Elonex Webbook
Completely different from the One, the Webbook has a 10.2in screen and a VIA C7-M processor that's compatible with Intel's CPUs. It comes with Windows XP - there's no Linux option - an 80GB hard drive, but only has 512MB of memory.
At 1.3kg it's not light, but the Webbook certainly gives you access to all that Windows software and add-on hardware. While, the 1.6GHz C7-M processor is faster than Intel's 900MHz Celeron, it runs much hotter, making for almost constantly whirring, noisy fans.
Currently only available from Carphone Warehouse online, the Webbook can be bought on its own for £274, of for free if you're willing to take out a £25-a-month, two-year duration Orange data airtime contract - the modem comes bundled for free.
More Info The Elonex Webbook at Carphone Warehouse
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Mini UI 3520
Fujitsu-Siemens' rather sober entry into the mini-laptop market follows the SCC standard for much of its spec. It's USP is the inclusion of an ExpressCard 34 slot - it only has two USB ports, to make room - so it'll be immediately of interest to anyone who's got any of these cards in their current laptop.
We suspect not many have, leaving Fujistu-Siemens trading on its name, the angular solidity of the Amilo's design and the fact that it comes with a set of coloured plastic plates that fit onto the lid for variety. Like the ExpressCard slot, this features seems added for the sake of differentiating the Amilo from all the other SCCs.
On the plus side, the keyboard's not bad - at least not on the pre-production model we saw - and FS will offer the machine with a choice of hard drive capacities, from 60GB to 120GB. Alas, it's only offering the machine with XP.
Reg Pick of the Range Amilo Mini UI 3520 60GB
More Info Fujitsu Siemens' Amilo Mini page
Next page: Maplin Minibook
COMMENTS
Pleased with my Acer
I made the plunge after pondering for quite some time and opted for the Acer Aspire One. I love it but the article correctly identified the main problems with it which are battery life (not much more than two hours) and the somewhat quirky Linux installation.
I decided against the Dell mainly due to the stupid keyboard layout. The fact that it runs Ubuntu though is very appealing.
The 901 is just too expensive. I know £280 is not a lot of money, but my One cost £199. When I show it off and can say "it was less than 200 quid" I always get the same positive reaction. Saying "less than 280 quid" just doesn't sound as impressive.
Despite what the AC said above, while I do always travel first and business class, my employer pays those fares, I paid for my One so I still care about its price.
What is interesting about this whole sector is how usable a machine can be while remaining truly portable.
My shiny MacBook Pro is on my desk 1 metre away from me but I can't be bothered to go all that way and open the lid; my One just happens to be right here. That's the beauty of laptots (what mine always gets called in our house BTW) they are so small and light that you can have them there with you almost all the time.
Original laptot
Well before Psion and the other pretenders was the Tandy Model 100 from 1983. Battery capacity was 20 hours on four alkaline AA cells. The real keyboard and inbuilt modem made it popular with journalists.
Huawei E220
I use my T-Mobile E220 with my Eee, no problem. I believe it's supported out of the box in Xandros, but I'm using eeeXubuntu so I installed the "Vodafone Mobile Connect Card Driver for Linux" (giyf) which works very well, and does all the data logging one could wish. It has repositories for the default Xandros too.
Alpha 400 vs Maplin Minibook vs Elonex Onet+
Though clearly all based on the same design, there are some differences. The Alpha 400, for example, does its wifi through a USB dongle (supplied) and I think the same may be true of the Minibook. On the Onet+ it's built in (as an internal USB dongle, I suspect).
The Minibook has the webcam beside the screen - on the Onet+ it's (a) above it and (b) irrelevant, snce there doesn't seem to be any software that uses it.
I got my Onet+ last week - as with many others it was a what-the-hell free upgrade from a what-the-hell One+. So far I have been quite impressed. No problems at all with WiFi, pretty good build quality and a surprisingly nice keyboard. I don't know if it's bigger, or brighter, or whether just not having a black border helps, but the screen is much nicer than the Eee 701 on which I write this.
I need to do some experiments with the Huawei - the Onet+ does come with mobile broadband connection software - and then I'll start using it to test it in practice.
And to education customers it's £130. What the hell?
Mobile internet on Linux netbooks
I have a Linux Asus Eee 701 that I am happy with although the screen is too small. I do check my email on the train via Vodafone's mobile broadband. The only problem is the network coverage that still isn't great. Hopefully the trend with netbooks will put some pressure on the network operators to improve. To get mobile broadband working on Linux is easy, I wrote down a few note on how I got it to work here:
http://www.devcase.com/blog/how-to-use-vodafones-mobile-broadband-on-asus-eee-linux
I hope that can be of help. My guess is that it's not much more difficult with other distros or ISPs.
