Recommend me a new tiny computer.

[synaesthetic]

I'm seriously pulling my hair out over this.

I want a replacement for my eeePC 900HD. I love this little netbook, but since my desktop went kaput, sadly a netbook just isn't enough. The battery life, which was never very great, is starting to get worse. The processor is just too weak.

Anyway, I've already asked for help on other forums, but I don't get much in the way of answers. I hope that my net cast wide will start catching some ideas on what to do.

I'll get right to the point.

What I Need:

It must be tiny!

I'm used to carrying a computer the size of a hard-bound book that weighs about two pounds. I do not want to lug around a massive seventeen-inch "desktop replacement."

Now, I can handle something larger than the 8.9" netbook I'm used to. Considering what I want to do, I don't mind bumping my size limit up to 13.3" screen sizes. I would prefer smaller, if possible, but it may not be.

It must have decent battery life.

At least six hours when unplugged. I'll probably run it off the AC adapter most of the time when at home, but it would be nice to be able to tote it around without having to bring the charger.

It must be reasonably durable.

I take care of my stuff, so it doesn't have to be a tank. Just reasonably well-built. If it's as tough as my eeePC, then it qualifies.

It must not cost too much.

I'm pretty poor too, so nothing over a grand. Unlike the hipster crowd that seems to have no problem toting around $2000 MacBooks, I don't really want to carry a theft-magnet with me wherever I go.

And the most important part of all...

It must eat any and all anime fansubs I feed it.

I am SO frustrated with the inability to watch certain new releases in high quality, or even at all when the group in question doesn't release a SD version. This is happening more and more often.

The problem with this last part is this: Most reviewers of notebook computers take HD video playback into consideration. NONE of them take softsubs into consideration.

So while an otherwise-attractive ultraportable may be able to eat 1080p video without problems, adding softsubs on top of that may ruin everything and reduce playback to a stuttering, frame-dropping, desynchronized mess. That would utterly disqualify a potential purchase.

No reviewers ever take softsubs into consideration, so I'm left with the option of buying computer after computer and returning the ones that can't keep up. I don't particularly want to do this, because that's lost time and lost money on my part.

But yeah. That's pretty much what I'm trying to find. Small size, light weight, good battery life, sturdy and well-built, plays any fansub from xvid to 1080p h.264, all of that without a Sony price tag.

Does such a thing exist?

[chikorita157]

Most netbooks have weak processors because the Intel Atom is only a basic processor for basic tasks. Netbooks are great for light use, but not really meant for intensive use like 3D gaming, encoding, programing, etc.

I have carried around a 5.5 pound Macbook Pro to college every day and I don't have many heavy textbooks since most of the textbooks I have are softbound books. I suggest checking out Thinkpads if you want durability and power, but those will be a little heavier. If not, I suggest checking out the nVidia Ion netbooks (like the HP Mini 311-100NR) that will be coming out very soon (after Windows 7 releases) and should handle 1080p fansubs with CoreAVC and CUDA. For better battery life, you may need to get a bigger cell battery, which can add additional bulk to the laptop.

Remember, Ultraportables with low power Intel Core2 Duos are expensive than the netbook counterparts, but they are marginally faster...

[synaesthetic]

I remember hearing somewhere that CUDA would not work on all fansubs due to possible differences in the encodes. If it doesn't play everything, then it's going to leave me upset.

It was a lot easier when I had a desktop to do the playing, but I don't have the room for that right now, nor do I have the money to build a proper desktop PC.

[chikorita157]

What I meant about CUDA is the CoreAVC ability to use CUDA to accelerate H264 playback. The only problem is that I don't actually own any nVidia Ion netbooks or any netbooks of any kind except a desktop made using the Intel Atom. I have used the Intel Atom and playback of 720p is a pain in the neck with drop frame mess and high CPU usage... mainly because of the GMA 950 graphics...

If you want 1080p fansubs to work for sure, you need to go for the more powerful and 2-3 pounds heavier laptops in your price range since they have more powerful CPUs (like the Core2 Duo) that can actually handle H264 HD videos since playback of H264 is CPU intensive.

Edit: Yes, they do mention at the CoreAVC website that some streams do not support CUDA acceleration with CoreAVC.

[martino]

I was in roughly the same situation as you half a year ago, and I ended up going for a 13" HP dv3500. Can't say anything bad about the laptop, apart from the not-so-nice to use touchpad.

