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10/08/2012

Acer Aspire One D255-2301 Black, 10.1" LED LCD, 1GB, 160GB, Wifi, Webcam, Windows XP, 3 Cell Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought my Aspire One D255-2301 at Walmart for $199. This little laptop is so great for the price. It's light, has good battery life and is a pleasure to use. I've upgraded to Windows 7 Starter, and to 2Gb of memory, and this alone has made this little guy as fast as my $1000 HP laptop.
I immediately bought a second Acer Aspire One for my grandson, and he loves it.

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10/07/2012

Sylvania SYNET07526 7" Netbook Review

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(More customer reviews)Is it junk or is it not? I took a chance on this product because it seemed to me that most of the negative reviews associated with it were not based on product quality (though who knows how long it will last), but on how the product failed to live up to the purchaser's expectations. And it is those expectations that I think are misplaced.
I bought this at CVS for $100+tax; MY expectations were that it could replace my Palm TX, which got a cracked screen in a mishap. The Palm TX was a handheld PDA with pretty similar specs - in terms of processing power, ROM memory, CF slot, etc. It was no speed demon on the internet - luckily, most sites would call up a page optimized for mobile devices. So you avoided most of the fancy stuff that bloats web pages down (or, depending on your POV, adds rich and exciting content). I think what helps foster unrealistic expectations is that this Sylvania unit looks like a laptop, not a handheld PDA. So people come to it with expectations that it will perform like a laptop. Instead, it runs Windows CE 6, which, I understand, was an OS designed for PDAs, handheld PCs, etc. So it is against THAT class of device that this product should be judged. So far, I am impressed with what you get for the money, and I'm having a bit of nostalgia in terms of configuring things. It's not that hard, but if you never had a Win98 computer, you may be spoiled in the sense that you've never had to go under the hood and change a few settings. I'm no expert - there are many settings that I don't understand at all - but I did remember enough to get it going.
I did consider a modern netbook (I have a regular laptop and desktop too), but I decided to take a chance on this first. Here's why. I learned that my 2.5 year old laptop had a processor that was something like 3-5 times as fast (depending on benchmark) as a new netbook. Yes, you pay for it in battery time, but the real problem is that netbooks try to do everything a full blown laptop can do - including accessing full-blown websites that are, day by day, getting weighed down more and more by Flash and other "enhancements" that just cripple the rendering time on a netbook. What I liked about my palm TX was that it didn't even try to load a regular website, for the most part. It did the "lightweight" mobile versions instead (even then, not really fast). I realized that the problem of netbooks is that they were trying to do too much. It was like putting a Honda Fit engine in a schoolbus and going to pick up 50 kids in a hilly subdivision. This Sylvania thing should do OK if you treat it more like a 65 hp classic Beetle driving on the flat roads of central Ohio.
With that, let's take a brief look at the good, bad, and the ugly.
The good:
Screen is quite good and large - again, compared to PDAs. Compared to a laptop it's tiny.
size and weight is amazingly small.
Keyboard arrows have inverted T, a layout I much prefer.
3 USB ports; I've heard that two are USB 1.1, one is 2.0. Have not tried them.
CF card slot. Not sure if this will be limited to 2 GB, but it would not surprise me, as that was the limit on my TX, I think. I have a card from it and have used it - it works.
Touchpad pretty good, though the buttons are stiff.
Has headphone and microphone jacks. I've used the headphones for earbuds, and sound is much improved over the built in speakers. My regular laptop has weak speakers too, so not a big deal.
