The Netbook Thread

The Joy of Tech - Anything and everything about all things shiny..
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Firefox
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Post by Firefox »

I like the keyboard layout! :)

Ctrl in the corner instead of the bloody fn key, thank fuck for that! Sticking the backtick key up on the function key row to allow the number keys to be a bit bigger is a very good idea too. Ditto the insert and delete keys.

Hopefully the UK version will have a rotated-L return key, but even if they have the same keyboard as in the piccys I'll be happy. :)
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Dio
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Post by Dio »

Yeah, me too. I'd have preferred the arrow keys to shift down and slightly underhang so the right shift was wider, and then page up / page down could be separate keys too, but apart from that it looks good.
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Post by HGFB »

WiteWulf wrote:*edit* Someone in the UK's got one and posted his thoughts:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=6732#p6732
Good to see he got it hooked up to the English repos with no trouble. That and Xandros being a modern distro should mean I have no problems getting my bluetooth dongle to work. Yay! Eee PC on the move :)
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Post by HGFB »

According to that Eeepc forum Asuslaptops are saying mid-November for the UK and since they're the main reseller for Asus in the UK they're expecting to get the first batch.
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Post by Kemper_Boyd »

Dio wrote:That's absolutely fantastic. With a 9" or 10" 1024-wide screen on it (those ugly borders!) it would be absolute perfection, I'd gladly pay an extra £50 plus. Fingers crossed for that by the time I need one or I will end up with two.
Don't forget there's meant to be a new model coming in early 2008. That
may well have the bigger screen.
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Post by Kemper_Boyd »

HGFB what handhelds, smartphones, PMPs and PDAs have you bought
recently? Just being nosey... :)
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Post by HGFB »

Hold on. I want to get this straight. We'll stick to this year I think.

Early in the year I bought my N800. I've also bought a Sony K800i, Cowon A2 and new IPod Nano (Broken and returned for refund).

I can't remember if I bought my Samsung K5 this year or not. Either way the A2 has made it redundant.

*Edit* I forgot the Illiad
Last edited by HGFB on Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:51 am 0, edited 1 time in total.
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Dio
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Post by Dio »

Kemper_Boyd wrote:Don't forget there's meant to be a new model coming in early 2008. That may well have the bigger screen.
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. Any time before April is fine :D.
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zip accident
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Post by zip accident »

WiteWulf wrote:
zip accident wrote:I've just had a thought. 512MB would be Win98 compatible wouldn't it.

Is there any way of getting that loaded? as in, can it boot from a USB CD Rom?
Should be fine, not sure how you'll fare re. drivers, tho...
Which drivers does anybody think might be problematic?

If the screen is VGA compatible I imagine that ought to be okay.

What I'd be thinking of it for is as a home away from home. That is, something to game on when visiting relatives, as they say "you can watch TV if you like" or "you can browse the net on my PC" (and if they have any games loaded I'd have to ask them to find the CDs if I liked their choice of games). I have a lot of old Win98 games, and they aren't that big, because the average hard disk wasn't that big back then.

I do hope they notice that 512MB is the upper limit with Win98, it would be tragic if the bottom of the range model went up to 1GB, "not enough memory to start Windows" is what happens then.

I have a Win98SE CD, I've offered it to someone, but they may not want it, in which case it seems to me it might be good for this.

Or are there serious problems with the idea?
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Post by Dio »

Video is probably the major one - you'll be stuck with the standard VGA driver at 640x480 in 16 colours (there was no SVGA driver until XP).

I can't imagine the remotest reason why anyone would put themselves through that kind of pain when XP is superior in absolutely every respect.
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Post by Kemper_Boyd »

Here's Ubuntu 7.10 on the Eee.
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,100 ... 77b,00.htm
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Post by zip accident »

Dio wrote:

I can't imagine the remotest reason why anyone would put themselves through that kind of pain when XP is superior in absolutely every respect.
I have Win98, a legit copy, I'd maybe have to peel the sticker off the old box and sellotape it to this to be fully legal, but that's potentially doable. If I wanted XP I'd have to buy it, and I'm not sure one can buy XP any more, it seems to be Vista only now.

I have some games that ran under Win98 that don't run under 2K or XP, which I wouldn't mind revisiting.

I'm pretty sure this spec isn't up to running Oblivion, which is my current favourite game, so XP seems wasted.

Wasn't it true that earlier versions of Windows used fewer resources than later ones?
640x480 in 16 colours
That does sound utterly horrid, I know Win95 could do better than that, though maybe only with the correct drivers installed, I do remember the horror of Safe Mode in exactly that configuration.
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Post by Dio »

No - even win2000 was stuck at that. XP was the first place they added a VESA 2 driver so they could actually use 256 colours in default configuration. Everything else needs a driver of some kind.

It might be in ME, but, well, no.

XP is still available.
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Post by WiteWulf »

Lots of new stuff on http://www.eeeuser.com over the weekend including a dive into the BIOS options, detailed review of the Xandros setup that's preloaded and a bit about getting KDE running rather than the AsusLauncher app.
:::G:::

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Post by HGFB »

??? I thought the idea was you could easily switch between the n00b interface and a full desktop. Or is the default desktop Gnome?

I just phoned Asus Laptops about my preorder. They're getting them in on the 12th November and I swear to god the guy was stoned.
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