Netbooks

I'm starting to find Intel's Mobiln Linux for mobile devices a bit more interesting than I did a few months ago. But, to be perfectly honest, I still don't see a reason to migrate to it from Ubuntu Netbook Remix. So, the Moblin aspect of the video posted in the Intel blog entry...

Video: Paul Cooper on the Moblin User Experience

...didn't really interest me. But, this sentence did: According to Jeff Orr, an analyst at ABI Research, Linux-based netbooks will be close to one-third of the 35 million netbooks shipped this year or 11 million Linux netbooks...

Hmm... 11/35 = 0.3142. So, 31% of all netbooks shipped in 2009 shipped with Linux installed? Nearly 1 out of every 3? Really? Where are all these Linux based netbooks? I bought one (an Acer Aspire One) in 2008 but haven't seen another one since then. Are there millions and millions of Linux netbooks shipping in Europe and Asia? I certainly don't see them in the U.S.

I had a chance to take a brief look at the touch screen...

Dell Latitude 2100

...aimed at the K-12 educational market with its optional touch screen, rubberized surface, optional carrying handle (I wish all netbooks had one!), and optional anti-microbial keyboard.

It is basically a low-end kid-friendly version of the Dell Mini 10 (N270 processor and 10.1" screen). This one was running Windows XP although Windows 7 (and Ubuntu Linux too) is available for it from Dell. Its touch screen seemed less responsive than the Asus Eee PC T91MT I've been using for the past week. I'm not sure if this is an artifact of the screen or because it used Windows XP instead of Windows 7.

Its keyboard felt pretty good. And, it was nice to see actual hardware buttons for controlling sound volume and mute.

Interesting notebook/netbook reliability information over on Electronista.com...

ASUS best, HP worst for notebook reliability

Although Asus is mentioned as scoring the best with a 15.6% 3-year malfunction rate, Toshiba is breathing at its neck at 15.7%. Sony and Apple follow with 16.8% and 17.4%, respectively. Dell isn't too far behind at 18.3%. But, Lenovo, Acer, Gateway (owned by Acer) and HP all have 20+% failure rates with HP notebooks topping the list with an expected failure of one out of every four of their notebooks. Ouch!

However, these failure rates don't tell the whole story. The other part of the story is just as important: What does the manufacturer do when you report a problem? In my experience, Apple and Dell have done well in dealing with my notebook problems over the years (all under extended warranty). My one experience with Acer was not a good one. A rubber foot fell off of my first generation Acer Aspire One soon after purchasing it (within 90 days). I asked what could be done (via email) expecting them to ask where to mail a replacement foot. Instead, I got what I recall to be an email run-around with no resolution. It is a good thing netbooks are cheap enough to essentially replace and upgrade on an annual basis.

YouTube video courtesy of wooyaggo

If you have a netbook or notebook with a multi-touch touch screen running Windows, you might find this item from TechCrunch pretty interesting...

Adobe Releases Flash Player 10.1 And AIR 2.0 - Both Include Multi-touch Support

The new Flash Player and AIR runtime both support multi-touch with gestures on touch screen devices (like maybe my Asus Eee PC T91MT running Windows 7?).

If you fast forward through to the 5 minute 10 second mark of the embedded YouTube video above, you can see multi-touch on an HP TouchSmart PC.

The touch support for both AIR and Flash looks quite good in the demo. Of course, most demos are desgined to look good. So...

It will be interesting to see how multitouch Flash and AIR apps run on a relatively low-power netbook. I've noticed, for example, that some of the Microsoft Surface demos pre-installed on my Eee PC T91MT multi-touch netbook run far too slowly to actually use on the netbook. If AIR and Flash's multitouch feature runs efficiently on a netbook, Adobe will have a winner there.

Two things about the Asus Eee PC T91MT touchscreen netbook made me hesitate before clicking on the web "buy" button. The first issue was its small 30GB solid state drive (SSD). I wrote about how I am dealing with this constraint in this blog entry...

