Re: [NTLK] Mini notebooks

>
>> Comments:
>> 1) The build quality is poor
>
> I disagree. There aren't a whole lot of moving parts, but the hinge
> feels very durable and the keyboard, while 'plasticy', is sturdy.

Matter of taste up to a point I suppose :-)
>
>
>> 2) The usability is poor. While the keyboard is not that bad, if you
>> do a bit of practice, the touchpad and the mouse buttons are
>> terrible.
>
> My main problem with the touchpad on the Eee 701 is that it's too
> small. Other than that, it doesn't seem much different to me than
> other laptop touchpads. (Which I personally dislike. I vastly prefer
> trackpoints.) I agree the buttons take too much effort to push, and
> the inability to press them BOTH at the same time to chord a click is
> a problem. This is probably why mine came with a little mouse. The
> newer models of Eee have a much larger touchpad with multitouch.
>

Newer models are NOT that small.

>> 3)The main problem is that it tries to run a full blown OS. Tooooo
>> slooooow....
>
> It's a Celeron 600. (Well, it's a Celeron 900 underclocked to 600 for
> heat reasons.) It's not a speed demon. But it's not like I wind up
> waiting for it to do things. It takes a little while to open Firefox
> or OpenOffice, but once they're running the speed's fine. This is
> mostly an effect of the solid state storage - cheap flash drives just
> aren't as fast as cheap hard drives.

OpenOffice takes forever to start. If I leave it open it hogs down the
whole machine. firefox hogs it too. The speed is ok for using one
application at a time.

>> 4)Stability is mediocre at best. No matter what OS it runs. Maybe
>> because of hardware limitations.
>
> My Eee PC hasn't crashed on me yet. I've not run Windows on it,
> though.

I experience LOTS of crashes mainly when I close the lid.

>> 5)But the worst of all is the battery life. Less than two hours! So
>> it
>> is actually impossible to take it with you for the whole day.
>
> I get closer to 2.5 hours out of me Eee usually (without wifi, but I
> use a USB EVDO modem). I agree it ought to get better battery life.
> In particular the battery runs down alarmingly quickly in 'standby',
> so much that it makes that mode mostly useless. I just shut mine down
> instead of using standby.

SInce I run it with WiFi, I think more or less we have the same
battery times.

>> All the above are problems apply if I consider it a mini notebook. If
>> I consider it a "have it with you all day" machine, the lack of HWR
>> and the form factor are additional disadvantages.
>
> I personally wanted a notebook I COULD carry with me all day. The
> battery issue I deal with by carrying the power adapter and plug it
> in when I can - the adapter, at least, is pretty small.

True, but it beats the whole meaning of "portability". I do not want
to search for powersockets everywhere I sit.

> The biggest disappointment with my Eee 701 is the screen. It's bright
> and sharp and readable, but qt 800 x 480, a lot of dialog boxes go
> off the bottom of the screen.

I hate the HUGE bezel around the screen.

> I would strongly suggest getting the Eee 900/901 or similar, with a
> 1024 x 600 or better screen. (The 900 also had somewhat better
> battery life than the 701, and a lot more storage. My Eee 701 8G was
> $500; the Eee 900 Linux version is $550, with a bigger/better screen,
> and 20G of storage.)

True. 901 is MUCH better in terms of usability. However it is not that
small as the 701. Also it is much more expensive. For that kind of
money, you can buy a quite light and small Samsung laptop. The whole
point of Eee was the small/cheap aspect. 901 is neither that small or
cheap.

ANd on another note. If you keep the standard Xandros OS, it is quite
difficult to download/install applications without opening the
terminal. And before you mention the integrated package manager, try
to install VLC (a necessity) on Xandros. You need some googling, some
editing of conf files and some terminal commands....
While I am able to do these steps, I still cannot stop feeling that I
spend time on things that SHOULD be point and click.

> However, I've still kept my Libretto 50CT (a 1997 laptop about the
> size of a VHS tape) because the Eee doesn't have a serial port, so I
> can't use it to restore my Newton backups if the 2000U gets seriously
> hosed.

Librettos were always great machines! Although pricey but they worth it.

As a conclusion, I think that Eee got famous because of the low price.
People were used to relate "small size" to "hefty price" (well at
least regarding computers!!, hehe)
But actually the compromises are too many. And now that the prices go
up (and the size also) I think that this class of machines are only
useful for "laptop for the couch" use.

Kostas

====================================================================
The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
====================================================================
Received on Sat Jul 5 12:03:15 2008