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Our Blogs The BeerFiles HP Mini-Note plays right tune but misses beat with Vista: review
Our Blogs The BeerFiles HP Mini-Note plays right tune but misses beat with Vista: review | HP Mini-Note plays right tune but misses beat with Vista: review |
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| by Stan Beer | |
| Monday, 26 May 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 Yes, at $899 in Australia, it is more expensive than the Eee PC 900 ($649 Linux, $599 Win XP). It is also a little larger and it weighs a bit more (1.2kg compared to 1kg). But generally speaking, it is the right size and price for the budget conscious road warrior. However, as every computer owner knows, hardware is only part of the story. If we were comparing the Mini-Note to the Windows XP version of the Eee PC 900, I wouldn't even bother to write this story. The issue is not whether the Mini-Note is a good computer. The issue is whether the Mini-Note is good computer to run Vista - and it definitely is not. Last week, after I had sampled and written of the delights of the Eee PC 900 Linux version, the people from Asustek Australia kindly forwarded me a review machine of the Eee PC 700 with Windows XP. I hated it. It seemed that everything that Asus had worked to achieve by integrating its compact little sub-notebook with a fantastically simple customised GUI built using the Xandros Linux distribution was totally wasted if you loaded Windows XP. Just in case you think this is a pro-Linux and trash-Windows rant, think again. I believe an Eee PC 900 running say Ubuntu would also be a waste. The whole concept behind Eee PC, the thing that made it walk off retail shelves was the package of its hardware and that Easy to work, Easy to learn and Easy to play operating system. Getting back to the HP Mini-Note, after a few hours of using it, I couldn't help thinking about how good it would be if it had some sort of Linux-based custom built interface (not simply Suse or Ubuntu) along the lines of the Eee PC. However, all I had was Windows Vista Business, which happens to be a shocking choice of operating system for this little computer. CONTINUED |
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