TOPIC: NETBOOK
A little more freedom
10th December 2011A few weeks ago, I decided to address the fact that my Toshiba laptop have next to useless battery life. The arrival of an issue of PC Pro that included a review of lower cost laptops was another spur for looking on the web to see what was in stock at nearby chain stores. In the end, I plumped for an HP Pavilion dm4 from a branch of Argos. In fact, they seem to have a wider range of laptops than PC World!
The Pavilion dm4 seems to come in two editions and I opted for the heavier of these, though it still is lighter than my Toshiba Equium as I found on a recent trip away from home. Its battery life is a revelation for someone who never has got anything better than three hours from a netbook. Having more than five hours certainly makes it suitable for those longer train journeys away from home, and I have seen remaining battery life being quoted as exceeding seven hours from time to time, though I wouldn't depend on that.
Of course, having longer battery life would be pointless if the machine didn't do what else was asked of it. It comes with the 64-bit of Windows 7 and this taught me that this edition of the operating system also runs 32-bit software, a reassuring discovering. There's a trial version of Office 2010 on there too and, having a licence key for the Home and Student edition, I fully activated it. Otherwise, I added a few extras to make myself at home, such as Dropbox and VirtuaWin (for virtual desktops as I would in Linux). While I was playing with the idea of adding Ubuntu using Wubi, I am not planning to set up dual booting of Windows and Linux like I have on the Toshiba. Little developments like this can wait.
Regarding the hardware, the CPU is an Intel Core i3 affair and there's 4 MB of memory on board. The 14" screen makes for a more compact machine without making it too diminutive. The keyboard is of the scrabble-key variety and works well too, as does the trackpad. There's a fingerprint scanner for logging in and out without using a password, but I haven't got to check how this works so far. It all zips along without any delays, and that's all that anyone can ask of a computer.
There is one eccentricity in my eyes though: it appears that the functions need to be used in combination with the Fn key for them to work like they would on a desktop machine. That makes functions like changing the brightness of the screen, adjusting the sound of the speakers and turning the Wi-Fi on and off more accessible. My Asus Eee PC netbook and the Toshiba Equium both have things the other way around, so I found this set of affairs unusual, but it's just a point to remember rather than being a nuisance.
Though HP may have had its wobbles regarding its future in the PC making business, the Pavilion feels well put together and very solidly built. The premium paid over the others on my shortlist seems to have been worth it. If HP does go down the premium laptop route as has been reported recently, this is the kind of quality that they would need to deliver to just higher prices. Saying that, is this the time to do such a thing with other devices challenging the PC's place in consumer computing? It would be a shame to lose the likes of the Pavilion dm4 from the market to an act of folly.
Extending ASUS Eee PC Battery Life Without Changing From Ubuntu 11.04
25th May 2011While it might just be my experience of the things, I do tend to take claims about laptop or netbook battery life with a pinch of salt. After all, I have a Toshiba laptop that only lasts an hour or two away from the mains and that runs Windows 7. For a long time, my ASUS Eee PC netbook looked like that too, only for a spot of investigation to reveal that there was something that I could do to extend the length of time before the battery ran out of charge. For now, the solution would seem to be installing eee-control and here's what I needed to do that for Ubuntu 11.04, which has gained a reputation for being a bit of a power hog on netbooks if various tests are to be believed.
Because eee-control is not in the standard Ubuntu repositories, you need to add an extra one for install in the usual way. To make this happen, launch Synaptic and find the entry named Repositories on the Settings menu and click on it. If there's no sign of it, then Software Sources (this was missing on my ASUS) needs to be installed using the following command:
sudo apt-get install software-properties-gtk
Once Software Sources opens up after you enter your password, go to the Other Software tab. The next step is to click on the Add button and enter the following into the APT Line box before clicking on the Add Source button:
ppa:eee-control/eee-control
With that done, all that's needed is to issue the following command before rebooting the machine on completion of the installation:
sudo apt-get install eee-control
When you are logged back in to get your desktop, you'll notice a new icon on your desktop with the Eee logo, and clicking on this reveals a menu with a number of useful options. Among these is the ability to turn off a number of devices such as the camera, Wi-Fi or card reader. After that, there's the entry named Preferences in the Advanced submenu for turning on such things as setting performance to Powersave for battery-powered operation or smart fan control. The notifications issued to you can be controlled too, as can be a number of customisable keyboard shortcuts useful for quickly starting a few applications.
So far, I have seen a largely untended machine last around four hours, and that's around double what I have been getting until now. Of course, what really is needed is a test with constant use to see how it gets on. Even if I see lifetimes of around 3 hours, this still will be an improvement. Nevertheless, being of a sceptical nature, I will not scotch the idea of getting a spare battery just yet.
An Eee PC
7th October 2010Having had an Asus Eee PC 1001 HA for a few weeks now, I thought that it might be opportune to share a few words about the thing on here. The first thing that struck me when I got it was the size of the box in which it came. Being accustomed to things coming in large boxes meant the relatively diminutive size of the package was hard not to notice. Within that small box was the netbook itself, along with the requisite power cable and not much else apart from warranty and quick-start guides; so that's how they kept things small.
