countrywide
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Location: Sunny South Coast
Posts: 1847
 
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Got myself a neat free little netbook with XP and a contract with T-Mobile for unlimited broadband on 3G (£25 per month). Less than 1kg and about 3 hours on a charge. You get a free USB modem for the SIM card as well.
Works well and I can use it to program our kit on site via USB as well.
Quite impressed with the speed as well.
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 Fri Sep 05 2008 6:39pm |
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countrywide
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Location: Sunny South Coast
Posts: 1847
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It's the Advent 4211, which is apparently a re-badged MSi Win or something. I use remote desktop to access our work server on it as well.
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 7:24am |
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90BHP
Joined: 18 Oct 2006
Location: Half way along the road on the right
Posts: 2044
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So could I run one of these in the car, with memory map and gps reciever ??? "To finish first, one first has to finish ...."
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 8:24am |
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Reggieb
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Watford, Herts.
Posts: 263
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The spec looks OK to run them, under £300  Cheap as chips! (Not Turbochips) TDV6 HSE - Light Guards - White Reflective Sticker & that something extra
No Jetboil (yet) Edit: Jetboil now arrived, whoopie!!
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 8:37am |
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Dom Harvey
Lord of the Four Fingers
Joined: 15 Apr 2005
Location: Who gives a toss!
Posts: 6194
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countrywide wrote:It's the Advent 4211, which is apparently a re-badged MSi Win or something. I use remote desktop to access our work server on it as well.
 good man, I bought one of those (for the wife) after a bit of research. With 1GB of Ram, 80GB HDD and Windows XP it seemed the best value.
Can't see any reason why you couldn't run memory map on one of these. I should be registered!
Middle Piccadilly Spa Retreat
Hen Party Specials
Wilderness Gathering
Kitchen Bling
Network Frontiers
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 9:17am |
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countrywide
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Location: Sunny South Coast
Posts: 1847
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i don't think memory maps requires a huge amount of resources and as it also has bluetooth you can connect a GPS wireless if you like. I ran BBC Iplayer to see what it was like on video stuff and it was fine.
Best bit is the laptop is free if you sign to the £25 broadband package with t-mobile for 2 years. the advert says it is £79.99 plus a 24 month contract, but in store it is actually free.
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 2:08pm |
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NoDo$h
Joined: 02 May 2006
Location: wear the fox hat?
Posts: 6629
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Oooh, toy! 
Just picked up a new laptop, so will leave it a while before I find an excuse a sound business case for one of those Carbon footprint? I neither know nor give a damn
DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it. If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate.
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 4:57pm |
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yaugher
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Location: KENT
Posts: 271
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I have a Vodaphone Dongle to plug in laptop, unlimited use no charge for dongle or sim and £15 per month x 12 months cont(They wanted me to have an 24 month contract but i said no so they didnt argue and gave me 12 months!
it seems to work ok..not as fast as home or work broadband but its OK and id give it 7 out of ten
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| Sat Sep 06 2008 6:48pm |
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ronald.soak
Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Location: London
Posts: 27
 
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I too bought an Advent 4211 and am pleased with it but from today, (Sunday), there may be a better option, the Medion Akoya Mini 10" NETBOOK E1210, on offer from Aldi at £279.99.
See http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/2867_...9-05-15-12
The Advent 4211 and Medion E1210 are badged engineered versions of the MSI Wind, which costs about £50 more than the other 2.
Physically the machines are almost identical, (apart for colour options) with the Medion having the advantage of the inbuilt WiFi also working to the latest draft N spec, which should provide a higher datarate and 'or longer range.
The Medion also boasts a tristandard card reader. I suspect that the other 2 may not support Memory Sticks.
The Wind is alone in being provided with a protective sleeve.
Package differences are in warranty lengths and the software provided.
Warranty lengths are 12, 24 and 36 months respectively for the Advent, Wind and Medion machines
Regarding software:
The Wind can be bought with either Linux or Windows XP Home operating systems although the latter seems to be the SP2 rather than latest SP3 version
The other 2 machines come with Windows XP Home SP3
I believe that the Wind comes with a trial version of Microsoft Office. The Advent comes with Microsoft Works LE . This version includes onscreen adverts which are downloaded when you are online. Suppression of the adverts requires purchase of a different version of Works.
The Medion comes with Word Perfect Office X3.
To be honest none of the software applications provided seem that great unless you are a fan already.
It might be a good idea to load the free Openoffice software unless you can load your favorite package.
A 6 cell battery fitting all 3 machines, offering about 5 hours useage should be available now or soon at £69
Regarding Wireless broadband, There seem to be some attractive offers going some for a limited duration.
Vodaphone is reported to offer particularly good upload, (rather than download), speeds but to have particular issues with the compression of downloaded images.
The 3 network is alone in downloading images without compression as the default.
I went for a package from 3 which includes the Huaweei E160G USB modem, a fantastic piece of kit which loads all its own software when plugged in for the first time, without any problems, has an external aerial socket and doubles as a USB memory stick, with a capacity of upto 4GB , if you fit a micro SD card. The E160G iseems to be a latter model than the E169G and superior.
My choice of package was for 24Gb of data to be used anytime within the next 24 months. 3GB/3month and 12GB/12month deals are also available. I chose this offer over either PAYG or a contract because they are use it or lose it each month. The 3 network is still being upgraded and extended and coverage needs to be checked on 3's website, similarly for the other network operators.
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| Sun Sep 07 2008 6:04pm |
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