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Speedie

Perfect Laptop For A Smart!

67 posts in this topic

Nah, I just ordered an Apple MacBook Air. Should go nicely with the silver Tridion. :)

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At $1800 (10% of the price of a 451) - it had better go nicely with the Tridion! The Air book is nice but hardly in the price category of affordable for most folks. That has been an issue with Laptops since day 1 - the manufacturers always want to go for the high end of the market - so typically they bloat up the product with all the "trendy" gizmos when most folks only need the basics. The eee pc does away with the frills and keeps the required functions - and an affordable price - sort of like a car I like. ;) Cheers,Cameron

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At $1800 (10% of the price of a 451) - it had better go nicely with the Tridion!

The Air book is nice but hardly in the price category of affordable for most folks. That has been an issue with Laptops since day 1 - the manufacturers always want to go for the high end of the market - so typically they bloat up the product with all the "trendy" gizmos when most folks only need the basics.

The eee pc does away with the frills and keeps the required functions - and an affordable price - sort of like a car I like. ;)

Cheers,

Cameron

You have a point... but you know, if I wanted practical and inexpensive I'd have bought a Korean tin box that gets 40mpg. :D

But I admit, that PC is pretty nice. I kind of like Sony's, and was considering this before the Thinkpad tablet, but when I saw the price I had a minor infarction.:

Posted Image

Best,

Les

Edited by LKern

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Ya know, I actually think the Sony (and the OQO I have) are too small. I thought I wanted the smallest possible, but it ends up being a really huge palm top instead of a small laptop. The clamshell design really does seem to work well for a laptop. I actually prefer my Libretto 110, which is a small PC Toshiba built a while back to the Sony or the OQO. That's why I think I'm going to get an EeeeeeePC, but I want the 1GB/8GB one so I can do XP on it easily, and those are super hard to find it seems.Later! Dang

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The 1gb 8gb are not quite in the supply chain fully yet - Asus can't keep up with demand - or more appropriately - the supplier can't keep up with the demand for power supplies and such. They are supposed to have a 8" screen in pretty much the same form factor coming out by May or so. NCIX has a pretty good stock of them - can get the 8G in 2 - 5 days.

If cost is not an object (for most people it is) - check out the Panasonic Toughbook tablets - compares nicely with the custom mil-spec ones. Of course it doesn't run Apple OS but definately a nice machine - we have used them for a couple of in the field deployments. Magnesium case and water and shock proof. Nice small form factor and a digitized touch screen so no need for a keyboard - but it has one if you do.

Toughbook

You literally have to run over them with a forklift to damage them (it happened - they replaced the bent screen - it worked fine). You can also get some really nice mil-spec ones like the Hammerhead - but you might have to trade your car in.

Hammerhead

Cheers,

Cameron

Edited by Speedie

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oh oh OOOHHHH </best Bobcat Goldthwait voice>

http://www.vic-ltd.com/navisurferII.html

WANT!

post-74-1205085185_thumb.jpg

NAVISURFER II™ is the first indash 1-DIN computer with a combination of 7" touch screen monitor. Monitor able to move as vertically as well horizontally. NAVISURFER II™ allows to run any normal Windows or Linux compatible applications also serves as Audio / Video Player, Vehicle GPS Navigator & Tracker, Rear View Camera, In-Car wireless Internet, In-Car TV, In-Car Game Console and In-Car Mobile Office and real-time OBD-II vehicle diagnostics.

NAVISURFER II™ is compatible with any passenger or commercial vehicle wich has a 1DIN / Single DIN. It's easy to install and doesn't require any professional skills. Simply install into single DIN slot connect power cable to the car battery and sound cable to the car speakers and you are ready to go.

Models

NavisurferII 40GB

Processor: 1.3 Mhz

Hard drive: 40GB

RAM: 256MB

NavisurferII 80GB

Processor: 1.3 Mhz

Hard drive: 80GB

RAM: 256MB

NavisurferII 120GB

Processor: 1,0 Mhz

Hard drive: 120 GB

RAM: 512MB

Weight & Dimensions

2,5 kg

Operating Temperature & Humidity

-10 to 65 Degrees Celsius (14F-140F)

0% ~ 93% (relative humidity; non-condensing)

Power Supply

Intelligent Vehicle Power Supply

ATX, 12V input

Intelligent shutdown controller, powers on and off with ignition.

