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View Full Version : Help me pick a Linux-based ultraportable



BrendanM
April 21st, 2008, 09:42 AM
So I'm looking to buy one of the new, Linux-based ultraportable laptops out there. I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling this summer/next year, so I need a machine that will be used on the road for light web design/blogging, watching movies/TV, and maybe some pass-the-time gaming.

I'm particularly interested in the Asus eeePC 900 (http://gizmodo.com/tag/eeepc-900/) (this is the new model with the larger/higher-res screen) and the HP-2133 "mini-note" (http://blog.laptopmag.com/the-leader-of-the-pack-hands-on-video-of-the-hp-2133-mini-note), which looks really nice.

Here's (http://www.umpcportal.com/products/compareWindow.php#[[,180,182]]) a detailed comparison between those two (note that that's the cheapest, $499, model of the HP-2133).

I've also looked at the Everex Cloudbook (http://blog.laptopmag.com/everex-cloudbook-mini-review-verdict-needs-more-time-in-the-oven), but everything I read makes it sound like it's obviously inferior to the other two contenders.

I like the HP-2133's higher screen resolution, and its larger keyboard, but the placement of the mouse buttons is weird, and it's heavier with worse battery life (especially since the 6-cell battery is only available on the expensive, $750 model).

I like how small/light the eeePC is, and I like the fact that it's all solid-state memory, not a hard drive.

The HP-2133 has 4 GB flash drive in the cheapest model, but that's not really enough space for me, so I would probably get the $550 model which has a 120 GB hard drive.

One question I had was if it would be possible to boot the HP-2133 off an SD card, and then only spin up the hard drive if I needed it, thus saving battery life/possible shocks to a moving drive. I know the eeePC supports booting from the SD slot.

Anyway, I'd love to hear any thoughts people here. I'm especially interested to hear from anyone who actually owns any one of these machines. Does anyone know any stores that carry these, so I could check them out in person?

Thanks for the advice.

HunterThomson
April 21st, 2008, 09:55 AM
BackTrack3 for USB :guitar: ASUS eeePC can do packet injection and pick up WPA 4way handshake

frrobert
April 21st, 2008, 11:06 AM
I am also looking to purchase a ulta portable this year. I'm waiting to see what Dell releases in June before I choose.

gn2
April 21st, 2008, 11:23 AM
Lots of these devices are going to start popping up later in the year, three more to consider are the Jisus, the MSI Wind and the ECS G10IL

http://vanderled.com/onlinestore/product_info.php/products_id/81

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49295955,00.htm

http://tinyurl.com/3vobfc

mips
April 21st, 2008, 11:27 AM
Looking at the above I would pick the HP purely based on LCD resolution.

aeiah
April 21st, 2008, 11:27 AM
im with hunterthomson on this one. ill be getting an eeepc 900 because it has a strong linux community (im talking eeexubuntu here, not just the modified linux it ships with) and it does packet injection. it depends what you want it for, and if you're prepared for poor driver support with the other UMPCs

gn2
April 21st, 2008, 11:34 AM
Looking at the above I would pick the HP purely based on LCD resolution.

Don't think the resolution of the competitors has been announced yet, but HP seem to have raised the bar if the linked report is correct.

jespdj
April 21st, 2008, 11:43 AM
Looking at the above I would pick the HP purely based on LCD resolution.
But the HP has a VIA processor which is slower than the Intel Celeron-M (despite the slightly higher clock speed), only half the amount of RAM, weighs more and has a battery with lower capacity.

I would wait a few months until the Eee PC with Intel Atom processor is released and get that one.


Lots of these devices are going to start popping up later in the year, three more to consider are the Jisus, the MSI Wind and the ECS G10IL
The Jisus unfortunately has an exotic Chinese Loongson processor which is not Intel x86 compatible. I wonder why they chose to use that processor. It does come with Ubuntu, however.

BrendanM
April 21st, 2008, 11:46 AM
The new EEE PC has a 8.9" Display with 1024 x 600 resolution, fairly solid, but not as nice as the 1280x768 on the HP.

It's hard for me to decide how much of an issue screen resolution/keyboard size are for me without actually looking at/using the machines.

