What were they thinking?

[ffutures]

Passed Selfridges today, they had two of the new Sony netbook things in the window, the one that costs about £800.

The screen surface is incredibly reflective; it wasn't particularly sunny, but the display was virtually unreadable because of all the shiny. Not the best way to convince me to buy one!

And WTF were they thinking of putting the RH shift key where it is?

Oh well, I don't have the money anyway...

Another netbook I looked at is the little Toshiba which Morgans are selling refurbished for about 200 quid (linux) or 230 (windows XP). It's quite a nice computer in many respects, but the keyboard is appallingly cramped and the mouse pad is perhaps the worst I've ever seen. Another one I'll pass on, I think.

A 2nd hand eee PC 701 or similar is looking more and more like the optimum choice, for the limited things I want to do with a netbook, but I'd still prefer something that's physically a little smaller. Right now waiting is probably the best option.

Comments

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

Surely a netbook that costs £800 is in fact a very small lap top? Since I thought one of the key netbook things was that it was cheap.....

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

This is Sony, don't expect it to make sense...

[leoniedelt.livejournal.com]

as long as its KDE, linux is a pretty smooth choice. been a linux gal myself since the late 90s...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

So far I've tried the version of Linux that came with the HP 2133 I had to return, which was REALLY horrible, and Ubuntu, which was pretty good. Don't know KDE.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

KDE is just a desktop, not a distro.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Right - I did see it on the HP then, but I sort of blotted it out because I hated the original Linux distro it came with.

[leoniedelt.livejournal.com]

KDE is the desktop env. There are two main ones, Gnome and KDE. Ubuntu comes with gnome, Kubuntu, KDE.

Mandriva, the linux distro i use, comes with both, but largely K is the user friendliest.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

With you now - I saw it on the original HP distro, but had to ditch it because I just couldn't work with that version of linux, Ubuntu was an immense improvement.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I will never understand the propensity of making laptop monitors shiny, you can't find matte ones anywhere these days.

I got an AspireONE (the version with HD and WinXP) today and so far, I like it.
Randomly, the Gadget Show on Channel 5 reviewd Netbooks today and voted the Samsung one (which was also the most expensive) best. They were all WinXP versions, though.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Fracked if I know - seems mad to me too.