Netbook Life

My brand new Lenovo X200s died. The first symptoms of the deadly illness were spotted a month ago. It was 3 weeks old at that time. Horizontal strips across the screen and reset. I sent it for warranty repair, it came back after 15 days not being touched. "Tested" was the service description, I tried to argue with the lady handing it back to me, but finally gave up... And It worked fine for two weeks without a glitch. I was even thinking I had treated the lady at the Lenovo service center too bad, and may be the computer was really "tested" and the previous breakdowns had been just my imagination. But then it crashed for good. My feeling is these days electronics fail much more often than mechanics, so do not immediately trust these ads saying "no moving parts" etc... Do not be surprised when your SSD drive fails while your spindle drives keep on running... Anyway... I was facing another two weeks without the laptop. I tried to rejuvenate my old OQO 01 but that thing was far too slow even for the lightest of today's tasks... It barely keeps up with bare bone Windows XP installation and Google Chrome with just a few tabs. BTW if you have really slow hardware, Chrome is the only way you may want to handle today's Web pages that are full of JavaScript. On such hardware anybody will notice the supremacy of V8-based JScript engine Google opted for.

So when I found out the old OQO was not up to the task of serving as a two - week replacement for the X200s, I dug out an old Pentium-IV based desktop from my basement and went out shopping to find a cheap LCD display. I wanted a simple 1024x768 screen. To my surprise there was just one 1280x1024 17 inch display ($80) in the computer superstore and everything else was at least 1440x900 or more, many with built-in TV tuners. Compare that to the first LCD I bought 9 years ago for $5000... When walking along the shelves I noticed a number of netbooks on display. With price ranges of around $300 the specs really surprised me. Take the Lenovo S10 as an example. 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, beautiful 1024x600 LED-backlit screen, WiFi, EDR Bluetooth, 2xUSB, Express Card, Windows XP Home... all in 2.5 lbs package... Hey... this is not that much different compared to my top-of-the-line X200... HDD is the same, screen a little smaller, less powerful processor (Atom vs Penryn) and price of the S10 is 1/4 or even 1/5 of the X200s... Being able to hold my temptation to grab one, I came back home with the $80 LCD display just to find out I no longer can work with desktop PC... I want my personal screen and keyboard everywhere... on a sofa, on a table, in a bathroom... So this morning I went back to the store to get the S10... Having an inexpensive portable computer is what I really like for various reasons... Especially for vacation travel when it can just get lost or stolen... Or simply as a backup for times like today when my primary workhorse is sent for repair...

So I brought the S10 and I really loved it at first sight. The screen is gorgeous. The setup was simple and the speed of the 1,6GHz Atom chip is impressive. 9 AJAX tabs in Firefox with no signs of slowdown. The only drawback I see is the battery life. You should be able to squeeze 3 hours from the small battery, but that is not a lot, especially comparing to machines like the X200s, that give you almost 10 hours on a single charge. But hey... for that price I would not expect a killer in all categories...

Interesting reflection came after I finished setting up the machine. First it took Windows 2 hours helping itself with the updates. 36 updates weighing 400 Megs... This is a shame for a machine you buy brand new in 2009... Why do they install such an old distribution? This just shows the mediocre performance of Microsoft as a company... Or may be they just do not care of the press they are receiving? Then came the applications, to be precise:

• Firefox 3 browser + AdBlock Plus plugin, forming my base workplace
• Wireless driver for my Canon IP5200R printer
• USB driver for the Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner
• Primo PDF virtual PDF printer (to be able to create PDF documents from any application)
• Google Talk and Skype messengers
• WWAN driver for my GSM/HSDPA USB modem

And the workplace preparation has been completed. Look at the list above. What nowadays is the operating system needed for. Does it run applications? No. OK with the exception of the Firefox browser that is in fact the application platform. The rest is just I/O. Printers to make hard copies of electronic documents (to be honest the thing I usually print is the railway ticket when I set up for a business trip). Scanners to move paper documents to the electronic storage. Messengers, being the middleware between the microphone / speakers / webcam and the Internet. Communication hardware drivers to make the device connected wherever possible.

Times have changed. 95% of computer users probably share the list of client - side applications with me. A browser, some additional I/O drivers for external devices and that is it. Intel Atom or better - Qualcomm Scorpion - is more than adequate to run these things. $300 ultra - portable machine capable of serving all of your needs, unless you are a heavy Auto-Cad or Photo-Shop user. Welcome to the netbook generation.