First off, I am not a gamer. When I do play a game, I prefer classic arcade style games or turn based strategy games.
That said, if the games you like to play are not hardware intensive then using a netbook as a gaming machine might be an option. By design, the netbook is lightweight and small (albeit not as small as a dedicated portable gaming machine) with a respectable screen size. Additionally, the cost is very reasonable and many great games are available for free.
If I were to use a netbook as a gaming machine, I would load it up with Freeciv and a boatload of games from Abandonia. Of course, you can still use it for everything you can do on a ‘normal’ computer (i.e. Internet browsing) which is a big plus.
Again, I’m not a gamer but is something like this reasonable?
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I would say that games on your netbook is really to pass the time on a long journey, It could be fun for a while but wont surpass a properly designed gaming desktop or latptop
How can you say that? The ASUS EEEPC 10005-HAM with the Intel Atom N270 can run Halo without problems. Sure it won’t surpass them but these computers aren’t to be taken lightly.
They have better hyperthreading capabilities than most other processors.
I would say yes. Some of the best game design out there is in the flash world. I enjoyed Fantastic Contraption more than any app type PC game or console game I have played for quite some time. I like games with engaging depth–which is pretty much independent of graphics capability. Let the twitch junkies have their $500 video cards and make me some games that make me think.
games on your netbook is really to pass the time on a long journey
+1
As a gamer, I have to interject with the fact, that, in my world the very definition of a gaming machine is a box that MUST have at least a dual core CPU, and dedicated late-gen graphics card, at the very least. Also I find that using anything less than a 22″ screen, a full-sized keyboard, and a wired laser mouse to detract heavily from the experience of gaming.
There is simply no way to sit in front of a laptop-form computer and game for several hours and still be comfortable, IMO.
That’s my definition of “gaming”.
That said, simply “playing games” is another story. You can “play games” on your grandma’s 666MHz P2 with 512MB of RAM. So yeah, as others have said, “passing the time playing games” is easily done on a netbook, but I would never trust anything less than my full gaming setup to deliver the full gaming experience of your new-age “gamers games”.
Well, it isn't a bad idea if were talking about casual and not power-hungry games used to kill time in the bus. But still, there are dedicated gaming laptops out there.
I had never even considered using my netbook for gaming purposes before…great idea!