** Alan Bell <alan.bell@???> [2008-12-01 11:05]:
> Richard Danter wrote:
> > I am considering getting a netbook for my wife for Christmas. She is
> > actually quite keen to learn Linux. We were recently in a shop with
<<snip>>
> > So can anyone recommend which model to buy? I can see there is both
> > the 901 and the 1000, maybe others. Some have SSD and some HDD. How do
> > they compare? What about battery life, same for both? Do they all have
> > the same amount (1GB) of RAM? The price does not seem to be all that
> > different. Should I be considering any other make/models?
<<snip>>
>
> well if you can wait a little while there might be a jolly good online
> store flogging Elonex webbooks. These are running Ubuntu and are jolly
> good if I say so myself. They lack 3d drivers at the moment so Compiz
> won't work but the hardware could do it and probably will one day. They
> have an 80GB hard drive 512MB ram and a 1024x600 screen.
> As for the competition, the eeePC 701 has an 800x480 screen, that is a
> bit small for general purpose use, but can be handy as a satellite
> computer to a desktop. Above that the eeePC 901, Dell mini 9 and the
> rest are all pretty capable contenders however the HP 2133 mini note is
> the competitor that worries me the most, it has a 9 inch screen but a
> 1280 x 768 resolution, that extra 168 vertical pixels really does make a
> difference sometimes.
** end quote [Alan Bell]
I can vouch for the HP 2133 Mini Note being a nice machine, however I
suspect its days are numbered. There's a new HP 1000 on the block that
is cheaper, but aimed at the home rather than business market. It is
also expected that HP will release a replacement early next year. Both
of these machine are/will be Atom based. The downer from my view point
is that both of these machines, from what I've read, have poorer
specifications than the existing 2133 - bar the switch to the Atom.
Things like the screen resolution being reduced to 1024x600.
Both the screen and keyboard are superb on the 2133, and in spite of
comments that the VIA C7 processor is, even allowing for the lower clock
speed, not as good as the Atom, I've found the performance more than
adequate. I'm more of a techincal/business user though, so haven't been
pushing the multimedia capabilities. When I took a look at the HP in PC
World before I purchased (not from there!) and compared it to the Acer
that I had planned to get I actually found it booted the full SUSE OS
quicker than the Acer booted the cut down Linux it uses! That said they
were both demo units and had been extensively played with - and I
suspect the Acer had been toyed with more!
The only real downer I've found is, as expected, the battery life. It is
a bit on the poor side. I get around 2 hours out of the standard 3 cell
battery supplied. That said you do have to take into consideration that
this is with full WiFi and Bluetooth (included with the HP) going, as
well as the 120G HD it uses. It also has an Expresscard 54 slot,
although whether that draws extra power when not in use I don't know.
For me the quality of the build, keyboard and screen, as well as the
included Bluetooth, expandability (in particular the ease of upgrading
the memory to 2G compared to hassle and warranty invalidation of getting
the Acer to 1.5G) and other nice details (like the button to disable the
touchpad) won the day. This will have to be carried around in my tool
back for work so the aluminium case is nice.
Oh, there is one other downer that I will touch on, and that's the OS.
I've not yet tried any other flavours of Linux on it, or heaven forbid,
Windows, but the pre-installed SUSE would be enough to send me running
back to Windows if it was my first and only experience of Linux!
In the couple of weeks I've had this it has locked up on me a few times
(frozen cursor and no keyboard response - a true Windows like
experience). I'm hoping this is SUSE rather than the hardware! It also
locked up on me during shutdown the other day, sticking on the shutdown
tune holding the notes it was playing for several minutes until I got
fed up and powered it off. The on reboot I found that a good chunk of
the configuration had been trashed. It no longer booted to a GUI login,
the power management deamons were no longer starting, along with a few
other services (although when I try to start the others they are
'unused'), the X configuration was also trashed. Admittedly I do need to
run some hardware tests to confirm that it is the OS, but HP and Novell
aren't helping this. There's no SUSE license information included by HP,
and they claim I simply need the machine details as it is an OEM copy.
Novell on the other hand won't talk to me unless I register the OS, for
which they require the license details! I'm also, it seems, shut off
from updates as there is no indication as to what I should do to
configure the Services and Catalogs. Clearly a better familiarity with
SUSE would help!
As an aside, having recently worked on a KUbuntu machine with SCIM
installed and now this SUSE install uses it as well, I'm realise just
how many times I'm slow to lift my left little finger off the shift key
and type shit+space - which enables SCIM, which for a while was
configured for Korean!
Now I just have to decide whether to keep trying to repair this
installation, put on Ubuntu or wait for HP to send me the install /
recovery CD.
--
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. |
http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001
======================================================================
Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 | Registered Office:
Crawford House, Hambledon Road, Denmead, Waterlooville, Hants, PO7 6NU
