I'm back but not for long. My ram and hard drive have left me compless for the last few months. I got a lender from a friend of mine. This really sucks. Haven't played go in ages.

Wondering if anyone wants to help me out here. I'm looking into getting a portable option. I was considering a netbook but the thing that worries me is the atom processor. I don't play games, so graphics isn't really an issue for me. I mainly only use a comp for typing, surfing the net and watching videos. So I'm leaning more towards a cheaper notebook. But since I'm only using it for typing I also thought of getting an ipad since you can get a keyboard accessory. Any thoughts?

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They make some nice touch pad netbooks (Asus EEE touchpad is one I've been looking at) that don't tie you into the Apple Verse for the forseable future. I own an Iphone, and I'm already regretting it, as when I upgrade, I have to buy another iphone, or write off all the apps I've bought..

Do you want to be stuck buying an iPad for the next few years whenever you want a better computer that will actually run Apple's shiney new updated system that makes your 3 year old pocket computer run like a brick with square lead wheels?

When I bought my phone, there was no Android, no other 'real' option for someone who wanted a phone that did things besides business email or making phone calls. The iPhone was literally my only option. The yearly OS updates have, each year, degraded the performance of the phone a little. Not so much I can't use it, but enough that booting it up takes minutes rather than seconds. Enough that some of the games now lag visibly. Enough that it's annoying. And if I want to change service providers? Well, I'm stuck with AT&T until Apple's contract expires. They're saying Verizon will get it next year, but that doesn't do me much good, does it? And if I'd rather have some of the go apps on Android? Well, say goodbye to all my old games, and my contacts list.

The iPad is much like the iPhone. Married to the Apple Universe, locked in and rigid. I'll never be able to buy third party iOS hardware, because apple owns every inch of it.

My advice: Don't allow Apple to own your computing.

But then, I'm just a bit crotchety about all that.

CSam

My daughter has a netbook - msi wind - and it works fine for playing go (as long as she's not home) For office and internet the atom processor is fine.

The thing you have to watch out for though is that the keyboard is not optimal for people who type a lot. It can be done, but if you have normal sized fingers and are used to typing on a regular keyboard, chances are you'll be hitting that little backspace button fairly often.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I also have a netbook (Acer One) I was positively surprised by how well it performed (it has 1.5GB RAM and atom 1.6GHz processor)
I wanted it for mobility reasons. Because it is only 1kg I often just put it in my bag and take it with me. for this purpose it's great.
internet, text editing, playing Go and watching movies are no problem at all. I even run MoyoGoStudio on it
The most demanding software I had installed on it was the game RedAlerd 3 which was sluggish but playable at low settings.

However for general use it is a bit limited. the main "problem" is that for normal use at home you need a bigger external screen, an external HD, a normal size keyboard and a mouse. This drives the price up.

If mobility is not a key requirement I would just buy a cheap desktop. They still have best price - performance ratio. an extra advantage is that the hardware can be upgraded after a couple years.

*edit:
If you want a very cheap solution just get a second hand P4 desktop. They sell for around €50,-- (no monitor) and will work fine for general use.
I have bought a second hand P4 three times (for backup and test reasons). All three still work fine.

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Laurens
Go school: freegame's Teaching School
Author of: The Next Move a book for 15-3kyu players.

I've got a netbook, which I use for go, writing, internet, and light gaming, and it's been plenty for all of those. When I want a big screen (rare, mostly just for go lessons), I plug it into the TV and use a wireless mouse. I recently broke the screen on the netbook, and am torn between trying to replace the screen myself or getting a new computer, but if I get a new computer, I'm about 50/50 between a new netboko and a new laptop.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

Netbooks are pretty nice nowadays, and inexpensive. The iPad is nice, too, but no KGS.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

I use a netbook full time now and have no issues. They're cheaper than iPads and more capable, so I would certainly go with one.

I got lucky a couple of months back and found a Toshiba T-135 Satellite on sale. It's almost like a netbook on steroids, small and lightweight but with a full size keyboard. No cd/dvd drive but amazingly the only time I've needed one has been to load GoGoD (copied the contents to a USB first). Best part was it was on sale for the price of a netbook.

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"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

I got an HP Compaq Mini 110c netbook last summer. Cheap, works adequately. 1.6GHz Atom, can manage whatever non-specialized activity I might want to use it for. It hasn't found much use beyond on-the-road net access, but now that I'm getting back to go I'm just about to repurpose it as a portable/bedtime study system. (Good riddance, stapled A4 game diagram printouts.)

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So you've got an eye?
That don't impress me much

I'd buy a computer that can run KGS if I was picking a single device.

But, fwiw, I have a 2008 iPhone (3G) that seems to work ok with 4.1--I don't have the experience that upgrades make the phone much slower.

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Occupy Babel!

So it seems like you guys are for the most part, netbook supporters. How does the single core atom processors do for you? If you're looking at multiple pages or watching videos, does it slow down significantly?

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My asus eee pc 1201N can play high def video and music very happily while I`m tabbing between my web browser, wbaduk and cgoban.

Edit: Oh, it might be a dual core thing or something

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

Due to sensory limitations imposed by the characteristics of my species, I can only look at one page at a time. Of course I can have as many pages open in browser tabs at once as I can keep track of -- that's not a CPU performance thing.

I don't watch videos, beyond the occasional Youtube clip.

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So you've got an eye?
That don't impress me much

We have interspecies contact on L19x19?

I don't often look at multiple pages, but even on a 13" screen, I do it from time to time. You can pick nits and say your eyes are literally looking at one page at any given time, but you're still conscious of both to some extent.

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Occupy Babel!

Would a laptop of same price, perform better than a net book?

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Maaaaaybe? netbook OSes tend to be fairly streamlined, especially in the unix variety, improving performance. Your average cheap laptop comes with a great deal of cruft that will require cleaning before it runs well. Also, it depends on the specs of the laptop you can get for under 500 dollars. I like netbooks because they do as much light computing as an average user needs (plays videos, browses web, runs chat programs, etc) and are excedingly portable with very long battery life times.

It's really hard for me to give you a definitive answer above. It depends a lot on the specs of the laptop. The straightforward answer is, better hardware performs better than lesser hardware, but the user may never notice.

Most programs are written to run on considerably less power than is available in modern computers. Games, high end graphical processing, and high volume data processing being the exception. So, unless you plan to play videogames, run a rendering engine, or crunch the numbers from your latest LHC experiment.. You're likely fine with a netbook, may see minor increases in snappyness from a laptop, and can do all those things with my desktop, but not for 500 dollars.

But this is a go forum and so the performance of go playing software should be a consideration. Possibly not keeping in mind the "crunch power" of the machine or lack thereof is one of the sources of disappointment "the program isn't nearly as strong as claimed to be" (that was a claim of strenth based on using what amount of computer power?). Client software to enable you to play via one of the go servers would work just fine on a netbook but software to be able to play against the computer itself, no.

"Mike", it should be a consideration only if the player is interested. And my hunch is that the proportion of players who care about how strong bots will be on their computer is substantially smaller than the percentage who care about video performance, keeping ten browser tabs open at once and so on.

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Occupy Babel!

Impossible to say without specs. You can get older laptops for the same price, but netbooks will outperform those.

Thanks alot guys. This has been really helpful. I'm thinking i'm leaning towards a netbook after what I've read. I really don't need for much for than making documents (which I use google docs for anyways), watching videos and maybe playing some 8-bit nintendo off of an emulator and surfing the net. I'll let you guys know what I've decided

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