That's a good point about the Linux community on the EEE pc, and I probably would be running the eeeXubuntu for it (not the default Xandros distro - although that can be switched out of the "easy" mode)

The HP one ships with SUSE, though, which I haven't used but is by all accounts a pretty solid distro.

aeiah
April 21st, 2008, 01:14 PM
ooo i didnt realise the hp ships with suse. yea, suse is probably up there with ubuntu and fedora in terms of being a well rounded and top-notch distro. since suse is supported whereas eeexubuntu is unofficial, you may get a better experience with that. after having had to put up with 1024 resolution for a few months (my hdtv only supports 1024 through vga and im waiting until i install 8.04 until i change to hdmi and a higher res) i can say that it should be perfectly useable with 1024. you wont have a problem with web pages and with a screen so small, you wont notice pixellation at that resolution, or any side-scrolling on web pages.

id still go with the eeepc though. you can get compiz running nicely on it for attractive desktop switching and other features. i dont know if the less powerful hp, with a higher res, will be all that great at handling compiz or x264 video. it depends what you want it for though of course.

BrendanM
April 21st, 2008, 07:08 PM
Yeah, I don't really care that much about compiz. Neither one of these machines is very heavy-duty, and I'd rather not devote any resources to non-essential window decoration.

I guess the main features I care about are portability (I want enough battery to last for a medium-long plane or train ride), durability (I want to be able to throw it in a backpack and toss it around without worrying about it), and usability (I want it to be fast enough to not feel sluggish, be able to type on it, play videos). In that order.

BrendanM
April 22nd, 2008, 12:20 PM
b

Wobedraggled
April 22nd, 2008, 01:17 PM
2133 has a nice screen and full sized keys, but IMHO it runs kinda sluggish.

stmiller
April 22nd, 2008, 03:30 PM
Eee is a great machine. It is extremely solid- you could toss it into your bag and not worry about it.

The Celeron-M when clocked to 900Mhz does pretty good. It can play back hulu.com and other fairly heavy flash video stuff. I'd say it is more powerful than the Via in the HP.

Geekbench scores are anywhere around 800-900 for the Eee (http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/51712) while that HP score is about half (http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/50163) (around 400).

gn2
April 22nd, 2008, 03:44 PM
It will be interesting to see how the performance and battery life of the Intel Atom Eee900 will compare with the Celeron Eee701.

Also will Asus give a range of different Atoms to choose from, or will they just stick with a single configuration.....?

Questions questions.

Onyros
April 22nd, 2008, 04:08 PM
I still say that, for the money, I'd much rather get a Thinkpad X31 (or X32, but those are much more difficult to find).

Full-fledged laptops @1024x768, with regular Pentium M processors and 12 inch screens and 3.7 pounds, with the best typing keyboards in the world, 4h30 battery duration, which you can get refurbished at around 300 dollars?

And BTW, also fully Linux compatible.

The only bad thing I can think of is the kind of RAM it uses - DDR SODimm's, which are, unfortunately, stupidly expensive.

I wouldn't think twice, really. (and that's why I have one myself)

macogw
April 22nd, 2008, 04:09 PM
I want this: http://www.zareason.com/shop/product.php?productid=16159&cat=0&page=1

Onyros
April 22nd, 2008, 04:12 PM
I want this: http://www.zareason.com/shop/product.php?productid=16159&cat=0&page=1That IS cool :)

Too bad the dedicated graphics are only available on the white casing, I'd much rather have one of those in black... with the dedicated chip. Battery life isn't stellar, too, but it's still pretty cool.

macogw
April 22nd, 2008, 04:59 PM
That IS cool :)

Too bad the dedicated graphics are only available on the white casing, I'd much rather have one of those in black... with the dedicated chip. Battery life isn't stellar, too, but it's still pretty cool.

ZaReason is crazy about letting you customize anything ("can i have LVM with / 10GB and /home 60GB and /var 5GB??" "sure!" type of thing), so you could try sending them an email about it. If it's not a matter of the cases being slightly different shaped to fit the different graphics cards, I'm guessing it'd be possible. I'd kind of like a white one with Intel graphics :P

Syke
April 23rd, 2008, 12:58 AM
That IS cool :)

Too bad the dedicated graphics are only available on the white casing, I'd much rather have one of those in black... with the dedicated chip.

Sure, we can do that, just let us know.

You can also check out the same item from our EU site:

http://www.zareason.de/shop/product.php?productid=3

cardinals_fan
April 23rd, 2008, 01:56 AM
Full-fledged laptops @1024x768, with regular Pentium M processors and 12 inch screens and 3.7 pounds, with the best typing keyboards in the world, 4h30 battery duration, which you can get refurbished at around 300 dollars?

Just off eBay, or is there a more reliable source? I've always nursed a passionate love of the Thinkpad ;)

BrendanM
April 23rd, 2008, 05:43 AM
Meh. Too big, too heavy, too pricey.

Thinkpads are nice machines, but they're not really what I'm looking for.

g7kse
April 23rd, 2008, 12:44 PM
BrendanM,

There'll always be a better one round the corner and as this is an emerging market you'll be hit from all angles to get the latest one.

