Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/01/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I have a HP Mininote 2133 netbook. It has 1GB RAM and 120GB HDD. My version originally came with Suse Enterprise Linux 10 loaded. I had lots of problems with this and now run Ubuntu version 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), which supports the WiFi chip natively without the need to run NDISWRAPPER (i.e. properly!). I like the form-factor. It's fractionally bigger than the Asus EEE 900 and the keyboard is about 90% the size of a 'full sized' laptop keyboard. The screen is excellent but its high resolution (1280x768) is a double-edged sword on such a small machine. It can be hard to read things. But it is on of the nicest screens I've seen on any laptop. The machine is quite slow. The VIA processor doesn't have a lot of horsepower, but it's plenty good enough for emails, browsing and word processing/spreadsheet work. It's 'only' a single core too. The battery life is quite poor - but the standard battery has just 3 cells. I typically get about 1.5 hours of use out of a charge. I am waiting for the 6 cell battery to be available in the UK. By far the most annoying thing about the 2133 is the mouse pad, which is very sensitive. If you don't disable it when typing, the cursor has a habit of jumping around so you end up over-typing words. Having said this, as I type this email, I have just disabled the 'click using the keypad' option in the mouse control panel. It will be interesting to see if this helps to fix the problem. It has a built in SD card reader, so can be used as a backup device for SD cards. Picassa will read dng files and I believe there are other packages available for Linux that will work with them too. Overall, I am pleased with it now it's running a decent operating system (a Windows XP is available), though I believe machines using the new Intel Atom processor are faster, have a better battery life and may be less power-hungry. For the money, which was just over ?300, I think it's great. Hope this helps. If anyone's interested, I've written a piece on my blog about the trials and tribulations of owning this machine - http://www.monomagic.co.uk/blog/?p=145 Regards Mark Mark Pope, Swindon, Wilts UK Homepage http://www.monomagic.co.uk Blog http://www.monomagic.co.uk/blog Picture a week (2009) http://www.monomagic.co.uk/index.php?gallery=paw/2009 (2009) http://www.monomagic.co.uk/index.php?gallery=paw/2009 Tina Manley wrote: > At 12:42 PM 1/8/2009, you wrote: >> I just ordered an Aspire One "netbook" from Amazon, which I'll be >> coupling with various portable HD's and readers. > > I would love to have one of these for travel. My only concern is that > the reviews go from 5 star - everything is wonderful - to 1 star - the > thing died two weeks after I got it. I would hate to be on a month long > trip and have the netbook just die. The reviews of the ASUS Eee PC > 900HA are much better with no reports of failures. It costs about the > same, but I like the looks and features of the Acer Aspire better. :-( > > Does anybody have either one of these or another netbook that you > recommend? > > Tina > > > Tina Manley > www.tinamanley.com > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information