[barleyguy]

Greetings. I've been planning to get a Dell Mini 9. It's a fanless netbook with SSD (I'd get an aftermarket 32GB). It would be for a music source, light gaming, web browsing etc. The point would be that it's light and fanless, so I don't have to carry my full size notebook or have fan noise.

(I already have an Asus N81 laptop. It's dual core with Radeon graphics. But it's too heavy to carry 100% of the time, and too much fan noise to use as a music source in my bedroom.)

But then I was thinking: An iPod touch would also work as a music source, will play games, is fanless, and will browse the web. And it's even lighter than a netbook.

The price between the two is identical. A Dell Mini 9 is $209 as a refurb, and the SSD adds $90. The 3rd gen 32 GB touch is $299. For the mini 9 I'd need a DAC, and for the touch I'd need a dock connector.

So, I'd like to get some opinions. Which would you rather have, a fanless netbook or an iPod touch? How does the sound quality on the 3rd gen touch (amped from the dock connector) compare to an inexpensive USB DAC? (Does anybody have a 3rd gen touch yet?)

Thanks,

Harley.

 

[Duggeh]

If I didn't have my iPod Touch or my MSI Wind, and had the money for one, I'd pick the Wind. But I need it for university, as opposed to wanting it for music.

Do you already have an mp3 player? Yes. So the netbook seems the more prudent choice.

 

[psikey]

I have a Samsung N110 netbook and a 3G Touch 64GB.

The N110 has really good music playback but its nowhere near the Quality of the Touch. I can even use my Bluetooth earphones with the N110 which sound great.

As for movies, the Netbook is the clear winner. Mine can even process 720p video & looks amazing on the 10" screen.

Gaming is a difficult one. Depends what type of games you like. You won't be playing modern PC games on the Netbook.

The N110 is also better for battery life for everything other than pure music playback.

Just to point out that the Samsung N110 has a fan but you never really hear it, has 160GB hard drive and battery life is upto 8hrs with easily 6 for watching movies.

If I were to only have one, it would be the Netbook.

 

[GTL]

A DAC's SQ would be much better than the touch.

 

[Punnisher]

I'd get a netbook. It would be far more versatile. I'm about to get one soon, I think.

I'm sure you will find more use for it for your money, since you already have a portable player.

 

[barleyguy]

Cool. Thanks. Four votes for a netbook so far. I probably won't buy both, at least in the short term. Out a year, maybe I'll end up with both. But we can base the premise on only being able to choose one or t' other.

As far as gaming, I mentioned that I already have a full size laptop. It's got a Radeon 4650. The netbook would be mostly older games (such as Heroes of Might and Magic III) and I could pre-select them based on the requirements of the netbook. But that's the gaming question - how does gaming on an iTouch compare to vintage PC gaming?

(BTW, it needs to be silent. Zero decibels. No hard drives, no fans. Like as in "if you used it in a recording studio with Rode NT1A condensers, would you reduce the 128 dB noise floor?" That's how silent I want it to be. I turn my Mac Mini off at night to get rid of the hard drive noise, and it's fanless.)

 

[psikey]

OK so totally silent.

The Touch has some really good games. I'm especially hooked on Peggle at the moment and Rolando is also great.

But, I can also play the likes of Baldurs Gate II with the widescreen mod on my Netbook which looks & plays fantastic (not really tried anything else).

I'd still go for the Netbook. You get a lot more functionality for your money and it ticks all your boxes. Once prices drop, you can even increase the SSD size to say 128 or 256GB which you couldn't do with the Touch.

I've connected my Netbook to an HDTV in PremierInn hotels to the VGA port and watched 720p mkv files which look near bluray quality. If using my Shure SE530's straight out of the headphone socket then the Touch is far supperior but as you say, using a DAC should be great.

Not sure how fussy you are with audio quality but with my SonyEricsson DS980 bluetooth in-ear earphones I can listen to tracks in WMP11 while moving around cableless and the play/pause/volume/Next/Previous controls on the earphones all work.

 

[barleyguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by psikey /img/forum/go_quote.gif OK so totally silent. The Touch has some really good games. I'm especially hooked on Peggle at the moment and Rolando is also great. But, I can also play the likes of Baldurs Gate II with the widescreen mod on my Netbook which looks & plays fantastic (not really tried anything else). I'd still go for the Netbook. You get a lot more functionality for your money and it ticks all your boxes. Once prices drop, you can even increase the SSD size to say 128 or 256GB which you couldn't do with the Touch. I've connected my Netbook to an HDTV in PremierInn hotels to the VGA port and watched 720p mkv files which look near bluray quality. If using my Shure SE530's straight out of the headphone socket then the Touch is far supperior but as you say, using a DAC should be great. Not sure how fussy you are with audio quality but with my SonyEricsson DS980 bluetooth in-ear earphones I can listen to tracks in WMP11 while moving around cableless and the play/pause/volume/Next/Previous controls on the earphones all work.

Sorry for the long winded explanation of "silent". Just wanted to get my point across of how much I really want fanless.

The VGA port is an advantage all its own. I thought I heard of someone coming up with a video out for the touch. Wireless listening is a cool thing too, though I'd be more likely to use some soft of attachment, like the Kleer protocol stuff that Sleek sells. That doubles as turning customs into stage monitors. Not that I'll probably be on stage as a performer.

