Size
Right, so let's get this one out right away. The thing is small. It's funny, opening up my PowerBook, the 15 inch screen looks absolutely EPIC in comparison with the 10 inches on the Dell. So it's definitely small, but generally it's not a problem. Occasionally there will be a problem due to the height of the screen - 576 pixels isn't very tall, and there's been a couple times that hitting the "continue" button isn't possible because it's off the bottom of the screen. Well, maybe a couple times, maybe just once, I forget. I use Google Reader on it a lot, and I do find myself collapsing everything possible on the left side. So screen size...yeah, it can be a little annoying, but it's no deal-breaker. I wouldn't want to go any smaller though.
Also to contend with is the keyboard size, 93% (I think) of a full-size keyboard. This hasn't been a big deal for me either. Definitely typing long emails or whatever is a pain. But would it be any better on a full size laptop keyboard? I'm not sure. Sometimes hitting the keys towards the outside of the keyboard is a bit challenging, though again, not a deal-breaker. Easily manageable I'll say.
Speed
Another concern of the netbook is horsepower, especially with OS X. I never ran 10.5 on it, only 10.6, so I have no idea if that made it slower or faster (I've read both reports). In general usage - the internet, basically - I haven't had any speed issues. Firefox is great, YouTube works great, iTunes even streams music just fine (although the speakers are mega-miserable, as expected). Hulu...yeah, that can be a little sketchy. I've used Hulu Desktop as well as just the web version, and it just seems like some clips play better than others. But if you don't touch it and let the menus disappear, for me it seems to settle into a groove and is totally watchable. It may drop a frame here and there, but come on you're watching it on a 10 inch screen, no big deal.
I've read reports that upgrading the ram to 2gb can make a big difference, and given OS X's memory usage I wouldn't doubt that at all. I may attack that, one day. But speed-wise, everything that I've tried to do has been fine. I did run Geekbench on it, and it scored like 996 - which is almost twice my 1ghz PowerBook G4. That's strictly a processor benchmark, so it doesn't mean much, but it makes me feel better.
Hardware
The actual unit is well built, despite being tiny it doesn't feel real cheap. I mean, it's no titanium PowerBook, no doubt, but it appears solid. The screen is quite glossy - I've never been a fan of this, and I definitely see why. However I had totally forgotten about that until just now. So you get used to it in a hurry. If I had the option, I still would pick a matte screen, but whatever, no biggie. Also glossy is the backside of the screen, which picks up fingerprints just like the back of the iPhone. I've given up trying to keep it clean (actually I kinda forgot). I wonder if it would be better with a non-black variety?
Ports are pretty standard - there's a VGA out that I really wish was HDMI though. Hooking this puppy up to a HDTV? Yeah buddy. Although I'm not positive if it could push that many pixels given it's limited hardware, I'd like to try. Anyway I probably wouldn't ever actually do that, but it would be nice.
Battery Life
Now this is what I'm talking about. In my couple weeks, I haven't actually gotten the battery under 50%. I've checked the estimated times a couple times, and with a full charge it's claiming over 6 hours of battery life remaining. Generally I trust the numbers that OS X tells me on my PowerBook, but even if it was massively wrong (which again I doubt) and battery life was like 5 hours, that would still be awesome. And this is all battery life with the screen at like 70% brightness, wifi and bluetooth both on. I can sit through a whole 2-hour Monday Night Raw using my netbook and not have to plug it in! How awesome!!
The Trackpad
Okay, so it can't be all roses and sunshine. Straight up, the trackpad sucks. The trackpad is supported by OS X's trackpad drivers (I think anyway) so you can get some of the gestures, like two finger tap for right click and even a three finger swipe. Unfortunately, the trackpad is really short in the vertical direction, so I find myself hitting the edges a lot. It also seems to get confused all the time about what is a two-finger tap for right click and a two finger scroll. Maybe I need to play with some settings, but the trackpad really is a pain.
And there is a physical button on the trackpad...just...it IS the trackpad. Yeah. The bottom of the trackpad clicks down like a button. Which seems like a good idea...except when you click the trackpad, invariably you slightly move your finger, which moves the cursor, probably off of whatever you tried to click on. In Linux, tapping the right side of the button did a right-click - well I haven't found that same behavior in OS X (unless it's a setting somewhere I missed?), so right clicks can't be done via the hardware button at all.
So definitely, the trackpad is the weak point of the whole system. But to be fair, I do use it successfully quite a bit - it's not unusable. It is not a terribly fun experience though. It's not terrible enough for me to haul out my bluetooth mighty mouse every time, if that says anything. And incidentally, for whatever reason that bluetooth mouse works way better with my netbook than my desktop. Maybe it's just that much better than the trackpad, I dunno, but I'll take it.
Overall
In conclusion, definitely this was a worthwhile investment. Other than the trackpad situation, my main concern is that Apple is going to release something awesomer in January. I am also a little concerned with Hulu video playback...if it can barely handle it now, that doesn't bode well for the future.
But I can't complain at the moment. It's cheap, mega-portable, has ridiculous battery life, boots up in like 20 seconds, runs 1Password, and lets me check my email and Google Reader. Running OS X 10.6 doesn't seem to have too negative of an effect on the speed of my system, which I am pleasantly surprised by. Upgrading to 2gb of ram seems like it will give OS X some room to stretch as well, probably a good investment.
In eBay terms, that's an A+++, would definitely do business with again.
0 comments:
Post a Comment