Keyboard is small (as you would expect) but pretty good. I used to have a Psion 5mx and it reminds me of that, though it is about 1" wider than the Psion. The left shift button is not quite as big as I'd like, though. For some reason, the caps lock above it is bigger.
Windows CE uses reasonably familiar methods of arranging icons, launching programs, etc.
The bad:
Documentation is sparse. Just enough to tell you to fully charge it before use, and to label the features.
Windows CE is not quite as easy to customize - nor, probably, as capable of it. . For instance, you can copy/paste new programs (see below) into the "program files" but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll show up in the start menu programs list. Come to think of it, I'm having the same trouble with Windows 7, too!
If you update the OS using the patch on the digitalgadgets.com website, you'll lose some features and gain others. For instance, I noticed that Wordpad disappeared - and all the office apps were just viewers. Wordpad appeared to be replaced with a basic text editor named Ke or something in alpha release. But I came out ahead (see below). Another downside was that instead of connecting to a lightweight google search page, it connects to the full blown one now, which I did not want. And I cannot find the lightweight search page anymore using my desktop PC. It appears Google is only supporting such for mobile phones now. But supposedly this OS update fixes a "memory leak" and hotkeys, etc. I just didn't know they'd change the programs that were pre-installed.
Not expandable or upgradeable - but then again, neither was my TX. Compare it to a handheld.
Case is a fingerprint magnet - OK, this part you can compare to regular laptops.
Battery indicator was kind of unhelpful. I got maybe 2.5 hours out of the first charge of the 1800 mAh battery, with a good deal of that on WiFi and installing/copying/pasting. But I don't recall the indicator going anything like linearly to low. It kind of abruptly warned me power was low and it would shut down in 60 seconds, so I'd better save my work. Better than nothing, but still, not great.
As best I can tell, there's no email client. You have to use webmail (and I have - gmail works - though gmail chat does not). There are some chat programs though - one called Pigeon, which apparently is not Pidgin.
The ugly:
The tomato-soup-red color is just awful. I am trying to think of a way to decorate the outside or "skin" it.
One thing I thought might help on this computer is to use Linux - it tends to have lower overhead than windows, but again, this is not full blown windows, so Linux could actually be a greater burden than Win CE. But in the process of looking into that, I came across "Bento Linux" - someone is working on a distribution for this system, and helpfully posted links to a "Mega Pack" of programs that he (or she) found to work with Windows CE. These included browsers, game emulators, utilities, media players, games, and even spreadsheets and word processors. I found two that appeared to be close cousins of Word and Excel - even able to read/write to "Office 97" formats. Not too shabby. Beware of the game Doom, though - it's a DOS port that only appears to work on CE. You can't exit it without forcing a shutdown of the machine (I didn't know how and could not alt-tab or ctrl-alt-del out of it, but holding the power button for 5 seconds did it).
So perhaps the $100 laptop has arrived ... but it's a PDA in netbook clothes. In some ways, better (keyboard, USB, ethernet jack, larger screen, productivity programs, clamshell design to protect that large screen) but in other ways, worse (can't find a PIM or calendar that imports modern file formats, though even among contemporaries, such importing is hit-or-miss; also, it's an older OS that is not really being developed any more). On balance, I think it is good replacement for the TX, if it has reasonable durability. But make no mistake - it's slower than a laptop, it's slower than a netbook. It's a PDA in netbook form - not unlike the original Asus EEE, frankly. For $100, it's a trip down memory lane (lack of memory lane?), eminently packable, and, if I can dig up some more freeware CE programs, quite capable of fully replacing my Palm TX as my computing travel companion.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sylvania SYNET07526 7" Netbook

