Xandro Presto Beta Hands-On (LAPTOP Magazine)

Last week, Xandros released a beta of Presto, a Xandros-based Linux distribution designed for laptops/netbooks and ultraportables as an “instant-on” OS environment. It’s considered a “pre-boot” environment that works with Windows XP and Windows Vista-based systems.

It allows you to quickly boot into an environment where you can do a quick check of email or you can browse the web. You can also access your Windows’ data as well as play media files (music, etc.). It includes Firefox for web browsing, as well as Skype for VOIP, plus applications to look at or edit documents you created with Microsoft Office. There’s also an application store with apps that are tailored for Presto.

Joanna Stern at LAPTOP Magazine first tried to install it with the new 10.1-inch Acer Aspire One AOD150, however there were some install problems, with the result being that they installed it on an 10-inch Asus Eee PC 1000H. She mentioned that the download/install file is only around 14MB in size. Connectivity was simple and fast. She’s included several screenshots showing off the interface as well as Hulu.com streaming, etc.

Links:
- PrestoMyPC - Main Presto site
- Presto Download Links
- Presto Application Store
- Xandros - Main website

Read: LAPTOP Magazine (Hands-On)

Microsoft’s Windows 7 Netbook Challenge

Netbooks, Sub-notebooks, ultraportables, whatever you want to call them, Microsoft is trying to figure out how to maximize their revenue from potential Windows 7 sales, without causing the manufacturers to go with an alternative. This is an issue that Microsoft has been looking at for a while now, going back to last november and beyond. Microsft has already had to relax some hardware restrictions on initial limitations they imposed with Windows XP Home licensing, as well as extending sales of Windows XP Home in general.

Given the low price and rapid growth in the market of these devices, Microsoft faces the situation of trying to get people to buy the more expensive versions of Windows 7. Having to offer Windows XP Home on literally millions of machines last year ate into Microsoft’s revenue stream - they would have preferred people buy the more expensive Windows Vista, however Vista did not perform well on many of the machines, plus the pricing was unattractive.

Last week, Bloomberg.com published an article concerning how Microsoft sees the situation and what they plan on doing both from a technical and from a financial point of view:

“The challenge for us clearly is to get the average selling price up,” Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said last week. “We see Windows 7 at as an opportunity. We’ll have the ability for people to trade up, which would give us a price more similar to what we would normally get for a consumer.”

To push customers to pricier versions of Windows 7, Microsoft is limiting the features of the cheaper edition. The most basic, called Starter Edition, can only run three programs at a time.

Microsoft will make it easy for consumers to quickly upgrade to more advanced versions, as all the required software will already be installed on the machine and it just takes a few minutes to switch from one version to the next, said Parri Munsell, a director at Microsoft’s Windows business.

“If you look at Starter Edition, I really don’t think Microsoft wants to sell that at all — it’s pretty crippled,” said Michael Silver, an analyst at Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc. “It’s really there just so they can say they have a really low-priced offering.”

If the pricing is too high, they also face the situation of Linux potentially gaining ground - the next major release of Ubuntu has some major enhancements for netbook performance, and Hewlett-Packard and others are offering custom interfaces for Linux (this review of the Mini 1000 discusses it). These devices are actually one area where Linux can do a lot better than other markets, given that the main uses have capable equivalents on both Linux and Windows platforms (Skype, web browsing, etc.).

Read: Bloomberg.com
Thanks to Tony

HP Mini 1000 Mi Review (liliputing)

Last week, liliputing reviewed the HP Mini 1000 Mi version of the 10.1″ Intel Atom-powered HP Mini 1000 netbook series.

The model reviewed has a glossy 10.1″ display, 60GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and Bluetooth, and retails for around $435.

While the Mini 1000 Mi is based on the Ubuntu Linux distribution, Hewlett-Packard has customized the interface to fit the resolution as well as the typical uses that people are using netbooks/ultraportable laptops for.

liliputing has included screenshots - you can see the Home Screen that the HP Mini 1000 boots up to is heavily customized - you have a display for your waiting email, links to a few of your favorite websites, as well as music and photos. The interface is nicely designed, for what it does:

In the center you have a search bar and a bookmark toolbar and 4 user customizable thumbnail previews for the web sites you visit most often. For the most part, this section is awesome. For people who treat their computers as a web browser with a keyboard, this is practically like being presented with your web browser upon startup. Just type a URL or a search term in the search box and hit enter, and Firefox will launch within seconds, displaying your web page or search results.

There’s also a customized program launcher and taskbar:

This task switcher gives you large icons with descriptive text explaining which apps are running. It’s a lot easier to decipher than the tiny icons you’ll find in the Windows taskbar or OS X dock, and an HP representative tells me that’s why HP decided to use this task switcher in lieu of a more traditional taskbar.

Read: liliputing

More on the Slimmer / Slimline Acer Aspire One

There’s been some talk and some images popping up about a slimmer than usual Acer Aspire One. Macles had a few photos, along with speculation that it would be packing a Solid State Drive (SSD) or similar flash memory-based storage in order to keep the size of the profile down, as well as moving some of the ports around.

