Well our tip would be to take a look at Budget Batteries, where prices are much nicer to see than the accessories section of your netbooks manufacturer!

Budget Batteries have just about every battery that money can buy listed on their website and we’ve heard only good reports about their service and delivery times.

Visit Budget Batteries website and see for yourself.

Bring your netbook to life

Do you want a free internet stick for your netbook that you can use for the first three months without paying a thing?

Get your netbook online the internet no matter where you are with Vodafone’s great offer of a Free 3G USB Modem and pay nothing at all for the first three months (and thereafter just £15 including 3GB of usage, allowng to check your mails, chat and surf the web anytime, anywhere.

Finally the price of mobile broadband is realistic for the average man on the street (and more than reasonable for women too!) that netbooks finally can come to life and become really useful outside of Starbucks too!

For more information and to get your free internet stick click here…

Which Netbook Has The Best Battery Life?

If you’re relying on your Netbook working for a long time without access to a mains power source to recharge, then knowing which netbook has the best battery life is one of the most critical factors to consider when choosing.

Darren Yates of Netbook Review in Australia recently tested all of the popular models available in Australia. (click to read full article)

Not surprisingly, the models with 6-cell batteries are up at the top, with MSI’s Wind U115 Hybrid (6hrs 56mins), Asus Eee PC 1000HD (4hrs 12mins) and Eee PC 901 (3hrs 59mins) models filling the top three spots.

The worst performing (in terms of stamina) were the 3-celled HP Mini 1001TU, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 and the Dell Inspiron Mini 12. The latter two ran for less than two hours.

For some this is not a problem – these days power outlets are availale on trains and planes, and if you’re just going to be using it in a hotel room then battery life is not so important. If you want to sit in your favorite coffee shop, or in the park and while-away the hours, pay attention to the battery life before you buy.

Many models come with all sorts of different promotional or trial software preloaded, such as a time limited copy of Microsoft Office, virus scanners and so on.

Unless you actually want to try-out this software, or even to buy a full version, then all it’s doing is taking up space on your hard-drive. If you have a netbook with a small 8GB or 16GB solid state drive, then it’s going to be even more important to remove the junk.

Assuming your netbook is running Windows XP, then this is extremely easy.

Step 1 : Start the ‘Add or Remove Programs’ applet

First go to the Control Panel, look for the ‘Add or Remove Programs’ icon and double-click it.

This make take a few moments to be displayed, so just be patient for a second. A list of all of the software programs that are currently installed on your netbook will be displayed. Once it’s ready, you will be able to continue.

Step 2 : Select the first program to be removed from your netbook

Once the list of installed programs is displayed, look for the one you want to remove (for example Microsoft Office), then click it so that it is highlighted.

Once the program that you want to un-install is highlighted, you will see a “Remove” button. Click this to start the removal process.

Again, this may take some moments, but once it’s done, you will see that it has gone from the list. Some programs require that the netbook is restarted after software has been removed, so if you are asked to restart you should do so.

A word of warning

Actually, two things:

• Before removing something, please bear in mind that you will not be able to reinstall something that you remove, unless you have the installation program. It’s possible that this on the DVD supplied with your netbook, but not always – so please check this first and only remove once you’re sure.
• If you remove the trial version of a virus scanner (such as McAfee VirusScan or Norton AntiVirus) from your netbook, you absolutely must install a replacement. Running your netbook without any protection against viruses will result in a virus infection. The Internet is absolutely riddled with viruses, and you risk losing all your data on your netbook without anti-virus softwareAnti-virus software is generally sold on a yearly subscription basis (as they need to be updated regularly) and don’t cost so very much (Compare prices).  The updates will be done automatically so you’ll have peace of mind. Just don’t go for no virus protection at all just to save a few pounds.

]]> http://www.netbook-review.org.uk/how-to-remove-preloaded-trial-software-from-my-new-netbook/feed/ 0 http://www.netbook-review.org.uk/7-netbooks-under-300/ http://www.netbook-review.org.uk/7-netbooks-under-300/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:03:14 +0000 NetbookReviewer http://www.netbook-review.org.uk/?p=68 Right now there really are some super deals, and today we found 7 netbooks available for under £300. The market does seem to be competitive right now, with prices of the cheapest netbooks fluctuating on a daily basis, so it pays to buy when you see the model you want at the price you like. The price may be higher again tomorrow.