Anyway, how about something like the Samsung Q210 (Q320 if you don't mind going a big higher; it got very good reviews last time I checked)? I think it's the smallest you can get with a dedicated graphics (not counting that "gaming netbook" by Acer). I've been out of the encoding scene for a long time now, but playback acceleration by the GPU might still not work work with some (or most?) fansubs. Most medium/higher spec'ed Core 2 Duos shouldn't have much trouble with 1080p H.264 anyway. Samsungs are fairly cheap, then there are some Asus laptops, but you should expect a higher price tag.

Just make sure to read up reviews on the Samsungs if they catch your eye, since Samsung sometimes likes to add some rather annoying features to the design of their devices that can make people wrip their hair out.

That's as far as my knowledge goes. Hope it helps.


P.S. Forgot to add... You won't get such a long battery life unless you go for a netbook or a MacBook, or carry an extra battery around with you (mind you, might be smaller than carrying a charger around :P).

[synaesthetic]

A laptop with a 12" or 13" screen is fine, just as long as it has the battery life and can play back the fansubs. I don't mind if it's a little heavier and bigger than a netbook. But again I'd rather it not weigh 10 pounds and be the size of a dinner tray.

I'll look at the HP an Samsung offerings, but I've read that HP never has good battery life. The various Acers I've looked at either may not be powerful enough or have poor battery life.

I may be stuck. This may actually be impossible. =|

[chikorita157]

With my experience with HP and Dell laptops, I suggest you to avoid those because they are poorly built and don't last more than two years. My mom had a HP and also various Dell Laptops and they simply don't last. Not to mention, they have poor tech support when something breaks and most of these laptops that Dell and HP have in that price range have poor battery life or you have to purchase a higher capacity battery that adds to the weight.

Thinkpads from what I heard are pretty durable and are business class laptops. I suggest checking out the R400 series which are priced around $700-900 depending on what you customize it, but the Intel GMA graphics card isn't going to impact the playback with H264 playback since they come with Core2 Duo processors and weigh at 5 pounds.

If not, I suggest checking the refurbished Macbooks that are priced under 1000 and they are tested models that are usually returns. The only real advantage with this is that they have long battery life (up to 7 hours) and can handle H264...

Have no experience with the Samsungs, but I assume that they don't have the poor quality builds like with the HPs and Dells my mom had used in the pass.

[synaesthetic]

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffff *explodes*

if people would just always release 480p versions I would not have this problem. ><

So I'm either stuck dealing with a netbook's gutless processor, or stuck with a heavy computer with crappy battery life, or stuck with paying way more than I can really afford.

Or finding a new hobby. >.>;

I wonder, even though CoreAVC using CUDA won't decode all streams of h.264, will DXVA through MPC-HC be able to do what CUDA can't? ION may still be worth it...

If someone could find these things out... =|

Edit: According to MPC's website an ION equipped netbook ought to be able to decode h.264 using DXVA. Wouldn't even need CoreAVC.

And with Flash 10.1 coming out soon, even HD streamed video would be possible on an ION equipped netbook.

So the HP Mini 311 is still in the running, and actually just shot to the top of it.

Seriously, the only things that bother me about my eeePC are that it chokes on 720p fansubs, and has bad battery life. The 311 has over 6 hours, that's enough. For everything else I do with the computer (I don't try to play any games on it other than Touhou, SNES emulators and zDOOM) the Atom processor is sufficient.

I'll worry about serious gaming and really intensive tasks with the desktop I plan to build later on.

[0utf0xZer0]

I wonder, even though CoreAVC using CUDA won't decode all streams of h.264, will DXVA through MPC-HC be able to do what CUDA can't? ION may still be worth it...

CoreAVC/CUDA is supposed to support more files than DXVA... I'm kind of curious as to what breaks CoreAVC's CUDA support, actually.

Review of a 1.6ghz atom + ion based desktop by a well known anime blogger. Should approximate the Mini 311 pretty well.

Anyone know how the Asus UL30A (13.3 inches, $750-800 although I'm having trouble finding stock for it) does for video playback? It's a 1.3ghz Core 2 Duo which should be fast than an Atom, but lacks an Nvidia GPU, so I suspect it would do 720P fine with CoreAVC but not 1080P.

[Dreamtale]

what for in 9-13" do you need 1080p? 0o

[martino]

Originally Posted by Dreamtale

what for in 9-13" do you need 1080p? 0o

Very good question. The max resolution of the screens won't be more than 720p anyway...

