Quartus II on NetBook Computer w/Win7 starter OpS

Windows 7 Starter is a cut down version of Windows 7 designed for netbooks and for sale at very low costs.

In Starter a number of UI features have been removed (some purely asthetic ones - you can't change the wallpaper - and some acctually fairly crippling ones - access to the clever touch screen features in 7 is not available in Starter which is a little grating after spending all that money on the Gigabyte).

There is quite a lot online about Windows 7 Starter (mainly articles complaining about it!) but in fairness to Microsoft it was intended as the ultra-cut price version specifically for netbooks whose markets probably couldn't bear the cost of a more expensive OS. The idea I think is that if you buy a netbook with Starter on it, its meant to be one so basic that you wouldn't need any of the features that Starter has had removed.

Of course all the manufacturers just use it as a cheap way to ship all netbooks with 'Windows 7' and thus much dissapointment follows.

I think the things you'd miss from Starter are the .NET Framework at 64bit support.

In my personal experience netbooks are a bit of a false economy, they seem great on paper, but my Gigabyte, as nice as it is, isn't used as much as my older and larger laptop was before it broke.

Like how GPS on the phone is never quite as good as a dedicated TomTom, netbooks aren't as easy to read off as eBook readers, not as portable as internet enabled smartphones and not as powerful as proper laptops.

The U150 looks like a great deal also, i'd definately go with the Core 2 Duo, it might also be an idea to check out some benchmarks comparing the low voltage series processors, which the U150 has, with the desktop series so you could get a better idea of how it will run (assuming you have some older PCs with Quartus installed).

Though if you can afford it I would consider a Core i-series based notebook as the performance jump from the lga775 range to the i-series is much greater than that of the 478 to lga775 owing to the removal of the northbridge in its traditional form.