An anonymous reader of NetbookNews.de has sent them quite a bit of information along with photos that are clearly not publicity or marketing stills - they show the machine in use, as well as closeups of the ports. They claim it’s got a normal Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) CPU under the hood, and is based on the current 945GME chipset (ICH7).

Just as important - they claim it’s got a 160GB HDD, which you would think might add to the bulk, however if the measurements they gave NetbookNews.de are accurate, namely the thickness of 0.9 inches / 24 mm, then it is indeed quite a bit slimmer than the 10″ Acer Aspire Ones that are currently shipping.

The keyboard layout resembles the current 10.1-inch Acer Aspire One, although the Synaptics touchpad looks larger. In one of the photos you can clearly see the SD Expansion slot, something that was dropped between the 10″ and 8.9″ Acer Aspire One.

Some notes on the “Slimline” Acer Aspire One AAO:
Read more

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 - 33% Sold With Linux

Back in October of last year, MSI mentioned a high return rate for Linux netbooks versus Windows XP-based netbooks. In some cases, up to four times the Windows XP return rate.

That hasn’t been the case with the 8.9″ Dell Inspiron Mini 9 when it comes to Linux. In fact, Dell has been very successful with their Linux-based sales. They’ve also had a low return rate, and it’s even comparable to their Windows XP return rate.

Dell mentions that a big part of their high number of Linux sales is due to the Linux-based Mini 9s having a low price at the entry level - one third of the Mini 9s sold are running Linux (specifically, a distribution based off of Ubuntu).

They attribute their low return rate to communication:

“A third of our Mini 9 mix is Linux, which is well above the standard attach rate for other systems that offer Linux. We have done a very good job explaining to folks what Linux is,” says Dell’s Jay Pinkert.

Read: LAPTOP Magazine

Ubuntu 9.10 - Better Linux Experience for Netbooks

One of the goals for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release is to provide a better experience for netbook users who want to use Linux. Ubuntu 9.10 is a ways off - Canonical is going to be releasing 9.04 in April of this year, while 9.10 will be released sometime in October. In addition to discussing ways to improve Ubuntu in the 9.10 release, Mark Shuttleworth is also inviting netbook owners to try out 9.04 and Netbook Remix:

The goal for Jaunty on a netbook is 25 seconds, so let’s see how much faster we can get you all the way to a Koala desktop. We’re also hoping to deliver a new login experience that complements the graphical boot, and works well for small groups as well as very large installations.

For those of you who can relate to Mini Me, or already have a Dell Mini, the Ubuntu Netbook Edition will be updated to include all the latest technology from Moblin, and tuned to work even better on screens that are vertically challenged. With millions of Linux netbooks out there, we have been learning and adapting usability to make the Koala cuddlier than ever. We also want to ensure that the Netbook Remix installs easily and works brilliantly on all the latest netbook hardware, so consider this a call for testing Ubuntu 9.04 if you’re the proud owner of one of these dainty items.

Where that leaves third-party distributions designed for netbooks/ultraportables that are based on Ubuntu remains to be seen. Given that most of those, such as Easy Peasy, focused on the user interface and applications, it should be quite a boost to them, since they can take the performance improvements from 9.10 and combine them with their interface and application updates.

Read: Ubuntu.com
via Portable Monkey

HP Adds Options to HP Mini 2140

HP has barely started selling the 10″ Intel Atom-powered HP Mini 2140, and already there are some updated options available to new buyers this week.

They’ve added SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 as an operating system option - we knew back when they were announced that it would be offered at some point, but it’s now finally available as a customizable option.

2GB of RAM was already available on some pre-configured models (those sporting Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic and Business), and it’s available as an option for Linux (SLED 10). 2GB of RAM is still not an option for Microsoft Windows XP - I would guess that this is because of limitations that Microsoft has imposed in regards to Windows XP Home licenses and netbooks. It’s one of the reasons (perhaps the only/main reason) that other netbook makers ship with 1GB of memory with XP.

The 80GB Solid State Drive (SSD) option that HP had announced a while back is now available, and it’s available for all three OSes - Vista, XP Home, and SLED 10. It’s expensive, however - $575 (USD) just to add it, which is more than the cost of the 2140 in several of it’s configurations. I would like to think this means it’s an SLC rather than an MLC drive, because of the price, since MLC drives near that size can be had for much cheaper.

As liliputing points out, the 1366×768 display is still not an option. That probably will become available sometime in March or April.

View: HP.com
From: liliputing

More on 10-inch Acer Aspire One, Linux, and SSD

On the heels of the brief hands-on that Akihabara News got of the upcoming 10-inch Acer Aspire One, ZDNet UK has obtained more information on the plans for the larger version of the 8.9″ Acer Aspire One.

Acer has informed ZDNet UK that those interested in the 10″ Intel Atom-powered netbook will get a choice of both Windows XP as well as Linux. Whether that will still be based on Linpus Linux is unknown.

They will also get both conventional HDD choices along with a 16 Solid State Drive (SSD). Given the dropping prices on SSDs (both MLC and SLC), it would not be out of place to see a larger SSD later in the year, but that’s just my speculation.

When the new Aspire Ones ship sometimes towards the middle of February (starting at £299 - around $425), the initial configurations will only be HDD and Windows XP Home.

Read: ZDNet.co.uk

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