I was looking at Netbooks at Best Buy.  They have one regular price $429 for $99 if you sign a 2 year agreement Sprint or Verizon for air card.  You only get 5GB of air for $60 a month.  How long can expect 5GB last?  They said if just surfing and e-mail I will never use 5GB.  But if I watch YouTube or down load music it could use it up quick.  

Any one have any experience with the Netbooks?  I am using cable for my internet now and want to lower my bill plus have ability to have it with me on the road.

Darn.

I've heard of giving away the razor to sell blades, but that's ridiculous.

The aircard is built into the netbook as I understand it. There are methods for setting your netbook to act as a router for your other computers. However, I'm on verizon's service (because I don't have many other service choices) and I wouldn't recommend it for a primary internet connection. Youtube is iffy most of the time and its not good for online gaming. 5GB is fine for some people and for others not enough. For me... not nearly enough.


-Foxxz

I use Verizon and have a netbook. I have never got near the 5gb cap and use it A LOT, also, youtube works fine for me.

It's about a $299 or $250 netbook at best, the $429 MSRP is silliness.



Remember when you could get a computer with a $500 rebate from a 2yr AOL contract? Same thing.





The 5Gb limit would be good for about an hour with me. Take that as you will.

Overage will likely hurt. Real bad.



 

Really?







I blow through 50-60Gb every time I fire up uT.





Though I don't use my netbook for that... so I guess it depends what you use it for.


If it's not your main system and not your main connection, you'd probably be fine.
ETA: OP wants to dump cable and roll with Verizon? Big mistake IMO.
 

$60 a month sounds way to high.  I get 5gb a month for $30.  The 5gb limit sucks ass, though so I will not be on it for long.

A 10" netbook should cost you around $300.  Keep your current cable connection at home and use free wifi on the road.

Yeah, really. And it is my primary connection, I am an OTR truck driver. I When I am layed over waiting for a load, it is not uncommon to see 8+ hour sessions, and I have NEVR had an overage. and I have no idea what uT is so i can'tt comment on that.


ETA: A screen shot of my usage log.  Note the bottom line - 332 sessions, 2348.0mb, 611:49:38 hours

I'm currently here on my netbook. It's a dell mini 10v. I love it.

Do your research before buying. I got mine for 287 to my door. It's a refurbished but still has the full one year warrenty through Dell.

The internet I use on it is t-mobile web. I teather my phone through bluetooth. the internet through my phone only costs about 7 dollars a month extra on my phone.  there are ways of doing it through other providers but I personally like t-mobile.

I would think for email and some web surfing, 5GB a month may be a little hard to use up.  Factoring in where you can get on WiFi and such, YMMV.   I had an air card for my laptop when I worked at Dell, since so much was locked down on their network, I needed a way around it.  The air card was perfect.  IIRC, it was about $70/mo for unlimited bandwidth... but that was before there were lots of concerns with users using a shit-ton of air time.



I don't know about being an OTR trucker, but don't many truck stops have WiFi?  If they did, you could probably get by just fine with the 5GB limit.  Just keep in mind not to watch videos and shit on YouTube unless you're on WiFi.  Also be sure you can TURN OFF the cellular card to prevent unintentional usage, and be sure to keep the provider's site bookmarked so you can sign in and check your account.





Personally, I think a 10" netbook with a built-in wireless card would be a kick ass solution for a trucker these days.  

dont do it just for mobile broadband. way to patchy to be primary internet. for all you know you don't even get decent speed in your house/apartment. stick with the reputable internet company, if you don't like cable you can always get a decent dsl line, and still pay less than 60 a month.
 

ive been researching this myself, here are my notes. I live in the desert side of WA.

in order of best deal with speed as priority and price secondary:

clearwire wimax very fast 4g, no coverage in my area, no voice (usb 4g modem)
Platinumtel 60bux sprint 3g unlim data, unlim voice (sprint 3g network)(requires tethering "hack" from phone)
millenicom 69bux unlimited data, no contact,, no voice (sprint 3g network)(free USB 3g rev-a modem)
sprint 3g/4g 5gb/unlim 69bux good 3g, poor 4g cov (may require tethering "hack" from phone)
sprint 3g 5gb 60bux good 3g (may require tethering "hack" from phone)
vzw 5gb limit 59bux good 3g coverage (usb modem data plan)
att 5gb limit 60bux good 3g coverage (usb modem data plan)
att iphone "unlimited data that isnt really unlimited"  70bux good 3g cov, 450min voice (requires tethering "hack" from phone, att frowns)
tmobile very poor 3g coverage, but cheap (requires tethering "hack" from phone)

oh, and dont buy that netbook.

