Laptop Magazine is putting three netbooks through a type-off to see which one is the best to type on. So far they’ve tested the eeePC and the Mini-Note, and tomorrow they will show the results of the CTL 2Go PC.
All but one of the testers did better on the MIni-Note’s keyboard than the eeePC’s. I think the Mini-Note will be the overall champ because the 2Go PC has a really cramped keyboard like the eeePC.
So I’ve been working with the Mini-Note for about hour now and made some videos. Overall I really like it and am looking forward to putting XP on it so it’s not so doggy. My main concern is how hot it runs - the fan was running the whole time. Also I’m not really happy with how slushy the mouse buttons are. They’re missing that distinct click and feedback that most other laptops have.
Below is a video showing the mutli-tasking and video performance of the 1.6Ghz Mini-Note running Vista Business. As expected the performance is really sub-par. YouTube videos drop frames in both small and full screen modes. Hulu runs terribly, and Word takes a bit to open up - but I think Word might be a bit faster if it weren’t for the registration box.
I plan on imaging the drive tonight and installing XP so if there’s anything else you want to see with Vista let me know quick!
I’ll have a few more videos up soon.
The Fedex guy just dropped off my Mini-Note! I ended canceling my order with HP because Newegg at the 1.6Ghz model available and ready to ship. I actually saved about $20 ordering from Newegg because HP charges sales tax as well…
Anyways more pics and info soon!
Unfortunately Skype video calls don’t run so well on the anemic C7-M processor, but Joanna over at Laptop Magazine has figured out how to make Skype at least close to bearable on the 2133. While the guide is for Vista you should be able to make the same tweaks in XP, but I’m not sure how it will run on the SLED Versions. Any one have any tips for improving Skype speficially for *nix variants?
Want XP on your Mini-Note, but don’t have an external CD drive? Brad over at liliputing.com has a nice guide for getting XP installed on your Mini-Note via a USB stick. He walks you through getting your flash drive setup and the pitfalls you might run into while setting up XP.
Since you’ll want a real CD drive sooner or later you could reuse an old drive with an IDE to USB adapter for less than $25 at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156101. While not as pretty or easy to carry around as a true portable disc drive, it’s better than nothing and it’s cheaper.
…to Australians and New Zealanders only though. The contest ends in August, so you could move down there and enter then if you wanted - with all the back-ordering you’d probably get your Mini-note in August anyways.
beiniri over on the KDEDevelopers.org has gotten KDE 4 to run on the Mini-note. It’s still using SuSE as the OS though. The problem with knotify4 hogging the cpu and memory is a big issue on the entry level 2133 they’re using though.
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