Cheap and lightweight netbook

[gui_kenzo]

The other day I had this idea to buy a cheap and light netbook and install xpud or other light and cloud-based distros, so I could take with me to wherever I go - and still have the possibility to edit text, spreadsheet and more advanced functions that wouldn't be possible with a smartphone.

Since the distro will probably be xpud, the hardware doesn't need to be good. Basically any thing made in the last decade would do the trick.

The only thing missing is to find out which netbook to use... Any thoughts? (used ones are even more welcome)

[rokytnji]

EEEPC 701 and 900 have dropped in price. Not sure where you are located. Try and stay away from arm based netbooks if possible and go with celeron or atom based processor netbooks if possible. My eeepcs (701SD and 900) in the USA came from mwave dealer refurbished (under $130.00) and run AntiX Linux quite well as well as any other Linux distro offered at Distrowatch.

Acer Aspire One Netbooks (10" model) are pretty linux friendly also. As well as old used IBM Netbooks like a X series.

[gui_kenzo]

Those would be perfect, thanks! I live in Brazil, but in a few months I will be moving to Canada.
Didn't know AntiX linux, seems really nice.

[v1k1ng1001]

mwave.com has some great refurb deals on older netbooks with atom processors and ssds

i've been looking around to replace my 900a and I can't find any new netbooks that ship with ssd

[Roxoff]

I have an eeepc 901, and it runs a full-blown fedora 16 install, and is pretty snappy.

[fratermus]

Sorry to necropost, BUT...

as much as I love my Eee 900 it has some kind of weird battery drain problem (probably usb / BIOS-related) the manufacturer cannot or will not address. If you leave the batt in a powered off 900 it will be dead in a week or two. I get about 1.5hrs of batt during use. Boo....

Since I use mine on mains power most of the time and only on batt for short periods it doesn't kill it for me. If you can get it cheap and deal with the drain I think you'll like it. Otherwise I'd pick a model with no batt drain issue.

[Roxoff]

Sorry to necropost, BUT...

as much as I love my Eee 900 it has some kind of weird battery drain problem (probably usb / BIOS-related) the manufacturer cannot or will not address. If you leave the batt in a powered off 900 it will be dead in a week or two. I get about 1.5hrs of batt during use. Boo....

Since I use mine on mains power most of the time and only on batt for short periods it doesn't kill it for me. If you can get it cheap and deal with the drain I think you'll like it. Otherwise I'd pick a model with no batt drain issue.

I have the 901, not the 900, it's got an atom processor so it uses less power, but I think mine had the same battery as yours when it was new. I bought a bigger battery for mine from Amazon, 'cos I was down to two hours regular use - I've had the battery for almost a year now, and I still hit 8-9 hours.

[rokytnji]

Sorry to necropost, BUT...

as much as I love my Eee 900 it has some kind of weird battery drain problem (probably usb / BIOS-related) the manufacturer cannot or will not address. If you leave the batt in a powered off 900 it will be dead in a week or two. I get about 1.5hrs of batt during use. Boo....

Since I use mine on mains power most of the time and only on batt for short periods it doesn't kill it for me. If you can get it cheap and deal with the drain I think you'll like it. Otherwise I'd pick a model with no batt drain issue.

That is considered a feature on the older Asus EEEPCs for charging MP3 players off the battery via usb while unit is powered off. I just pull the battery when mine are not in use. My Acer Aspire 5534 has this feature also built into the USB ports and I unplug the battery on it also.