Netbooks forum: Good netbook for a college student?

But take it with a grain of salt that you can head down to Walmart and get a netbook for under 300 there and with some care it will last a very long time.

FAIR AND LOUD WARNING! Many write later they can't reinstall the OS after they installed Torrent apps and crashed the OS. If you are the dangerous user type and take chances, beg, borrow, buy a DVDRW drive early and make the recovery media since "you don't want to know" how much a shop charges for recovery.
Bob

Berner_girl, for your modest needs literally any netbook will do. Just make sure it runs Microsoft Windows operating system. Some inexpensive netbooks do not include Windows, and you would have difficult time using common desktop applications you are likely used to.

Also, note the hard drive size. Some netbooks may just include a small solid-sate hard drive, or memory, and that may not give you enough space for installing the applications you require, and/or your data.

Also see if the screen size of the netbook is sufficient for your needs.

Other than the three items above, I cannot really think of another critical item. Just look for something that has the right color, looks pretty, etc.

My needs are modest, too. Any netbook on the market today has sufficient CPU power to run the usual office applications I need. I just wish manufacturers would include more RAM memory than just the usual 1GB. You may want to, at the time of purchase, ask the seller to install the maximum allowable amount of RAM memory. It may only cost you additional $25 to $50, but having 2GB or 3GB or RAM memory, instead of just 1GB, will make a noticeable performance improvement.

Good luck.