to figure out if the power of an E-350 is enough, though the E-450 has been announced so I guess things will be different in a couple of months.

 

No customs fees or additional taxes either since you're buying inside EU. Right?

 

Yep, that's the nice part. ^^ If I buy from the US unfortunately the shipping will probably be higher and there's also import tax unless you try to find a way around that, or get lucky with customs.

 

I used a 12" Averatec (1280x800 screen resolution) as my primary computer for 3 years, with no external monitor and just a basic external keyboard and mouse (connected through one USB hub, so it's only one thing to unplug) along with a laptop stand I fashioned out of K'Nex.

Personally, I'd say it'll be perfectly fine to use an E-350 11.6-12" laptop as your primary machine. A 1366x768 screen isn't wonderful, especially compared to my T500's 1680x1050 panel, but it works well for general note-taking and office tasks and web browsing. Often, I use my X120e and don't even turn on my T500 for a few days in a row. It's a very capable little machine.

You may want to use some sort of stand to prop the laptop up at your desk. I use the Logitech Alto w/ Wireless Keyboard stand for my T500. Get creative: I had a really fancy K'Nex setup for my Averatec

 

Ah, nice to hear from someone that has had experience with exactly what I was thinking about!

Yeah, I guess I'll need some sort of setup at home, was thinking about wireless kb+mouse so no need for wires there, just the HDMI for the screen.

I've got a laptop with a single core sempron at ~2ghz & HD3200 which I think is quite a bit weaker than the E-350 and it moves along fine (office stuff, it can't even play 720p ), though it's an HP and therefore rarely goes below 70C. So, I shouldn't really be worried about the performance, I guess.

Do you suggest a stand so that it will be more comfortable to use (neck etc) while sitting at the desk or is it for some other reason?

K'Nex, so that's like lego, right?

KLF: If you could possibly post a link to that thread from the finnish-forum, that would be awesome!

 

I know plenty of people using a 10" Atom CPU nEtbook for a main PC. Depending on what you want to do, it might satisfy your needs just fine!! Don't underestimate it

 

For taking notes and doing word docs, you will be fine.

For doing extracurricular "stuff" like gaming, streaming movies, social programs, etc..., might have some problems.


I just did 4 years of schooling on a 2001 Dell Desktop with a 2.0 single core Celeron with 166 MHZ bus speed (yes that's right 166 MHZ). Worked great for: words docks, email, power point, etc etc etc....

I still graduated with honors, so it's not the technology holding you back.
If it's strictly for note taking like you said, you will be ok.

Only advise I can give you is to get an external harddrive and backup your information in the event your netbook crashes.


Good luck

 

There ya go That page 17 is around where talk about T420 and other new models start. You need to provide your own translation though.

 

I did read that the x120e was not available in sweeden. You can always order from USA, (ebay and stuff) and mark it as gift and have it sent to you. I did that for my Acer. Not availble in Norway, on I have this model