Don’t forget to check the prices in our Netbook Shop, or to use Kelkoo to compare the entire market for the model you want (there’s a link on the right, using it will help to support this site – Thanks!)

• Top Deal : Acer Aspire One A150 Netbook £249.97
  

  One of the market leading netbooks is now under £250. This Windows XP Home variant has 1GB memory and a huge 160GB hard disk.

• Toshiba NB100-12A 8.9-inch Netbook £249.99

  Just 512MB Memory, but a massive 120GB hard drive in the Toshiba NB100-12A. The battery life could be better, but at this price, not bad. Run Windows XP Home.
  

• Elonex 10.2-inch Widescreen Webbook £260.43
  

  Equipped with a 10.2-inch screen, 512MB Memory and an 80GB Hard Disk.

• Hercules eCafe EC-900-H60G/S Ultra Mobile PC £261.75

  At 1.2Kg, the EC-900 claims a 7-hour battery life.  This Linux based netbook comes with a 60GB hard drive.

• Compaq 702 10.2-inch Mini Note £279.97

  The Compaq 702 has a 10.2-inch screen, 1GB Memory and  60GB SATA hard drive. Most notably it has a 92% of full size keyboard.

• LG X110 10-inch Netbook £279.99
  

  The X110 from LG is the latest to join the sub-£300 club. Just 512MB memory in this one, but 160GB is more than enough for most people.

• ASUS Eee PC 901 RP001X Netbook £289.95
  

  This Eee PC 901 is currently very well priced so snap it up while you can. This one has 1GB Memory and a 12GB Solid State Drive. Hmm – we almost forgot to mention it is pink, but for some thats a good thing.

Prices taken from Amazon.co.uk on 29th March 2009

Well, according to reports, around 90% of netbooks are shipped with Windows XP. The market share currently attained by Linux netbooks seems almost insignificant.

The average user may well be put off by the idea of Linux. This could be especially true if  they are already familiar with Windows XP – either at work, or from another machine at home.

Performance wise, Windows XP is not great. It will celebrate it’s 8th birthday this year. If someone had offered you a ZX Spectrum OS based device in 1990, you would have turned them down flat, no matter how good the device looked, or how much better the hardware was than the original ‘Speccy’.

That said, XP is still a workhorse and in a netbook, performs far better than Vista on like-for-like hardware. Windows XP has a strong place at the heart of a lot of netbooks until Windows 7 comes along.

The Linux installation offered with the majority of non-XP netbooks is a highly customised, largely cut-down OS. Many vendors have done a good job at making it perform well for the most common netbook tasks – web browsing, e-mail, word-processing and playing video and music. Performance is therefore quite good. Users wanting only this core functionality should definitely not overlook the Linux option.

One area where Linux can be problematic is when people try to install it on a machine that was made-for and sold-with Windows. Because of the vast range of hardware, drivers for some hardware can be hard to find,

One area where Linux absolutely cannot compete is if protected video or music is needed. This includes the download services of both Napster and BBC iPlayer.

If you plan to download programmes via iPlayer to watch on the move then absolutely stick to Windows XP. If you don’t, then you should seriously consider Linux, as it can still do just about everything else you might want it to.

What on earth could be going into this book? It’s totally safe to assume that it’s not going to be a review of all netbooks on the market, which would be too much of a departure from the rest of the series.

According to the cover, Netbook for Dummies is going to tell the reader how to compare netbook features to choose the best value, how to set-up a notebook and how to explore free online productivity applications. Also promised is information about how to surf the web and work online almost anywhere, so we can expect some in-depth information and advice about mobile broadband.

As soon as we can get a copy of this, we’ll let you have a full review.

Apart from the humorous presentation given here by David, the video is relevant for anyone who is thinking about buying their first netbook, and has so far only thought about the positive aspects.

Enjoy!