Netbook for degree work, yay or nay?

[MrsShrekTheThird]

Have had laptops for the past 9 years or so - first one cost a month's wages
These days my budget is somewhat smaller, and my current laptop is about to kick its proverbial bucket - but I'm doing a postgrad degree, just need to know whether I can realistically do assignments and view course materials on a netbook. Or not....

Personally i would say no as most netbooks lack a CD/DVD ROM drive. Which imo is pretty essential for backing up key work when studying.

However, I only have a net book atm and can managed most things - except print. musttrytofindprinterdriversonlineascantinstallfromdisk.

There are plenty of free or cheap online back up systems and I have never seen a driver not online, so I wouldn't use that as a deciding factor.

What would be a deciding factor is memory. If you are just using it to take notes in class, write papers, etc, a netbook would be fine. If you are doing a graphics degree or other computer memory intensive sort of thing, it would not work.

I would say no.

I did my undergrad dissertation on an early eeepc and my hands hurt for months afterwards.

The screens are pretty small so it making viewing PDF files tricky and they're not that quick, they don't have much memory so you have to keep everything on USB keys and if you're doing it with the OU I found when I moved on to studying with them that my netbook wouldn't open some of the multimedia online materials AND it didn't have the CD/DVD drive so I couldn't access them that way.

You can get a decent laptop got about. £250 as prices have come down. I think you may regret a netbook

If you're doing that much typing on a laptop or netbook you could get a cheap full size keyboard. I think someone posted a link to a really cheap one recently.

If you're worried about storage space buy a couple of large capacity memory sticks. A 4Gb stick is about £8.

I felt sure they were cheaper at Ebuyer last week, maybe there was a half-price deal on then...

Anyway 15ish quid is still not bad for both mouse and keyboard, though a simple USB keyboard at Asda Living might be under a fiver, to give someone a decent size keyboard with separate number pad and cursor keys, rather than 2/3/4 functions on a key.

ahhhhh. brilliant info thank you all :)
frakkin yes it's OU, so that's another bit of info worth knowing, ta, about the files I mean.

Thinking the lowest form of life in laptops is looking like the best bet then?