NetBook Bible

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.

I have a confession to make, at this very minute I don’t own a netbook.

I want one, I want one really bad, I go to the shops almost everyday and practice using the keyboards and trackpads to see which one my fingers can get a handle on the easiest. I shop for a modern mans man bag that will hold my netbook yet not look like a laptop bag, just to discourage anyone that’s thinking of taking it without asking.

So if you haven’t got the idea how bad I want one, then follow me on my shopping trips. Store security doesn’t even ask to check my bags anymore, it won’t be long till they know my name and ask me to the staff Christmas party.

So why haven’t I got one yet ?

There are two reasons main reasons I haven’t bought one yet.

The first is that I can’t really justify it, I already have two 15.4 inch laptops that do almost everything I need. My day job involves working with laptops, and sometimes when I can’t avoid it I bring my 12″ Dell work laptop home.

So one would reason I have access to plenty of portable computing, but really how portable is it? Each one requires a dedicated bag that starts to feel quite heavy on the shoulders even after a mildly short walk. I won’t carry any of them with me all day if I’m only going to get to use it for an hour.

The second reason is I don’t know what I want out of a Netbook.

Everything in Netbook land is a compromise, if you want more battery life, then your Netbook will weigh more. If you want a bigger screen size then you need a bigger bag to carry it. And then when you start looking at the 10″  netbooks, you can put down the same amount of cash and get a much more powerful standard laptop.

And then there is the OS to consider. I’m moralistically opposed to anything Microsoft puts out. (that’s a rant for another day) So I wan’t to get one of the linux variants on offer, but that has two drawbacks. One, they are hard to come buy in Australian stores. Two, a 3G connection is very much on my list of must haves but no one supports it for Linux. (there are ways around it)

So over the next few weeks I’m going to have a look (on paper at least) of what’s currently available and what best suits my needs and more importantly I’m going to waste many hours trying to get the 3G modem in my cell phone to work with Ubuntu on my current laptop.

Stay Tuned.

Liliputing has posted this picture of the box label for an Asus EEEpc 901 with 8700mAh battery. Estimated battery life is a potential seven hours, sounds like netbooking heaven to me.