Quote Robbo="Robbo" Quote Robbo="Big Graeme" Some really good Sumvision players here bit.ly/sURE3u'" Thanks, I've actually read good reviews about some of those'" If out TV didn't have a media player built in I'd be buying one of those little beauties.

Quote Robbo="Robbo" Quote Robbo="Big Graeme" Some really good Sumvision players here bit.ly/sURE3u'" Thanks, I've actually read good reviews about some of those'" If out TV didn't have a media player built in I'd be buying one of those little beauties.

What transfer speed should I expect from a usb 2.0 pen drive? Im putting videos onto my 8gb drive and struggling to get speeds of more than 4mb per second which is painfully slow. is this normal? I've tried it in a few different ports which are all 2.0 and i dont exactly have any other usb devices other than a mouse and keyboard taking load away from the usb controller.

That's about right for writing to a flash drive.

Problem solved then

This has probably been asked a zillion times but I'm going to ask it again...

Netbook or Tablet ?

I, or rather the youngest, has fallen in love with [url=http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/samsung-nf110-10-1-netbook-black-11306318-pdt.htmlthis netbook in PC World[/url today, or a couple of others which are within £30 of that price, that Samsung has the best combination of HDD size and battery life though, seems to have a good quality display and of course she likes the colour of it.

We also looked at tablets but while I know my way around PC's and Windows I admit to being baffled with the cheaper tablets and Android and low memory and storage capacity, and then there is the keyboard issue, not sure if we could cope without a "proper" keyboard.

So its probably easier if I explain, the whole family use PC's, we have two traditional desktop PC's and I bring my 10" laptop home from work every night and that gets snaffled too - these days we use nothing that isn't on the internet apart from me who uses photo fixing software now and again.

The PCs are used to check online bank accounts, listen to Spotify, and use the likes of Facebook, Twitter and this goddamn web site too, quite a lot of music is downloaded and stored on an external drive and I sometimes watch iPlayer and the occasional streamed film, we've never downloaded films onto the PC's.

The laptop gets handed around every night because its easier to boot up than the PC's (which are getting a bit bloated) and we're now thinking of having a family netbook that will be used exclusively for web browsing by any of us, a quick boot-up machine would be excellent.

Any recommendations gratefully accepted and will anyone persuade me that a tablet is the way to go ?

I'd favour netbooks over tablets, the fact I'm typing on one now is neither here nor there

The range of software for netbooks is pretty much anything you can find for Windows (games excepted)

I find tablets pricey for what you get and can be quite under powered, having said that the first thing you need to do is add another 1GB of RAM to any netbook to get it to a decent spec so either get them to add it in the store or make sure you can do it yourself.

Those Samsung are pretty good, Toshiba do some very good ones, Acer too.

I'll just make this a short post and say Netbook over a tablet every time. Unless you have some particular need to use it with one hand.

Treat the family to a Macbook Air Mr Field...

S.

Didn't even go anywhere near the Mac displays in PC World the other day and from what I've just seen on google your Macbook Air is at least three to four times the cost of a reasonable Netbook, given the use that it will be put to how will I get three to four times as much benefit, or is the pose premium in the region of £600 or so ?

The MacBook Air is not in the same same class as a "netbook".

A PC equivalent of the MacBook Air would be the [url=http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/8/2546923/lenovo-ideapad-u300s-ultrabook-reviewLenovo U330s[/url.

Which is an excellent machine and I would highly recommend over any "netbook".

PC World have knocked £500 off its predecessor (the U260) so it is just £600, which is a bit of a steal.

The big difference between a tablet and a "netbook" is the tablet will have software designed to run on the hardware (given less memory (RAM) and a slightly slower CPU + GPU) A tablet will have specialist hardware as well to aid performance for certain tasks: For decoding HD video, a tablet will typically have a dedicated decoder chip, whereas a "netbook" won't. Web browsers on tablets do a better job of scaling pages for the form factor than a desktop web browser will do on a "netbook". Games are made specifically for tablets on iOS/Android. These games take advantage of multi-touch, accelerometers, gyroscopes etc. No one makes games optimised for a "netbook".

"Netbooks" have a string of hardware deficiencies (cramped keyboard, cramped trackpad, small, low resolution screen), but (and it is a big but) will still typically to run software designed for far more powerful PCs with larger screens and a mouse or generously sized trackpad.

Multi-Touch capacitive input beats fumbling around with a finicky trackpad. For keyboards: Android and iOS will both support almost any Bluetooth keyboard, which will be far bigger and more spacious than the cramped version on a netbook.

I've included netbooks in quotes because I have never believed them to be anything more than small, under powered laptops. Samsung aren't even going to bother making netbooks next year. Microsoft aren't that interested in them, nor are Intel. I think that says it all.

If you really want to spend the same sort of cash as you would on a macbook air may I suggest the home version of the Lenovo X220. Got a X220 as my latest work laptop and its fantastic. The tablet doubles as touch screen, its light and portable and the i7 really gives it some oomph. Only downside is the HDD size