Recovering Free Space on the Eee PC T91MT's 30GB SSD: Touch Screen is Great, Small Drive is Not

The second issue is the T91MT's 9-inch display instead of the more standard (today) 10.1-inch display. This meant that the T91MT would have a smaller keyboard that I've been using for well over a year now on my 10.1-inch netbooks.

But, how "small is small" when talking about a netbook with a 9-inch display? When I saw a co-worker's 17-inch MacBook Pro, I knew the picture I wanted to tell this story. You can see my Asus T91MT sitting on the 17-inch MacBook Pro in the photo above. These are the two extremes of netbooks/notebooks at the moment. The T91MT may be too small for some people's preferences. But, for me any 17-inch notebook is too big and definitely not something I would consider buying for myself.

I've often said that I'd like to buy a Kindle ebook reader but can't justifiy even its current $269 price given the relatively small number of novels I read on an annual basis. And, as it turns out, I find the Kindle for iPhone ebook reader good enough for reading a novel now and then using either my iPod touch or iPhone. Barnes & Nobles' Nook ebook reader falls in the same "nice but too expensive category". Wouldn't it be nice if there were some other alternative? As it turns out, an alternative emerged for me this week with two converging occurences.

First, Amazon released...

Kindle for PC Beta

...which lets you read Amazon Kindle ebooks on PCs running Microsoft Windows.

The second thing that happened is that my Asus Eee PC T91MT multi-touch convertible netbook arrived. Its convertible feature lets me hide the keyboard under the screen, re-orient the display to portrait mode to turn it into a color ebook reader. You can see in the photo above that I was able to download an ebook I had previously purchased for reading on my iPhone. In fact, the Kindle's WhisperSync feature plopped me right onto the page I had last read on my iPhone. Turning a page is as simple as swiping my finger across the screen.

And, while I can't buy an ebook from within the Kindle for PC app, the netbook is a full Windows 7 PC. So, I can simply launch a web browser, visit Amazon.com and buy a Kindle ebook.

This configuration is not perfect. You can see in the photo that the ebook page does not stretch across the width of the portrait oriented page (it does stretch across in the conventional landscape view). However, this is a perfectly acceptable page configuration for me. The T91MT's battery is not as long-lasting as the Kindle's. And, the T91MT is heavier than the Kindle.

On the other hand, the T91MT is a full Windows 7 PC with a real web browser and the potential use of nearly any Windows software you might need (with acknowledgement to the T91MT's processor, memory, and drive space limitations). So, I'm quite satisfied with this solution so far.

The Asus Eee PC T91MT multi-touch convertible netbook comes with a relatively small (by today's standards) 30GB Solid State Drive (SSD) instead of a hard drive. This is a good thing in many things. But, it does present a challenge when running Windows 7 Home Premium with a bunch of touchscreen apps pre-installed.

The T91MT comes with surprisingly little "crapware". In fact, I would go as far as to say it doesn't come with any. Despite this, only half of the 30GB SSD is left free "out of the box". I found only 14.8GB free on mine after booting the netbook for the first time and letting Windows 7 initialize and configure itself. Here's the blow-by-blow of my hard disk space recovery efforts.

1. 14.8GB free out of the box.
2. 12.8GB free after running Windows Update
3. 15.6GB free after uninstalling four Office 2007 Language Packs
4. 16.2GB free after removing Trend Micro installation files (the software was not pre-installed)
5. 16.4GB free after uninstalling Microsoft Works
6. 17.6GB free after uninstalling Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student Edition 60-day trial
7. 17.9GB free after uninstalling Microsoft Office Activation Suite Assistant, Office Live Add-in 1.3, Office Compatibility Pack & PowerPoint 2007 Viewer

As you can see, I recovered about 10% of the total SSD drive space (3.1GB) after all this exercise. I tossed a 8GB SanDisk Ultra II SDHC card in the dedicated storage card slot (there's a second SD card for your digital camera's SD card) to give me about 26GB of available free space on the netbook. I think this is a workable amount of space if I don't install a lot of big apps (Office 2010 preview may still get installed).

