Question from a almost impulse buyer

After reading about various netbooks over the last week, I came very close to buying a AAO at Office Despot yesterday. But I figure its better to do more research.

My question is SSD vs HDD.

I plan on carrying my new netbook in a backpack and taking it with me everywhere I go. My main concerns are battery life and durability. The SSD then seems like what I should buy. However, does anyone here have the HDD version and take it with them on the go a lot? Is it able to take a shaking-up or will it fail? I am concerned that 16GB of storage, 8 of it being in an SDHC card, might not be enough. Does windows XP not really work well on SSD? This will probably end up being my primary computer for the time being, at college and my old HP Pavilion laptop stays at my parents house.

Also, what would happen if I decided to wait until, say, April? Will any new options from Acer or Asus perhaps be available? I figure I could always make this a birthday present to myself, and that something more advanced would be out by then, along with more details on what to expect and need with Windows 7. So yeah, what would you say? Honestly the $349 price point can't be beat and if you think they are only going to get more expensive if I wait then say something...

 

I have had a HDD version for a couple weeks now. I've been carrying it to work every day in a cheap full size laptop case with a marble mouse and the charger.While I have tried to be careful with it I haven't obsessed over it, and I haven't had any problems with it. The build quality of these little netbooks seems to me to be pretty sturdy and able to take a little abuse.

D

 

I have the SSD, and with an additional SD card I'm quite happy with storage - but it depends what you want to store. There's a new 10" version coming out soon, so you might expect some price drops.
If you want to use it all day, the 6 cell battery version would be worth looking into.

 

I bought my AAO for when i went on a trip to Canada, and that was a 4 days road trek going there. I have the HDD version and it survived the extreme cold of Canada (-40c/40f), my busy family, switching between several hotels, and many weeks of it getting bumped around from traveling so much. I have had no problems with my AAO and its Hard Drive, and if it survived that torture test perfectly fine, then you should have no problems.

Remember that net books are meant for travel more then notebooks, due to their size. Go for the extra space, its what saved me with all my games and movies on it.

EDIT: the only case i used was the leather pouch that comes with it to protect it from scratches. so it still got full force of all the bumps of travel

 

This.

 

I carry my HDD AAO to and from work everyday in the harsh Canadian cold and it's working fine. But if you're prone to climbing mountains or shaking your laptop like a newborn, you may want to consider another brand.