World First Review of Dell's 12.1in Netbook 133
An anonymous reader points to what's claimed to be "the world's first look at Dell's 12.1" netbook," running at Australian Personal Computer Magazine. There's a bit of gushing at the beginning, but this is followed by some informative pictures, informal battery-life tests, and interesting background about the machine's components. Upshot: it's a well-made, decent-performing small laptop with a better keyboard than smaller netbooks and more wireless options than most. However, it's shorter on battery life (bigger screen, smaller battery) than Dell's smaller Mini 9, and less easily upgraded.
Price, Size / Weight and Battery Life, (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure when the reviewers and manufacturers will get the popularity of netbooks. There are a minimum set of features (which almost all of them have) but after that there are only three important points: price, size / weight and battery life.
The review sites seem to spend so much time worrying about the bells and whistles that they're accustomed to with bigger laptops, but these come at a compromise of the most important aspects.
Dell Fails again (Score:1, Insightful)
The reason to purchase a small notebook is portability. what good is it if it has worse battery life than the big 17" laptops.
Hard to get a sense of scale (Score:5, Insightful)
Just me or is it hard to get a sense of scale in those photos when there's barely any other objects in there? There's a pen, half a hand, and another laptop that I don't know how big it is.
I always struggle with photos like this because it's obviously difficult to find a reference object /everyone/ is familiar with, but even a few little things might've been helpful in some of the photos.
The 10" Eee PC has a pretty decent keyboard (Score:3, Insightful)
The only outstanding feature is the 1280x800 graphics (which is worth having, don't get me wrong...)
It basically fills in the gap between mini/maxi and more choice = good.
One thing it really does is pull the rug out from under those vastly overpriced $2500 SONY mini-laptops. The only reason to buy those was small size, and that reason just vanished.
Bummer it comes with Vista and not XP.
Re:Hard to get a sense of scale (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a ruler?
Re:pricey (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer is simple: people who value size and price more than performance. I don't want to fall in a 640K is enough for anybody stance here, but be honest with yourself: how often do you use the full power of your machine when not gaming or photo-editing (for which these machines are woefully inadequate)? My work laptop, is currently using 1% to 5% of it's power and it's over two years old (the time I've been working at this company, and I'm not sure if it was new). That's it.... At home, my wifes desktop is much older (bought autum 2003) and it rarely uses up more than 10% for our typical usage. I consider our usage to be rather typical.
So, even 5 year old machines don't get to see much load. So, you're on the move want to surf a bit and read your email? Well, you don't need a Dual-Core Multi-Gigahertz machine for that anymore. So why spend more? So, that's for the performance part.
Now the size part: typical laptops are 15.4" or larger. I don't know about you, but that's pretty huge and not exactly something a woman would put in her purse. Indeed, there are machines that were small, but they were also very expensive...
Which brings us to price. The small portable machines from a few years ago were extremely expensive and also didn't have the oompha that their larger cousins have. I wouldn't ever spend 2500€ to have a small and slightly underpowered laptop. However, I have no qualms paying 300€ for a small-very-underpowered-but-adequate laptop.
As a matter of fact, up until January 2007, my primary laptop was an old P-III 600MHz/512Meg RAM dual-booting XP and Linux... It ran absolutely fine for my light usage. Compare that to the underclocked Celeron 630MHz in the original Asus EEE PC... Well, the only differences? The Asus is much smaller and lighter: I do lack a bit screen estate. The Asus EEE 900, however has a 1024x600 screen, which is pretty close to what my old P-III laptop had, being 1024x768.
Re:pricey (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes There is somewhat of an issue for men and netbooks, too big to stick in a pocket too small for the traditional laptop bag. carried in the hand like some Evangelical preachers bible is also not a look to go for.
Nothing else for it but to go for a man bag. After a long search for something appropriate and trying to avoid the Mac look (skinny, black polo neck ect a samsonite messenger bag would have been appropriate otherwise).
I finished up with something by quick silver, The design looks to be full of useful pockets for stashing useful bits. However when a young female friend tried it on and approved and wanted one for herself (yes she could make sacks look good) I am left wondering will people be left wondering.
Are the girls going to include me in their chats and the guys talk loudly about football and beer trying to dissociate their masculinity from their middle aged friend who has come out with his man bag.
yes dears this is going to take some getting used too.