[Vexx]

Aye, whatever you do - avoid the Dell or HP brands (or buy the best insta-service warranty they offer). Both companies HAVE to offer such excellent warranties because their products fail so often (the old American car industry model of the 70s/80s).

Anecdote: my son bought a top of the line Dell for school. In the single year he's owned it - warranty repair has been out to his location 4 times, twice for the same problem (poor circuitry in the batter charging portion on the motherboard)). Small and medium sized businesses I consult for almost always try Dell or HP once.... and then move elsewhere after a year or two because of the downtime/reliability issues.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by martino

Very good question. The max resolution of the screens won't be more than 720p anyway...

What if he wants to connect it to a desktop monitor at home? I've been recommending to friends that they consider buying a netbook and using it with a USB keyboard and monitor as a desktop machine when not travelling.

@Vexx:
I'm not entirely sure what point Oliver was trying to make the other night, if any, but that was one of the funnier episodes of the Daily Show in quite some time.

But, we'll have to leave it there....

[Dreamtale]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

What if he wants to connect it to a desktop monitor at home?

Might be, but, imo, it's not rational - netbook is netbook and for home use there are many other options, more suitable... 28" or projector e.g.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Aye, whatever you do - avoid the Dell or HP brands (or buy the best insta-service warranty they offer). Both companies HAVE to offer such excellent warranties because their products fail so often (the old American car industry model of the 70s/80s).

Anecdote: my son bought a top of the line Dell for school. In the single year he's owned it - warranty repair has been out to his location 4 times, twice for the same problem (poor circuitry in the batter charging portion on the motherboard)). Small and medium sized businesses I consult for almost always try Dell or HP once.... and then move elsewhere after a year or two because of the downtime/reliability issues.

I guess you are not the only one that have problems with Dell and HP...

My experiences with HP and Dell is horrible... Here is the problems I had over the years:

Dell Dimension 2350: Loud fan issue
HP Pavilion Ze series: Loose LCD Hinge, broken power plug
Dell Inspiron 9100 : Overheating issues, DVD drive won't read some discs properly or scratches them, one of the keys pop off.
Dell Inspiron 6000: Overheating issues, failed hard drive, key pop off
Dell Dimension 8400: DVD Drive stopped working, loud fans
HP Pavilion dv9000 series: Computer refuses to boot up, no BIOS screen or LCD screen turning on

Meanwhile, my 2006 Macbook Pro haven't had any problems while most of the PCs in my family are having something break. I don't know if other PC companies beside from Dell and HP have quality problems like this, but Dell and HP doesn't seem to care about the quality of their machines...

Also, HP Mini is not the only notebook that have the nVidia ION. Samsung and Lenovo have their models to with the Lenovo Ideapad S12 and Samsung N510.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Aye, whatever you do - avoid the Dell or HP brands (or buy the best insta-service warranty they offer). Both companies HAVE to offer such excellent warranties because their products fail so often (the old American car industry model of the 70s/80s).

Anecdote: my son bought a top of the line Dell for school. In the single year he's owned it - warranty repair has been out to his location 4 times, twice for the same problem (poor circuitry in the batter charging portion on the motherboard)). Small and medium sized businesses I consult for almost always try Dell or HP once.... and then move elsewhere after a year or two because of the downtime/reliability issues.

I keep wondering if a large part of this isn't due to these companies trying to build thinner laptops with components that have fairly high power draw and heat output. My Inspiron 1501 went 2.5 years without needing warranty service, and even then it was still running fine - it was just running hotter than I'd like. Dell sent the thing back saying they'd tightened the heatsink mounts and cleaned the thing out, and that seemed to fix the problem.

I mention this because the Inspiron 1501 is thicker than modern laptops and hence has more interior space. I don't think its coincidence that the thing runs much, much cooler than most newer laptops, including my brother's year old Inspiron 1525, which has already required cleaning to prevent overheating (no warrenty work necessary there - my dad's has a shopvac).

If my theory is correct, then Atom and CULV powered designs should be more reliable than a lot of the notebooks out there today simply because they run a lot cooler.

Originally Posted by chikorita157

Meanwhile, my 2006 Macbook Pro haven't had any problems while most of the PCs in my family are having something break. I don't know if other PC companies beside from Dell and HP have quality problems like this, but Dell and HP doesn't seem to care about the quality of their machines...

