[gui-talk] NetBooks

[Wayne Merritt]

Hi. I've got an Asus EEE PC, 1000HE, running Windows XP Home and JAWS
11, and have had no problems with it at all. I love the instant
wireless connection with the netbook. Much better than having to worry
about a wireless card with a ntoetaker, and much lighter than a
notetaker. It seems that the Asus models in particular and other
netbooks in general are getting longer battery life. For instance, a
year ago my coworkers were getting models with 3.5-5 or 6 hours of
battery life. When I got mine last September, 9.5 was the advertised
life, but I usually get around 8. I get a little more if I turn the
screen off. Though the keys may seem smaller or flat, they're easy to
type on but may take some getting used to, as far as positioning goes.
I don't make as many errors when typing than I do on the desktop PC's
I use at work and home. In fact, I'm writing this on my netbook, but I
proof all of my messages before they go out so you probably wouldn't
see any errors anyway, grin. I know of other blind folk that have
gotten netbooks from Acer and MSI. I like the Asus because, at least
the model I have, has 2 control keys and 2 function keys. You use the
function keys in combination with the arrows to produce the home/end
and page up/down keys, and most of these keys are all together with
the right hand so it makes things easier when having to use various
key combos. I also like all the connectivity options with  netbook.
Aside from wireless, there's several USB ports, and SD HC card slot,
an RJ45 ethernet connection port, a video connection, and so forth. If
you can't connect with this range of ports, then we need to talk, :)
All this in addition to Bluetooth support.

One other note about running Windows 7 on a netbook: I'm not sure I'd
recommend this. I'm all for upgrading and moving forward. I've heard
though from two different sources I trust that Windows 7 uses a third
more battery power than other versions of Windows. In other words, if
you're netbook has 12 hours of battery life, Widnows 7 will use a
third of that and give you only 8 hours total. I'm not willing to
chance that on a portable computer. A desktop perhaps since it's
always plugged in, but every hour/minute I can get from a portable
solution is well used and well earned for me.

Hth,
Wayne

On 2/1/10, Cindy Handel <cindy425 at verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> I have a Toshiba NB205 Net Book.  It came with one gig of ram, which I
> upgraded to two.  It has Windows 7 Starter on it and I have JAWS 11
> installed.  I like it very much.  No problems with JAWS and I really like
> the keyboard layout and size of the keys.
>
> Cindy
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kris Hickerson" <krishickerson at att.net>
> To: "gui-talk" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 5:37 PM
> Subject: [gui-talk] NetBooks
>
>
> Hi List,
>
> I would be interested to know how well the netbooks work with JAWS and if
> any one has a particular recommendation?  I'd like to get a netbook with
> Windows 7 on it so that I could work with that and keep XP on my desktop.
> Then I would also like to use it to try out various software to see how it
> works and if I like it before I install it on my main computer.
>
> Thanks for any info.
>
> Kris
>
>
>
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