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5/10/2012

MSI Wind U100-641US 10-Inch Black Netbook - 3 Cell Battery Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've only had this a week but I've already started using it a lot and have been pleasantly surprised seeing just how far I can push this little rascal!
You can take it anywhere as it's the size of a small book and is very lightweight for a laptop. Traditional notebook laptops are designed to be desktop replacements, so they can end up too big, too heavy, and generally just too *much* for checking your email or editing a Word document in the few minutes you have whilst waiting for the train.
The U100 however, appears to more suitable for moving around frequently and using whenever you get a few moments to spare. It's a great size, any larger than 10" and it would no longer classify as a "netbook" class of laptop, any smaller and the screen would be less practical for serious use. Also, 10" screens have the correct aspect ratio for webpage viewing, you don't get wasted blank space at the sides as I've heard can happen with smaller screens.
It's incredibly portable, surprisingly powerful when overclocked and RAM doubled, good value, nice to type on (80% size keys), and even looks good. It's much more responsive running XP than I had expected, it actually behaves like a desktop PC! Microsoft has clearly removed a lot of their bloatware from XP to give these smaller systems the best chance of running quickly.
It performed well straight out of the box, but I spent a good couple of evenings setting it up *properly.* ie. removing the usual bundled bloatware (came with 3GB of Encarta pre-installed. *shudder*), 30 second trial versions of things you wouldn't use anyway etc.... and now this baby is positively flying along!
So after removing the bloat, installing my own software (Office 2003/2007, MSN, Skype, AVG, Firefox 3, ZoneAlarm, Adobe PDF, heck even Photoshop CS3! Disabled unnessary processes from running in MSCONFIG. After setting everything up just the way nature intended, running PerfectDisk defragmenter and a boot-time defragmentation pass- my U100 was good to go. (well nearly) But there were a couple of things to do first...
On to.... the 1.6GHz Intel Atom PROCESSOR... well, overclocking it to be precise:
It's great as it is out of the box, but you can get it to go 24% faster if you upgrade the BIOS to 1.10B then toggle Turbo mode with Fn + F10 when plugged into the mains. This won't void your warranty as this is an official BIOS update from MSI. Fn + F10 when running on battery *underclocks* it so the processor only runs at 800Mhz and the screen brightness is reduced, prolonging the battery life. I know, it's pretty cool. The light on the power switch shows you which of the 3 power modes is currently in use.
I tested the computer with a freeware utility called "cpuinfo.exe" to see what clock speeds *really* were when it was running at 1) "Eco mode" (green power light) 2) normal power mode (blue power light) and 3) "Turbo mode" (power light goes orange) I found that the CPU of the U100 now happily purrs along at 1984MHz when overclocked -so it's basically increased by exactly 24% as the option states in the BIOS. You can choose between 8%, 16%, or 24%, but from what I've read it's running stable for everyone at 24% (myself included) so you might as well set the overclock to maximum in the BIOS, you can always change it if you need to later.
This 24% increase in speed to just under 2GHz is awesome, especially when all the other Atom processor netbooks use the same processor and can't be overclocked (to the best of my knowledge) so are stuck at 1.6GHz. So the U100 has a clear advantage over its rivals here.
What about the MEMORY?
Comes with 1GB, takes about 20 minutes and only about $40 to double that to its maximum 2GB. You don't void the warranty to do this, and it's dead easy. Take the 9 screws out underneath, pull the bottom half of the case off, just remember there is an on board stick of 1GB DDR2-667MHz RAM, and the expansion slot won't recognise a 2GB module. So you fill the empty slot with 1GB and that's it, memory doubled. I nearly bought a 2GB module by mistake before I read about the onboard memory.
The newer U120 apparently cannot be upgraded from its 1GB of RAM, has the same processor, and has a shorter battery life. You're *much* better off with the U100 if only because you aren't stuck with the 1GB RAM.
