For those that respond, thanks in advance.

I've got a dell laptop that is 6 years old. It had 2000 on it. I upgraded to xp for the os. I work on inter-tel systems with it. Among other programs that I use.

I found that with Vista, inter-tel and other programs don't work.

I've seen Netbook, with xp as the os on them at a seemly good price.

Salesperson couldn't tell me if a usb\serial unit would work on the unit.

I hate to spend monez on a Vista os laptop , to downgrade the os to xp.

Anyone have anz experience with Netbooks.
Wonld they be useful or not.

Thanks

Mike

I have a bunch of them. USB to serial adapters work well.

If your programs work with XP then you'll be fine.

--Bill.

You can still get Dell D530's with XP if you hurry. Those have a serial port and is what I use. Microsoft has delayed once again the demise of XP until something like April, so it's good that people have been vocal about Vista.

-Hal

Any business class dell (Desktop of laptop) can be ordered with Vista business, which also include the licensing for XP professional. Just make sure they send it out with XP pro pre installed.

Hal, I have a D530 also, I got it in December of 08 and it's been great. I just took a look and don't see them on Dell's site anymore. They do still have the D630.

i just grabbed an Avertec netbook. Using a USB adapter I have been able to everything i could do with my full size note book. So far i love it. Battery time can become an issue though. This one is running XP

Don't count on being able to downgrade from Vista to XP. Some of the new HP laptops are coming out with a BIOS that is hard coded for Vista. :bang: :bang:

We have them and have not had any problems with the usb/serial devices.

my experience with the netbooks is that even with lots of ram they can be ridicoulously slow. You can get some of the dell latitudes (with serial ports) for a reasonable price and they are reasonably small

I've had my netbook for 7-8 months now and I don't think I could ever go back to a full size laptop for work. There are a few times having a larger screen while programming a system would be nice, but having such a small package more than makes up for it.

It is SO nice to be able to just drop the laptop in my tool bag, or carry it in by itself for quick service calls.

If you plan to only have a single portable computer for programming and office/home use, then you would be better off with a larger laptop.

Also, I use the Belkin usb to serial adapters with zero problems with anything I've tried to use it on. They seem to work on things that are said to only work on "real" serial ports. For example, a weather station I have that only uses the "rts" and "dtr" pins for data transfer works perfectly even though the manufacturer states very clearly on the box to NOT use usb converters.

Thanks to all the replies.

Is there one netbook that is better than another. I see acer has one, but the reports on their reliablity is questionable.

I haven't heard much on the hp model. There is one model thaqt uses flash memory for the hard drive. While the ones with the hard drives dtrend to fail easily.

Any suggestion on where or what to look for a netbook.
It's nice they are on xp. No problems running the programs that I use now.

Thanks,

Mike

the only netbooks ive dealt with are dell, as a word processor, terminal or internet box though they have thier place