ON/OFF motherboard control

Survives vehicle engine cranks

Battery deep discharge prevention

High efficiency, 120 watts output

Works with 12V car batteries

Hard Drive

2.5" Drive

Anti-shock mounting

High non-operating shock tolerance by load / unload technology Monitor

Computer built-in

Wide vertical and horizontal movement angle

Display size: 7 inches (16:9)

Physical resolution: 800 x 480 RGB, highest resolution: 1024 x 768 formatted

Visual angle: 150, contrast: 350 ?brightness: 500

Dot distance: 0.06*0.18mm

Response time: Tr+Tf =16ms

Touch screen

Accessories

User Manual, Driver CD, Bluetooth Dongle

Edited by Gent

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You would have to park pretty close to the internet cafe to use it while enjoying a coffee......Car computers are neat but sort of limited in portability and right now connectivity - EVDO is not too bad in urban areas and WWLAN is not yet in full swing - so unless you can find a hot spot you park close to or got lots of $ to hand out to a Celluar company for data usage - your internet experience will be a bit curtailed.Give it another 4-5 years and this will change - mind you it could come with a penalty too - not to sound too tinfoil helmentish - but if the car can communicate wirelessly there is nothing to prevent the authorities from demanding it communicate an ID signal and things like speed or location - for our own good of course (yeah right). It would be damn handy to check the ferry conditions or road conditions real time as well as congestion etc.Cheers,Cameron

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So I saw these last weekend, and now I kinda want one...Question about Linux, if I plug in my digital camera, how does that work? Will it work? Will it actively seek out a driver for it on an internet connection? Basically what I want to know is: If I'm in a hotel on vacation, can I plug in my digital camera, put pictures on it, resize them and upload them to facebook? Can I email people (does it have an email client that works with a Pop3 account or whatever)?It comes in greeeeeeeeeen!-Iain

Edited by Duck

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Hi Duck,I take it you are refering to the eee pc.If you plug the camera in it should work - I didn't try when I had going - the USB ports are supported under the OS. If I get a few minutes next week I will maybe try for you (been wanting to try the dual boot thing anyways). Anyone else got Xandros still installed and have a camera that can answer the question? The unit comes with an USB web camera in some configurations.There is a rudimentary photo program with the unit. Is there a local seller near you? Best way is to take your camera and try it.It comes with a web mail client so if you are talking just checking and sending - yep it does that - and there are a lots of pop clients for Linux as well.The stock OS is not as advanced on the install of drivers - if you want one you type in the package name and it will locate it and install it off the internet but you have to prompt it.If you are used to the Mac - there are some of the desktop configs that will come pretty close to the same look and feel. The advance mode also is pretty intuative - the simple mode (stock) is almost too simple.Cheers,Cameron

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So does this EeePC come with an optical drive (CD, DVD, etc...)? Or do you have to copy files to an SD card first and then install programs from the SD. So, I have an old desktop that we want to replace with a laptop and I have been looking at some of the smaller dells, but this may be suitable for us. Being a computer programmer all day at work I don't need a powerful computer at home. All I need is a machine for surfing, email, photos from camera and a little bit of simple photoshopping.

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No CD or DVD drive. This is a 2 pound unit. Very small. Iain - assuming your camera looks like a disk drive to the system then the Eee will recognize it. Eee has Firefox, Open Office, Skype, a messenger system that talks to the common ones like Google and Microsoft, and Thunderbird email.You can install XP on the $400 version. I upgraded the memory on mine to 2 gigs for $44. The lower units don't offer access to the memory

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So, to install software you would have to either download from the web or install from a network drive. Or can one use a portable USB CD drive to install from.I am just wondering how I would get Win XP on it. I have no problem using the Linux OS but the other half does not like change and she is happy with WinXP.Linux would defeinetly have better performance than the WinXP. My biggest concern would be with hooking up my Canon camera to it. I will have to do some goooooooogling.Later,Greg