What about the HARD DRIVE?
The 160BG hard drive on this tiny 1Kg laptop is very generous- you wouldn't be surprised to get half that capacity on a device such as this. In fact, some versions apparently do ship with an 80BG drive instead. With all my software installed on top of the Windows operating system, I still have 129GB to play with!
The inbuilt card reader works well with my camera's Sony Memory Stick Pro card, and also takes SD cards and probably all the main memory card types.
WIRELESS card:
The built-in wireless card provides outstanding reception and I haven't had any dropped connections since I bought it. It works with all 3 WLAN standards (802.11b/g/n) and naturally works with WEP/WPA wifi encryption.
The 1.3mp WEBCAM is good enough, the SPEAKERS are fine for a small laptop and quite usable, though when I'm at home I plug in my Creative I-Trigue 3300 (my favourite 2.1 system)
Thankfully the TOUCHPAD keys are beneath rather than to the sides of the touchpad which so many other netbooks I've seen have. That's something I would struggle to ever be comfortable with. Although I like the touchpad, I plug in my USB mouse when using it at home as it's easier to use.
PORTS: There are 3 usb ports (two left, one right), VGA port (when connected to my Samsung Syncmaster it can support the large 19" LCD monitor's native 1400 x 900 and looks great!) This is great, bearing in mind the onboard graphics card normally spends its time churning out the U100's 1024 x 600 native resolution instead. It's only when you want to duplicate the video output to an external LCD *as well* as the U100's own screen that it will be forced to display the same 1024 x 600 resolution on the external monitor. This isn't a problem, just an observation. Normally you'd only have one active or the other at any given time.
BLUETOOTH 2.1 is supported. I haven't used it yet but it it's nice to have with all the BT devices around these days.
Very useful row of 8 LEDs shows you Bluetooth, WLAN, sleep, battery, caps, num, scroll lock, and hard drive activity all in the same place.
Criticisms:
Full stop key and comma key are a slightly reduced size, but I'm used to it already. Only took a few days of touch typing to adjust.
Watch out you don't buy the bilingual version in Canada. In London Drugs they sell it with the good old US keyboard, but in Staples they stock a U100 plagued with all sorts of extra keys meant for typing French accents more easily, and most of the keys have everything in French and English, the clutter is annoying. Too bad no one pointed out it's probably no use to anyone outside of Quebec.
It is slightly front heavy due to the battery position, not a problem really, but something to bear in mind when positioning it on your lap for typing.
There's no CD/DVD drive. You don't need one anyway though, just transfer the contents from CDs onto a USB stick in another PC (or over the network) and use them as per usual. Optical drives take up space and use battery power, so not having them is no big loss, even though it seems strange to have a laptop with no CD drive in the 21 Century!
Two other important points:
YOU CAN INSTALL MAC OSX86 (a hacked version of OSX which can run on non-apple hardware. Google for the installer and a how-to guide.) It's a hugely popular mod... so I hear.
You can install Linux on it- this deserves more attention than I just gave it.
(You can have dual boot, or even triple boot systems with Windows, Mac OSX86 and Linux depending on your personal preference and computer literacy)
"Netbooks" are supposed to compromise on power and functionality to increase their portability. Hence they are often thought of as mobile internet access devices incapable of doing anything even moderately groovy...
...but when you have one running at 2GHz, with 2GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive and all the onboard peripherals you could wish for -it doesn't look like such a compromise after all!
Youtube shows people playing various games on it, so don't think that's not a possibility either!
Warcraft 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cT0KxnDoYM
Need for Speed Underground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms8SuIzeJM8
F.E.A.R.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWT5_DypySs
I hope my ramblings have been informative! Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.
I typed all this on my U100 :)