My dad works for the IT department of a large company and despite trial runs with cheaper manufacturers, most of their machines are Thinkpads. I don't know if Lenovo's consumer machines are a sturdy though.

I'm not particularly surprised that most of your problems seem to involve fans or DVD drives breaking - I custom build my desktops using quality parts and even I have those die on occasion. GPU fans tend to be the worst because they're hard to get replacements for - but usually if I've gotten 2-3 years out of a graphics card I'm about ready to replace it anyway. Power supplies are another part that tends to go, although I've never had a name brand (Antec, Enermax, Corsair, etc.) PSU go on me - just the cheap ones.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Dreamtale

what for in 9-13" do you need 1080p? 0o

Same reason I keep trying to play 720p on my 8.9", 1024x600 resolution display.

There were no other encodes available for a given series.

Making sure the machine can handle 1080p is future-proofing it and ensuring it will last functionally as long as it will last physically. If the current state of things is any indication, 1080p will become the HD standard.

Not too long ago, there were more XviD releases than h.264 releases. Now, that isn't the case, and there are more 720p h.264 releases than 480p releases. The number of "problems playing x encode" threads in this very forum has sharply increased with the resolution progression.

So yeah, it seems silly, but that's the reason. I would be stressing a lot less about this if every series I wanted to watch had a 480p h.264 version, which my year-old eeePC plays back just fine.

Personally I don't really care about super-high quality on a portable. I just want to be able to watch a given series without problems.

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

CoreAVC/CUDA is supposed to support more files than DXVA... I'm kind of curious as to what breaks CoreAVC's CUDA support, actually.

CoreAVC 1.9.5 currently only supports h.264 encodes with a maximum of 15 reference frames. The absolute maximum for the format is 16 reference frames.

CoreAVC 2.0, coming out sometime after Windows 7's release, should support hardware decoding of h.264 with the absolute maximum of reference frames.

DXVA in Windows XP supports only a maximum of 14 reference frames, but in Vista and Windows 7, DXVA supports 16.

So either way, I win with an ION equipped netbook.

And really... I've known several people who have owned HP machines, and they have never had problems with them. There are other ION solutions, but most of them are much more expensive than HP's variant.

I'm still waiting to see how much the ION-equipped eeePC will be. I'm rather partial to Asus in general, and if the 1201N has a price point comparable to the Mini 311, then I'll probably go that direction.

My 900HD has held up astonishingly well, and I've never had bad luck with Asus at all.

[hobbes_fan]

Is re-encoding not an option? software like Super, Handbrake and alltoavi are free and easy. It seems tome that that is the easiest and cheapest solution. Considering you seem to be satisfied with your netbook andthe fact that HD and true HD resolutions are unsupported by most of these tiny screens.

Unfortunately the biggest hurdle right now in mobile computing is the battery - Battery tech has not kept up with other advancements. It's been that way for 20 years. I wouldn't expect ION chipsets to provide 6 hours battery life. Most data I've seen indicates it will use around 10-15% more power over what's in your current netbook.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

CoreAVC 1.9.5 currently only supports h.264 encodes with a maximum of 15 reference frames. The absolute maximum for the format is 16 reference frames.

CoreAVC 2.0, coming out sometime after Windows 7's release, should support hardware decoding of h.264 with the absolute maximum of reference frames.

DXVA in Windows XP supports only a maximum of 14 reference frames, but in Vista and Windows 7, DXVA supports 16.

Does DXVA work with all H.264 encodes under Windows 7 then? I'd be interested in knowing that, especially since I'm currently on an ATI board and can't use CUDA...

(Edit: okay, it doesn't help me because I'm using an ATI card. Does everything work on Nvidia though?)

[hobbes_fan]

dxva is directx video acceleration. It's Microsoft tech so brand of card plays no part as long as the card supports it. Any Ati card from the HD2xxxseries and higher will do it. Any Nvidia card from the 8xxx series and up will do it. Pretty much any card from NVIDiA and Ati from the last couple of years

Here's how to enable it. (uninstall CCCP first) you can't have anything in between
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/DXVASupport.html
I don't use any other players so if you KMPlayer or something else you'd have to check with them.



Makes a massive difference I'll try to do a comparison
of
MPC+DXVA
MPC+Coreavc
MPC and CCCP

to show the massive difference DXVA makes. Just need to find a CPU logging softwre that will do5 second increments over 20 mins