I looked at them and they seem cheaply made, wouldn’t last on my inspections. Palms and be thrown in tool bag and brought into crawlspace with ease. And as battery goes…last all day!
Darren many people have dropped them and they keep working.
What do you mean look cheaply made?
The atom processor is new tech.
They cost less than Palm , which is a dying brand.
However you should stick with what makes you comfortable.
They cost $249.00 in store down from $499. The battery doesn’t even make it 3hrs unless you spend another 149 on the 6 cell. Also some ver. are Linux OS. As for why I say cheap is cause the return center had a pile of them returned, that is always a bad sign in my eyes.
Actually they all run XP & Linux (which some HI software runs on). The newer 900 & 1000 series have no price difference between the two. They have more processing power than a PDA, much larger hard drives and you can finish your report and print on them. I’ve been using one for over a year, taking it with me when I travel and they hold up well. I also know quite a few home inspectors using the EEE 700 series. The newer versions just came out. The new series batteries on the 900 series are over 5 hours (see http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220441 ).
They are a little larger than a PDA so it’s really up to you on what you like personally. But if the deciding factor is just price, you have more options now.
Just bought the Acer with 8 hour battery and fast boot for $399 at microcenter .
Taking it out of the box now.
I also just bought the acer 8.9 inch screen with 6 cell (5.5 hr) batt. for $349 plus shipping. Nice little padded case for $15. Comes with an optional mouse even. They go up and down…three days after I bought mine they went up to $379 and a few days after that they were $329…
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I just decided this week to go with a PPC and Pocket HG. I’ll set it up tomorrow and try it out on Thursday.
I bought the Dell mini. It was okay, had no optical drive. Could only add software using a media stick. Only 16g hard drive. Kept it for 2 weeks and sent it back.
That’s the whole point of the mini and other netbooks! They have solid state hard drives which means no moving parts. So you can shake them and knock them around a lot more than a device that has a real hard drive in it (which consists of platters and needles like a record player). If you add a optical drive you’re making it a lot thicker and heavier. If that’s what you’re looking for get a tablet pc that has a removable optical drive.
Been using the Acre Aspire One for about a year now. All reports are done on it and take it everywhere. Quick internet capabilities.
Tough unit(I’m not easy on these computers), have dropped a couple of times and it keeps on ticking.
As to downloading software, if I can’t get it from the internet and have to disc it, I use an inexpensive writter I picked up for $57 that I can write to or download from.
Great for travel.
Works for all Inspection software I’ve tried and is really good with HIP software as well as HG.
Highly recommend for the price. Under $400.
Allan
Starts down at $299 now! http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2034940772%201721545053&bop=And&Order=PRICE
Be sure and keep an eye open and make sure you get one with a larger batt. The 3 cell only has 2.5 hours of run time. The 6 has 5.5 and I hear the 9 has like 8 hours of run time.
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I use the Pocket HG with an IPAQ. Works very well for me.