Click Here to see more reviews about: MSI Wind U100-641US 10-Inch Black Netbook - 3 Cell Battery

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4/08/2012

MSI Wind U120-001US 10-Inch Gray Netbook - 6 Cell Battery Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this for a friend and have been setting up software and updates for them over the past couple of days. I think the styling of the HP Mini is much nicer than the MSI Winds, but I'm getting battery life of 4 hours and change on this for a much better price. I think most folks can put up with that.
The gray, angular design really evokes some of HPs designs from about 3 years ago, like if an HP business notebook and the MSI Wind U100 had a baby together. Or if an MSI Wind had a baby with another MSI Wind, but it turned out the biological father was really an HP business notebook. Anyhow, this goes to say that while this isn't a Vivienne Tam fashion statement, it doesn't come across looking like a toy either, as some of the other netbooks do. It feels solid, even without crazy aluminum unibody casing or something like that.
I will say that there are a few quirks in the unboxing process that caught me by surprise. One is the the boot-up/install time. You turn the thing on, and it sits there for 15+ minutes installing Windows, I guess, onto a 30 GB partition of the hard drive. The other partition is ~100 GB, and labelled D:, but this is non-obvious to novice users who might wonder where the heck the rest of their drive space went.
The other unboxing/first-time use thing is that the WiFi and camera have to be turned on with a combination of the Fn key and the top row of F-keys. I'm sure this was in the paper insert somewhere in the box, but it wasn't obvious to me, and it would've been nicer to just have a big fat button with a lighted symbol of what it was supposed to turn on, e.g. a webcam or a wireless/radio symbol. By the way, the webcam image is nothing to write home about, but it does ok for Skype etc. WiFi range is pretty good, though -- it almost outslugs the access points I can see from my Macbook. Not sure if that's good, actually, but it sure ain't bad.
1GB of RAM seems to do just fine for this XP-based machine; it can feel a little sluggish if you decide to open three different browsers, Microsoft Office, and some video applications at the same time, but if you're doing that in the first place -- on a netbook -- then maybe you need a prescription for Ritalin. Maybe this is a function of the processor also, I'm not sure. Certainly this isn't the machine to be running Photoshop on while you watch re-runs of You Suck at Photoshop.
The keyboard bothers me a little (but then, a lot of things bother me, just a little bit). The period and comma keys are a little narrow for my liking -- but it beats the keyboard layout of the Dell Mini 9 and the EeePC I saw over at Best Buy. It's sort of like if you had a flight of stairs in your home but the last two steps were a little more narrow. You get used to it, but it's not exactly something you enjoy. That said, in this continued analogy, all the other stairs are close to normal sized, and so I'd say that the keyboard, while certainly not full-sized, comes as close to it as possible while maintaining the compact netbook form factor. The trackpad is a little small for my liking, but this was the case on nearly every netbook I saw.
What's really impressive about this machine is that for $350, this is a rather solid deal. I can see this particular model -- or netbooks like it -- becoming increasingly popular with enterprise users down the line, particularly for those users who already have a desktop at their... well... desks. It has ports galore off the sides. It has just enough oomph to run Office 2003 for your basic productivity-type needs, enough space to store your Neil Diamond mp3 anthology. It has an interesting facial recognition and webcam fun/toy app that you probably won't use.
Oh, speaking of mp3s, the sound from the stereo speakers is tinny but loud enough to do a speakerphone-like conference with someone over Skype. It's sort of the sound quality that I'd expect from a notebook this size, so I guess my expectations must've been not too high to begin with.
So I'm actually going to give this four stars. Then again, five stars would probably notch the price up a bit, at which point you'd probably have to give it four stars because the price was higher than most other netbooks. Thus, we are at an impasse, and so I end my review here.
ADDENDUM (6 months later):
Several months later, I must update my review, after now owning an MSI Wind U100 myself and having experienced the keyboard first-hand. (I wonder how many keyboard reviewers have used that pun.)
The keyboard on all netbooks is a miserable experience. The MSI Wind I suppose is marginally better, but outside of the aforementioned issues with the really narrow comma, period, and forward slash keys, all the keys are sort of tiny. I have big fat fingers, and so this is a problem for me. If you have long, spindly fingers, you may enjoy the keyboard on the MSI Wind U120 and other netbooks. If you have long, spindly fingers, you may also want to audition for commercials that make stuff look big where you're supposed to hold some new product.
Still give it a four-star rating, though. This is a sturdy little sucker. My daughters have both dropped the machine from wuthering heights, and not-so-wuthering heights, and generally abused the plastic casing to no end. That was the point, by the way -- I didn't want them mangling up my Macbook. But the MSI Wind continues to hold up despite the rough-housing. I suspect that if the kids were old enough to read, they might find the keyboard appropriately-sized for their little fingers. But alas, they aren't yet reading age, and by the time they will be old enough to read and to type, the keyboard will probably be too small for them. So we are at an impasse, and so I end my comment here.

Click Here to see more reviews about: MSI Wind U120-001US 10-Inch Gray Netbook - 6 Cell Battery

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