My Asus Eee PC T91MT netbook arrived yesterday afternoon. I didn't get much of a chance to play with it yet. But, here are some initial facts and impressions.

You can see in the photo above that the T91MT is smaller than the Asus Eee PC 1000H on which it is sitting on. The 1000H has a 10-inch screen while the T91MT has a 9-inch screen. The T91MT shipped with Windows 7 Home Premium Edition which supports the netbook's touchscreen. I haven't had a chance to test its multi-touch support yet, however.

You can see the T91MT in its conventional netbook configuration above. The keyboard is narrow but usable. I'll reserve judgement until after I've typed on it for a few days. However, my first generation Acer Aspire One is also a 9-inch (actually 8.9) display model. So, I expect to be comfortable with the Asus. You may note that the button below the touchpad on the keyboard is a single button. However, press the left and right side of this button provides two-button support.

The photo above shows the T91MT in its slate mode with the screen twisted over the keyboard. The touch screen can be used with either finger tip touches or the provided stylus. Either method (finger or stylus) seems to work quite well with the screen.

The 30GB SSD (Solid State Drive) had 14.8GB free space after I booted up and let Windows 7 complete its lengthy configuration. Free space dropped to 12.8GB after running Windows Update. The T91MT ships with a 60-day Office 2007 installation. So, I uninstalled the Office 2007 Language Packs to free up a couple of gigabytes resulting in 15.6GB free space. I left the trialware on since I intend to install Office 2010 Beta on it (I've been running Office 2010 Beta on my Eee PC 1000H for a few months now) and want to have an idea of how much space will be left after installing it.

The Atom Z520 powered T91MT seems sluggish to me. Since Atom N270 netbooks seems to run fast enough for my needs, I'm a bit surprised by this impression. This sluggishness may be due to the SSD. But, I need to test it more before making a final judgement call. I will note, however, that the T91MT took 34 seconds to go from a cold start to the Windows 7 login screen. This process usually takes between 42 and 45 seconds on N270 based netbooks with hard drives. So, the T91MT boot-to-login process is a bit faster but not blindingly fast (say 15 to 20 seconds).

I'll have a lot more to say about the T91MT in the coming days and weeks. I will say this now though: At a $550 list price, this touch screen netbook delivers what the UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) promised but never delivers - an affordable touch-screen lightweight portable computer.

YouTube video courtesy of demomoblin

Ack! I still haven't gotten around to installing Ubunut Netbook Remix 9.10 on my Acer Aspire One yet (currently running 8.04). Now, here comes...

Moblin v2.1 project release for netbooks and nettops - it's here

I tried Moblin briefly a while back after its initial public release, didn't like it, and haven't revisited it since. Like the One Laptop Per Child XO Sugar OS, I think Moblin's UI violates my end-user expectations too much for me to even begin to accept it. However, if you try it, here's what's new or enhanced:

- Web browser with plug-in support
- 3G data modem support
- Application installer (ya, I guess that would help :-)
- Bluetooth device support
- Connection manager for Ethernet, WiFi, WiMAX, & 3G
- Nettop UI scaling support
- Improved instant messaging
- Localization improvements

If you were planning to buy a cheap Atom-powered netbook and hacking Apple's Mac OS X to turn it into a so-called Hackintosh, don't try it with the upcoming Snow Leopard update (10.6.2)...

Hackintosh Netbook users take note: Snow Leopard 10.6.2 update kills support for Atom Processor

Of course, there's nothing to stop you from using the older OS X Leopard 10.5.x release to build a Hackintosh. I'm not condoning this idea, of course, I'm just saying... ya know?

So, if you happen to have your pre-upgrade Leopard DVD lying around, there's some nice Hackintoshable netbooks here and there. Again, I'm just saying... But, if you ever see Apple release an OS X 10.5.9 upgrade, you might want to consider not updating your Hackintosh...