Re: [Hampshire] The greatest laptop ever made? (The SUN)

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On Sun, 25 Nov 2007, John Cooper wrote:

> Are you serious? What 320MB RAM? XP runs really slow on my AMD64 laptops
> with 1GB RAM and 2GHZ processors! I suppose if I spent 3 hours every
> month to re-installed it it would be quicker but I don't need XP, even
> on a monthly basis.

I'm entirely serious. Boot up aside it runs very well, noticeably more
responsively than the Eee and it has been been like that for the last 4
years.

I guess it depends what you do with the machine, I'm not editing video or
playing games on it, but for net access and document editing (the same
sort of things I'd use the Eee for) it runs just fine.

> 30 seconds is slow then? Seems fine to me.

For a machine that you sit and use for hours it's fine, for a travel
machine that you might want to take the odd note on it's not so ideal. I
guess it's all about expectation, the machine was originally said to have
instant on, then a bit later "near" instant on, then finally 15 seconds to
boot. A quick boot time was a feature I was specifically looking forward
to so to find it actually takes closer to 30 seconds is something of a
disappointment.

> The battery life isn't as good as the spec says but neither is any
> laptop I've had.

That's very true, but in a machine many people will use primarily when
traveling and one based on Flash rather than HD storage I would have
hoped for better battery life.

> Yes, the screen quality isn't brilliant but at this price I wouldn't
> expect the quality of a ?600 laptop. So it is no surprise it isn't a
> laptop replacement, but it is a brilliant portable device and far better
> than a normal laptop.
>
> As with everything, you have to compare like with like and at this price
> is it at handheld level and it is a powerful machine for its size.

The problem for me is that it is neither hand held or laptop. It falls
between the two and is missing some of the features of both that I would
like. I'm not denying that it's a good machine for the money, but that
doesn't mean it's a good machine for me and there are definitely things
about it that personally I would like to have seen improved, even if it
meant an increase in price.

Andy