So, no votes for the touch? I'm thinking about ordering a Mini 9 then.

 

[Kobra]

I'd go with the Touch as you already have a laptop. I used to own a netbook, had it for about eight months and used it almost daily. My main reason to get one was to use it as a music source and for web browsing while away from home. As the days went by, the netbook was used less and less outside of the house. And while at home I preferred my Desktop PC... the netbook eventually only saw it's used as a music source for late night headphone sessions.

I've now switched from PC to MAC. I have a MacBook Pro and a iPhone 3GS. The desktop PC is still there, but I plan to reinstall it as a Hackintosh.

The iPhone is GREAT! And this is why: I always carry it with me (as it's my phone

), mobile Safari is sufficient for those times I feel the urge to go online, the SQ is better than my iPod 5.5, since the launch of the 3GS the iPhone games has made a big leap in content and looks, I have push sync with both personal and professional e-mail and calendar, "there's a app for everything"

The whole idea of a netbook, to me, was to have a small and portable internet/music device with me when out and about. Unfortunately the netbooks aren't that small and they suffer from heat and noise issues, but the biggest fault of them is Windows... I tried both XP, 7 and some Linux distros but never felt satisfied with either of 'em.

Get yourself a Touch or a iPhone, you wont regret it!

Here's a quote from Cnet on iPhone 3G vs a Netbook:
Quote:

But if you value being able to access the Internet at all times with a device that you can carry in your pocket, and you like the idea of having GPS and other features, such as all the third-party programs from the new Apple app store, we'd suggest the iPhone 3G. As for what we'd choose, well, we really like netbooks, but the iPhone 3G's features and size make it a winner in our eyes. It's not a perfect device by any means, but it does offer a truly portable Internet experience -- at better value for money, we feel. Combined with the ability to make calls and get directions on the go, that makes it one cool cat.

My thoughts and experience as well...

 

[darkswordsman17]

I owned/used both a netbook (Asus 1000HE) and iPod Touch. I found the Touch to be more suitable for my uses. The netbook was more versatile, but it was just too small for me personally, which really bothered me (it was just small enough that it hindered being able to use it, whereas I was willing to accept the tradeoff in usability for the form factor of the Touch). If you have to do any work at all, then obviously the netbook will be better, but I think in other aspects its roughly a wash. Battery life I don't think will be that much different, and the Touch I would expect to last longer than the lower end netbooks that have like 2-3 hour battery life.

A netbook, in my opinion makes more sense as a supplement to a desktop. Gaming on a netbook would be a joke (although I'd probably say it wouldn't really be worse than a Touch, although its more preference, I've never found a laptop to have useable ergonomics for playing any game).

I have been using one of the newer Acer Timelines, and its about perfect (size, powerful enough, excellent battery life, usability), however its more expensive (I bought the one with dual core and SSD, so it was $799). I think you can get one with a HDD for about $500, but it has a single core CPU. However, I don't really need a full fledged computer, so I'm thinking of trading it for a Touch or iPhone.

Of course we seem to use them very differently, I don't really watch videos on the go or play games (and the ones for the Touch would be fine for me).

 

[sno1man]

I'll chime in as I had a post a month or so ago about using a netbook as source.

I think it really depends on what you want out of it. I wanted a 'as few pieces as possible" kit which precluded even an amp. Basically just the source and my etys or shures.

Sadly after trying multiple books including the dell 9 and 10 and also a sony, i found that sq was just lacking straight out of the audio outs on the netbook. There was static and weird noises and difficulty controlling the volume with precision. The one thing that all of them could do was get extremely LOUD.

Adding an external USB DAC was an option but i figured at that point i wasn't gaining anything over carrying the ipod and the ipod sounded fine to my ears.

 

[barleyguy]

Oh, something I just thought of that I forgot to mention. One of the reasons I want either a Touch or a netbook is for listening to streaming Internet radio. I'm a premium subscriber of DI.FM and SKY.FM. My current Zen doesn't have WiFi.

So that's another side topic - Is the iTouch a good platform for Internet radio? It appears to work, based on what I read in this thread:

Stream DI to iPhone? - Page 5 - DI Forums Board

The netbook, however, supports all of the possible streaming formats, and allows me to choose applications, etc.

I still haven't decided which of these to go with. I'm hoping to order one or the other this week so I can have it as a source at RMAF on the 3rd of October.

 

[Punnisher]

My friend did use his touch to access some kind of online radio. I think it was Yahoo. Pretty cool, but I'd rather have the Netbook for college use.

 

[barleyguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Punnisher /img/forum/go_quote.gif My friend did use his touch to access some kind of online radio. I think it was Yahoo. Pretty cool, but I'd rather have the Netbook for college use.

That's a good point. I'm planning to go to recording school in March. A netbook would be really handy. My laptop is way heavier, and I don't know if they are OK with fan noise.

Also, I'm not locked in to the sound quality of the netbook if I'm not happy with it, because I can upgrade the DAC. With a Touch, if I'm not happy with the quality from the dock, there's not that much I can do. I suspect it would be OK though.

I've been waffling back and forth since about Thursday.

 

[Punnisher]

They are both tempting devices, but I would never be OK with browsing on the touch. It's just too damned small.

I'm researching Netbooks right now. My only real requirement is a matte screen that's at least 10".