Netbooks

“Netbooks” are a fairly recent thing; smaller and more affordable than a regular notebook PC… What’s not to like about that?! 🙂 Asus first tapped into this market with their Eee PC and it has since gone through its second (I think) generation. Eee PC’s generally get great reviews with the one complaint being their keyboards are a little small for adult hands. Acer recently introduced their AspireOne. I picked up one of these for my mom, who was considering a cheap notebook. For what she does (email, browse the Internet, write OpenOffice.org documents, and print things), this is perfect. For myself, I installed a few extra applications on it (emacs, ssh-clients), keep some information on a USB key and I borrow it sometimes because it’s just so portable. I chose this over the Eee PC because it seemed to be a better value and has a bit larger of a keyboard (though the bilingual keyboard is kind of annoying).

The trend with netbooks seems to be that the lower end, cheaper models run some form of Linux and if you want Windows XP, then you’ll have to purchase a higher end model. What I don’t like is that sometimes it appears you can’t get the higher end models with Linux. I doubt you could get a Windows rebate for these PCs….

Just today, Dell has released their Inspiron Mini 9 and it seems to compete quite directly in terms of value with the AspireOne. It’s interesting if you compare Dell’s US offering with their Canadian offering of essentially the same thing (I hope those links work). First of all, Canadians don’t yet have the option of selecting Ubuntu Linux as the operating system, nor a model with 512MB or RAM, so I’m comparing the $400 models. (Right off the bat, Americans have the option of going with Ubuntu and 512MB for $350.) Canadians get 1GB RAM in this model whereas that will cost Americans another $25. But if we Canadians want a 0.3MP or 1.3MP web camera, we will have to pay $20 or $40 extra. The American model comes with a 0.3MP and can be upgraded to a 1.3MP for a mere $10. Also, upgrading from 8GB to 16GB will cost Canadians an extra $10 ($50 compared to $40 for US). But the funniest difference: Americans will have to pay $25 more if they want white, but we here in the Great White North don’t incur that penalty. Huh. I wonder what logic compelled these differences.

I might consider the Inspiron Mini 9 over the AspireOne for myself if I had the option of Ubuntu. Wonder when it will be available to us northern folk.