Verizon Netbook?

[Shawn Gossman]

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/netbook/index.jsp

Would these make a good chaser laptop? I am considering this as a source for radar when I chase and am wondering how others feel about it?

 

[Brett Benson]

Most any sort of netbook would be fine for a radar program (GRL3 takes very little RAM to run), and web access, but not much else. Most netbooks max out at 1GB, with a couple that have 2GB. Of the three on that link, I would go with the HP 311. From a quick google search, it apparently has a glossy screen, which will make it very difficult to see in a vehicle during the day without good shade. Also, I have no idea what kind of compatibility these things have with cell signal amps, most of the time on netbooks with 3G built in they put the antenna in the bezel. I would check to see if there is an external antenna port somewhere for the 3G card; if you do not plan on using a booster, not a big deal.

 

[Dave Marshall]

None of the Verizon netbooks had an external antenna port from the research I did about a month ago. You would be stuck using one of those wireless 'repeater' style amplifiers, which can be pretty spendy.

As for capability, I had an HP 2133 with a slower processor than that HP311. It ran GRLevel3, SN, Delorme Maps, Firefox, and VZ Access Manager under Windows XP no sweat with 2GB of ram. Delorme could be a little slow at times when you were really asking a lot from it, but it was very usable. The newer HPs are a bit more capable than that 2133, so if you can find a model that can at least be upgraded to 2GB of ram, you should be sitting pretty. I will say that of the 4 netbooks I've tried, only 2 really handled Adobe FME very well, so streaming from it could be hit or miss.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Not sure what kind of video card is in those, but you'd be better off just getting a Laptop & Air card.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100, its a few years old. Would I be better off using it instead? I will have to update it a bit and put some drivers in and that.

 

[Brett Benson]

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100, its a few years old. Would I be better off using it instead? I will have to update it a bit and put some drivers in and that.

The Dell Inspiron 5100 specs from a PC Magazine search are as follows:

Specs: 2.4-GHz Pentium 4, 256MB RAM, 30GB hard drive, 15-inch 1,024-by-768 LCD, DVD/CD-RW drive, wired and wireless Ethernet, Microsoft Windows XP Home

If yours has those specs, the netbooks would be better.