The short answer is Microsoft Vista.
It came pre installed on my last laptop and caused me nothing but problems, It encouraged me to make the jump to Linux and I haven’t looked back.
HP will have to deliver a pretty exciting machine for me to pay for a Vista license that I’m never going to get any value out of.
</rant>
The more time I spend looking into Netbooks the more I see people trying to pigeon hole them into certain criteria. In my first post I deliberately kept my definition of a Netbook reasonably brief. The reason was that it should be what the market decides is a netbook, sure it’s got some parameters but if they get too focussed then the designers and manufacturers might stifle their creativity in order to deliver what the market knows instead of what it might be inspired by in the future.
In my first post I shared the brief versions of how different authors and organizations are defining Netbooks. My plan now is to post them as I come across them in a bit more detail.
And who better to start with than Dave Winer. I was looking through some of his blog entries as he’s a bit of a fan of the Netbook format. And came across his definition of a Netbook.
OK, I suppose it’s time to say what a netbook is…
1. Small size.
2. Low price.
3. Battery life of 4+ hours. Battery can be replaced by user. Atom processor seems to be a requirement, those that aren’t Atom aren’t selling (and are apparently being discontinued).
4. Rugged.
5. Built-in wifi, 3 USB ports, SD card reader. It seems it must have 802.11n to be taken seriously.
6. Runs my software.
7. Runs any software I want (no platform vendor to decide what’s appropriate).
8. Competition (users have choice and can switch vendors at any time).
I agree with Dave on most of his criteria, though there are several manufacturers delivering Netbooks with less than 4 hours battery life. Hopefully this will be a thing of the past in the near future. Does saying it must have an ATOM processor mean we have to think of a new name for the market segment when a better, faster, more power efficient chip comes along ? I don’t think so.
Rick Broida from Business Hacks has just complete a five day road warrior session with the Acer Aspire One. It seems his (and others) biggest complaint was the short battery life.
Read the whole series below
The Netbook Diaries – Day Three
I really need to stop it with corny post titles but something about Apple products make it an uncontrollable urge that will probably need years in therapy to cure.
JK On The Run has posted about how he’s tried to help Dave Winer resolve an issue between his MSI Wind U100 and an Apple Airport Extreme broadband router. Even though JK had the same hardware with no issues. It looks like Dave ended up sending the Wind back after it caused another brand of router to crash also.
Other Wind users are reporting similar problems, but it’s hard to judge it as an epidemic when those that aren’t having a problem don’t complain on blogs, forums and review sites.
Source: JK on the Run
Other people are
A couple of articles have been published recently which will help people looking for a new Netbook.
UMPC Portal has written a very comprehensive guide to the technology inside both ultra portable laptops and Netbooks. It’s well worth a read before you lay down your hard earned.
PC World have down a round up of 6 current model Netbooks. So if you want to take a look and compare the various models then it’s well worth a look.
I’ve often been perplexed that large (say 10inch) digital photo frames are about half the price of the low end standard laptops (say 15inch). I can’t understand how a machine with so much more complexity would be only twice as much as just getting a (smaller screen). For the difference in price I think I’d rather have a fully functioning laptop than a screen that just shows pictures. The only down side of my plan is that a laptop screen has a little less elegance if left sitting around on the furniture or wall to show pictures.
Now that I’m completely off topic it turns out that the 7″, 8.9″ and 10″ screen sizes that are so common in Netbooks were originally manufactured for digital photo frames. It also explains the cheesy key ring digital photo frames…. made from mobile phone screens.
Both Electric Vagabond and Liliputing have stories on the subject today. I’ll be interested to see how long it is before a Pico Projector is built into a Netbook.
I was going to write a post about the difference between Solid State Disks (SSD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) but as JKK is having SSD-Week over on his site, I would be wasting my breath when someone else has done all the hard work.
Head over and check out the 18 minute SSD video he has put together.
Analysts think Apple is leaving potential profits on the table by not getting into the Netbook market. They go further to predict that Apple will introduce a touch screen Netbook style machine around September 2009….. Just in time for next Christmas.
The full story is here
Phone chip designer ARM announced announced they are getting into bed with Ubuntu to produce Netbooks (PR people called it an alliance)
“The release of a full Ubuntu desktop distribution supporting latest ARM technology will enable rapid growth, with internet everywhere, connected ultra portable devices,” said Ian Drew, vice president of Marketing, ARM.
“The always-on experience available with mobile devices is rapidly expanding to new device categories such as netbooks, laptops and other internet connected products.”
I like the sound of this, ARM need to do some work to break into the market which is pretty much dominated by Intel at the moment. So I’m hoping the new chip in conjunction with Ubuntu will lead to cheaper prices and that’s good for everybody.
The product launch is expected around June 09 at Computex.
Source: Network World
Scott has taken delivery of a 1200mAh battery for his EEEpc. You can’t argue that it’s not big and chunky and has lifted the weight of his machine by about half a pound. The good news is that Scott’s purchase only cost him $US62. Read his review to see where he got it. He hasn’t had it long enough to gauge how much extra screen time he’ll get for his efforts.
On an unrelated note, finger prints show up really well on the glossy black screen back of the EEE, it makes me think white could be the preferred color.
Ted Hanigan | 
11 23rd, 2008| 