I was lucky enough to have a play with a 701 a few months ago and nearly bought one then and there. the only issue for me was the screen size. Now this is bigger I'm getting one as soon as they're available.

I'm alsost convinced that something like this will be replacing my desktop as I can do all I want with it. Roll on the 901

graabein
April 23rd, 2008, 01:47 PM
I still say that, for the money, I'd much rather get a Thinkpad X31 (or X32, but those are much more difficult to find).

Full-fledged laptops @1024x768, with regular Pentium M processors and 12 inch screens and 3.7 pounds, with the best typing keyboards in the world, 4h30 battery duration, which you can get refurbished at around 300 dollars?

When you say the Toshiba Satellite is for multimedia and the Thinkpad is for everything else -- you're still able to watch movies fullscreen and playback stuff like ogg and flac on the Thinkpad, right?

:confused:

Onyros
April 23rd, 2008, 03:09 PM
When you say the Toshiba Satellite is for multimedia and the Thinkpad is for everything else -- you're still able to watch movies fullscreen and playback stuff like ogg and flac on the Thinkpad, right?

:confused:Oh, yeah! No problem whatsoever in that front. It's just that the Thinkpad's screen, even though with good image quality, is... too small at 12 inches :)

And Toshiba's a 15.4" widescreener, that's what I meant. Same goes for the Thinkpad's speaker - yep, it's just one, and really small. In terms of audio quality, if you use either headphones or external speakers, than they're pretty much the same - though the Thinkpad's output may be a little louder.

The one I have was still made under IBM's scrutiny, and it's a keeper for life. I know the CPU will age (gracefully), memory will hit its limit somewhere down the line, but as a laptop it's just perfect.

BTW @ cardinals_fan, I got mine through eBay, refurbished, and it came in mint condition, really, even the battery which can still last for 3h30 (tested with Arch). Originally they're supposed to last over 4h30, so... you know, it's perfect.

What I meant was that at a little extra weight, probably cheaper than any of those new ultraportables, but with much better performance overall, you can still get a very, very good, sturdy, reliable and even very good looking - in my opinion - laptop. And I really did mean the X31/X32's which were the last true X series Thinkpads.

If you make a straight comparison, it'll be hard to justify why the newer machines are better than the X series, or Dell D600's for example.

Don't get me wrong: when they first came out, I was one of the first to say "ME WANTSSSSSSSS ITSSSSSSSSSSSS", especially when they were thought to be cheaper than they eventually became. Then I sat myself down, and actually remembered taking my X31 everywhere, still lighter than a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses. One of the things I like the most about it: it's incredibly silent. Sometimes I do forget it's on. Even under full load, the fan isn't that loud.

Yep. I'm a fanboy :)

g7kse
April 23rd, 2008, 03:26 PM
This is the good thing about forums, especially these ones. You ask for people opinions and you get them. Trouble is theres a lot of different ones and that doesn't always help :confused:

BrendanM
April 26th, 2008, 11:36 AM
Haha, yeah, there's been good advice, but everyone's got their own thoughts. I'm sort of leaning toward the HP-2133, but I'd still like to actually try them for myself before I buy one.

ronacc
April 26th, 2008, 02:26 PM
I like the EEE ,the ability to boot from the sd card slot is great , pop in an sd card and change your OS , I've still got xandros on the SSD ad 2 versions of Puppy and Ubuntu 8.04 from here
http://ubuntu-eee.tuxfamily.org/index.php5?title=Main_Page
on my EEE 4g on sd cards .

CFO
April 27th, 2008, 12:00 PM
I've had the 8G Eee a couple of months, and it just works. I highly recommend it. The 900 will be nice with the larger screen, but the 7" is easy to read. I also recommend using the installed Xandros OS. If you don't like the easy mode, you can easily access the full desktop. It is KDE though, not Gnome. I find the easy mode sufficient for what I want to use the machine for, and it comes with most apps you're likely to need.

BrendanM
January 5th, 2010, 10:41 PM
If anyone comes back to read this thread, I finally did buy the eee pc 901 with the atom processor and 20 GB of SSD space. I've been really happy with it. I got it with the 6-cell battery, and it gets pretty fantastic battery life (4-5 hours). It runs everything I wanted it to run well enough. Full-screen flash was kind of choppy until I discovered that you can force it to use hardware acceleration: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/05/flash_uses_the_gpu.html

About the only downside of the eee 901 was the default Xandros OS, which is nerfed and worthless, but I replaced that with Ubuntu NBR, and all the hardware is well-supported.