Buy an Asus 1000he or 1005ha or 1008ha. Then add one of the plans I listed above with either a usb 3g dongle or a tethered 3g cell phone.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2034940772+50001315+1722246506&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=772&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

this info came from the sprint website

email (text only)  3k file size   1,700,000 per mth
photo low res      500kb          10,000 per mth
Music (3 min song)  3 mb       1,667 per mth
Movie 700 mb    7 per mth

Hope this helps

Brian

Judging by that, I'd say you're not gaming, not downloading, nothing much more than arfcom and it's associated links.



When I download a tv show episode, that's half a gigabyte. A movie in divx format is a gigabyte give or take, a DVD is 4 gigabytes.

I'm not sure what I burn up in online gaming, I've never actually tracked that... and ditto for streaming audio/video.



For example I stream Glenn Beck on radio AND on FoxNews. I don't know what that burns up...

but my uTorrent client does keep session totals for me on that aspect of my usage and 30gb is just... nothing! So it seems.

Could be that I'm just really used to it.

Could be that I'm a real bandwidth hog.



Bottom line is that I'd smoke that cap in less than a day if that was my only connection.

 

Okay, the latter part of the last statement makes sense - that's what NetBooks + Aircards are for.

But the former? Are you paying >$60/mo. for basic cable internet service?

About $60 is what it costs me for internet alone, yeah. Plus taxes and bullshit.

You get charged extra if you don't have TV and phone service through them too.




If I had cable TV still, I'd probably get cable internet for about $40.

I don't remember the breakdown exactly, and it depends on the promotion and package.
 

I only pay like $50, and that's on the second "tier" of the three available offered here for cable (different bandwidth restriction and whatnot). I think the cheapest is like $35-$40.

No I am not into gaming, I am an adult, but I do watch T.V. shows on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and HULU. I don't use torrents, I buy, rent or trade DVD's for my movies.

I have Cable and Internet thru Charter.  We have all the channels and I have 5 mg internet.

I pay $160 a month.  $55 of that is for internet.  Now I know that 60 is more than 55 but I did not know what the charge was for the air card.  I think I will hold off for now.

Go to Newegg.  Search for MSI Netbooks. Buy one. Make fun of people who have bought other brands.

Remember, Netbooks are bare basic, get online and do stuff kind of devices. You can hack and mod some of them. Do your research wisely, and you should be able to snag a nice one for $300 to $400.

I would rather have my dell mini than an MSI, almost the same price, 7 hour battery, plus next business day on sight tech support for warranty work.  

 

For $60 a month of so you can probably still get a verizon usb modem and it has a 5 gig limit as well.  I used to have one.

I got rid of it early because I went from a normal cell phone to a blackberry pearl with the tethering option and I get 5 gigs a month for the blackberry.

I no longer have a landline, I no longer have dial up modem, and I never had cable or other tv or internet access.

For me 5 gigs a month is fine as long as I limit surfing youtube or downloading tv shows or anything similar to that.

If surfing and posting on arfcom you will do fine for a month unless you live in forums with thousands of pictures.  And by live I mean you do that for your whole internet log in time.

You can also get aircards from other places for a similar price to the verizon usb modem, and these items work with any computer you put the software on.  You are not sol if you kill a netbook.

I was happy with the verizon usb modem because at the time my cell phone provider had slow internet access, but they upgraded their local tower and I saved money by dumping the verizon usb modem and going to the blackberry and tethering.

And yeah I pay the tethering charge.  

I recomend you go do some reading on howard forums and run some google searches to do some other reading on tethering and air cards.

This is my only internet connection and I am happy with it.  But my needs may be very different from your needs.  I don't game on the net and I use the net for entertainment for the most part.