Originally Posted by
MVF Trekker
I need a tablet/netbook for an upcoming extended travel. I'm leaning towards the Asus Transformer. Would you recommend it?
I want to use it to surf the web, check emails while I'm on the road traveling. Don't want to bring something too expensive like the iPad that might get lost/stolen or something too big or heavy like a laptop.
For what you're doing, the Asus Transformer (or one of the newer versions of that) may be a good call; make sure to try the keyboard in person if you can. It's definitely one of the better tablet+keyboard solutions -- not good for serious document prep or coding, but probably acceptable for heavy email use for most people.
Originally Posted by
kyunbit
I am hoping there would be back to school deals on these from next week. Samsung Series 9/HP Folio/Asus are available ~$600. I am not an apple fanboy and don't care about looks. Will the Macbook Air provide any additional advantages?
If you don't like the MacOS, I'd steer clear of the MacBook Air. One can run Windows on it, but instead of "just working" it becomes an bit of chore with drivers -- what most people try to avoid in buying a Mac. The construction, battery life, and screen quality are all very good. I don't like the keyboard, but then, I don't like the basic chiclet style of keyboard that is taking over the industry and is shared with every single ultrabook out there.
Both the HP Folio and Samsung Series 9 are available with both i5 and i3 processors; I'd avoid the i3, if possible. I'd expect the $600ish systems to be i3s, but you might find a deal on an i5.
Probably out of budget at around $1000, but the Asus UX21 (11.6" ultrabook) looks like one of the sweetest travel notebooks out there, and has a ULV i5.
How large are the LaTeX documents you're working with? How heavily graphical? Book-length stuff (eg a PhD dissertation) are going to be a lot more painful on a low end processor than 10-12 page papers.