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To install XP, attach a portable DVD drive. Boot with the XP DVD in and install.Then run the XP drive disk that is provided for the drivers

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I have the 4G Surf ($349) - it does support 2 gb of memory under XP - and will under Xandros if you patch the kernal. I threw a 2 GB sd card in that I had kicking around - gives me 6 gb to play with - have office, streets and trips, and a few other things installed using the sd as the program directory.The USB ports support pretty much any device I have fired on the. You can also load XP on to a memory stick to install but that is a bit tricker.Also on the camera - eee pc has a SD slot so if the camera memory is SD you can stick it in - forgot about that. Or if another format a USB reader should work. Just shows up like an extra drive. Some people have reported issues with Nikon's due to directory names not being liked under the stock OS.XP goes on real easy - make sure you follow the steps for cleaning up Asus provides in the manual and if you upgrade the memory you can eliminate the swap file for more disk space. You can also clean up the left overs from the Windows updates for more room.XP seems to work well - the drivers come with the unit on a DVD. Also they plan on rolling out the next release with XP as the OS - think they are charging about $40 extra for the honour of making Bill richer.Cheers,Cameron

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Yeah if your camera uses SD cards you can probably just plug it in and download the pictures. Mind you the Eee PC has about the same total memory as some of the SD cards out there these days...Haven't tried anything fancy, since I only bought the cheapest one. :P Even comes with less standard programs than the more expensive ones.

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So I totally wish I'd had one of these while in Europe... writing a trip report on a borrowed Blackberry made my thumbs ache! I'm probably going to pick up the cheapest eeePC today (if I can find a green one, heh). I guess you can load this OS called gOS onto it, which looks just like OS X!

I also found this: http://www.everex.com/products/cloudbook/cloudbook.htm, but the reviews so far aren't very positive because it's apparently slow as heck. The one big thing it does have going for it is a 30 GByte drive, but I'm OK with the idea of buying a "hard drive in a can" (external 2.5" notebook drive) and carrying that if I want.

My digital camera shows up as an external drive in Windows and on OS X, so yeah I guess hopefully that will work. I'm going to take along my camera and cable to talk to the people in the store and see how easy that would be.

-Iain

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Got my MacBook Air the other day, and I think it looks pretty good in the Smart. Maybe I can make a bracket or use the door to the glove compartment to hold it. The Air? It's pretty amazing if you haven't held one.

post-5540-1208630300_thumb.jpg

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....but the reviews so far aren't very positive because it's apparently slow as heck. The one big thing it does have going for it is a 30 GByte drive, but I'm OK with the idea of buying a "hard drive in a can" (external 2.5" notebook drive) and carrying that if I want.

Pretty good read at:http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13839Need to remember, it's 400 bucks!

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Crap. How are people putting other OS' onto this thing? gOS says it needs 8 GByte, ubuntu needs 4. I got the 2 GByte model, so I guess I'm out of luck?I also can't figure out how to switch between advanced/basic (I've no idea what menu I'm in) but I suspect that's an RTFM kinda question. :) This thing is pretty neat.-Iain

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So, since I recieved a wealth of responses and help here (:P), I gave the thing to our IT guy who had a nerdgasm over it. He took it home tonight and I guess is going to try to put this on it for me:

Posted Image

I can't wait!!

-Iain

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So, since I recieved a wealth of responses and help here (:P), I gave the thing to our IT guy who had a nerdgasm over it. He took it home tonight and I guess is going to try to put this on it for me:

I can't wait!!

-Iain

Uhnhhhh :drool: is that the new 8.04 "Hardy Heron" release? The release notes say it needs 4GB... but I WANT it!!!

Posted Image

Edited by bilgladstone

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I dunno, I just searched for it and that photo popped up, lolI trust our IT guy to do something cool with it, I just want to be able to upload photos to facebook and type on the thing and have a nice desktop background. :P The thing is so adorable. Everyone kept coming by my desk just to touch it today, nerds.... :P-Iain

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"nerdgasm" ewwww.

No problem as long as he was wearing a pocket protector!:sun:

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