Though I was well aware of the size of a netbook from previous bouts of window shopping, the small size of something with a 10" screen hadn't embedded itself into my consciousness. Despite that, it came with more items that reflect desktop computing than might be expected. First, there's a 160 GB hard disk and 1 GB of memory, neither of which is disgraceful and the memory module sits behind a panel opened by loosening a screw, which leaves me wondering about adding more. Sockets for network and VGA cables are included, along with three USB ports and sockets for a set of headphones and for a microphone. Portability starts to come to the fore with the inclusion of an Intel Atom CPU and a socket for an SD card. Unusual inclusions come in the form of an onboard webcam and microphone, both of which I intend to leave in the off position for the sake of privacy. Wi-Fi is another networking option, so you're not short of features. The keyboard is not too compromised either, and the mouse trackpad is the sort of thing that you'd find on full size laptops. With the latter, you can use gestures too, so I need to learn what ones are available.
The operating system that comes with the machine is Windows XP, and there are some extras bundled with it. These include a trial of Trend Micro as an initial security software option, as well as Microsoft Works and a trial of Microsoft Office 2007. Then, there are some Asus utilities too, though they are not so useful to me. All in all, none of these burden the processing power too much and IE8 comes installed too. Being a tinkerer, I have put some of the sorts of things that I'd have on a full size PC on there. Examples include Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Adobe Reader and Adobe Digital Editions. Pushing the boat out further, I used Wubi to get Ubuntu 10.04 on there in the same way as I have done with my 15" Toshiba laptop. So far, nothing seems to overwhelm the available processing power, though I am left wondering about battery life.
The mention of battery life brings me to mulling over how well the machine operates. So far, I am finding that the battery lasts around three hours, much longer than on my Toshiba but nothing startling either. Nevertheless, it does preserve things by going into sleep mode when you leave it unattended for long enough. Still, I'd be inclined to find a socket if I was undertaking a long train journey.
According to the specifications, it is supposed to weigh around 1.4 kg and that seems not to be a weight that has been a burden to carry so far and the smaller size makes it easy to pop into any bag. It also seems sufficiently robust to allow its carrying by bicycle, though I wouldn't be inclined to carry it over too many rough roads. In fact, the manufacturer advises against carrying it anywhere (by bike or otherwise) without switching it off first, but that's a common sense precaution.
Start-up times are respectable, though you feel the time going by when you're on a bus for a forty-minute journey, and shutdown needs some time set aside near the end. The screen resolution can be increased to 1024x600 and the shallowness can be noticed, reminding you that you are using a portable machine. For that reason, there have been times when I hit the F11 key to get a full screen web browser session. Coupled with the Vodafone mobile broadband dongle that I have, it has done some useful things for me while on the move so long as there is sufficient signal strength (seeing the type of connection change between 3G, EDGE and GPRS is instructive). All in all, it's not a chore to use, as long as Internet connections aren't temperamental.
So you just need a web browser?
21st November 2009When Google announced that it was working on an operating system, it was bound to result in a frisson of excitement. However, a peek at the preview edition that has been doing the rounds confirms that Chrome OS is a very different beast from those operating systems to which we are accustomed. The first thing that you notice is that it only starts up the Chrome web browser. In this, it is like a Windows terminal server session that opens just one application. Of course, in Google's case, that one piece of software is the gateway to its usual collection of productivity software like Gmail, Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets and more. Then, there are offerings from others too, with Microsoft just beginning to come into the fray to join Adobe and many more. As far as I can tell, all files are stored remotely, so I reckon that adding the possibility of local storage and management of those local files would be a useful enhancement.
With Chrome OS, Google's general strategy starts to make sense. First create a raft of web applications, follow them up with a browser and then knock up an operating system. It just goes to show that Google Labs doesn't simply churn out stuff for fun, but that there is a serious point to their endeavours. In fact, you could say that they sucked us in to a point along the way. Speaking for myself, I may not entrust all of my files to storage in the cloud, yet I am perfectly happy to entrust all of my personal email activity to Gmail. It's the widespread availability and platform independence that has done it for me. For others spread between one place and another, the attractions of Google's other web apps cannot be understated. Maybe, that's why they are not the only players in the field either.
With the rise of mobile computing, that kine of portability is the opportunity that Google is trying to use to its advantage. For example, mobile phones are being used for things now that would have been unthinkable a few years back. Then, there's the netbook revolution started by Asus with its Eee PC. All of this is creating an ever internet connected bunch of people, so having devices that connect straight to the web like they would with Chrome OS has to be a smart move. Some may decry the idea that Chrome OS will be available on a device only basis, but I suppose they have to make money from this too; search can only pay for so much, and they have experience with Android too.
There have been some who wondered about Google's activities killing off Linux and giving Windows a good run for its money; Chrome OS seems to be a very different animal to either of these. It looks as if it is a tool for those on the move, an appliance, rather than the pure multipurpose tools that operating systems usually are. If there is a symbol of what an operating system usually means for me, it's the ability to start with a bare desktop and decide what to do next. Transparency is another plus point, with the Linux command line having that in spades. For those who view PC's purely as means to get things done, such interests are peripheral, and it is for these that the likes of Chrome OS has been created. In other words, the Linux community need to keep an eye on what Google is doing but should not take fright because there are other things that Linux always will have as unique selling points. Even though the same sort of thing applies to Windows too, Microsoft's near stranglehold on the enterprise market will take a lot of loosening, perhaps keeping Chrome OS in the consumer arena. Counterpoints to that include the use GMail for enterprise email by some companies and the increasing footprint of web-based applications, even bespoke ones, in business computing. In fact, it's the latter that can be blamed for any tardiness in Internet Explorer development. In summary, Chrome OS is a new type of thing rather than a replacement for what's already there. We may find that co-existence is how things turn out, but what it means for Linux in the netbook market is another matter. Only time will tell on that one.