Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[tonyappuk]

Hallo All

Since I have bought stuff from Novatech over the years, they email me details of their bargains. The most recent is for an EEE clone for £169.99 which seems cheap to me. It says it's loaded with Linux but doesn't say the distro. I don't think I'm interested but others might be. No guarantees of course, it might be rubbish but Novatech stuff is usually good. The link is http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/e-weekly.html

Tony

[kitz]

How cute is that?
Seems a good price for a mini "portable"


I dont know what the processing power is... nor exactly what parts are in it. 
Theres only 128MB of RAM and it has no HDD (Flash Memory).

It seems a good halfway house between a PDA and a lappy 

[mr_chris]

DON'T DO IT!!

At least without reading the specs in full.

A bit of googling revealed the same computer being sold at scan (clicky). Specs are listed there under the Technical Specs section, but pasted here too.

So with only a 2GB hard disk equivalent (it's a SSD, or a solid state disk instead of a regular hard disk, which may be quicker, but the 400MHz processor will definitely limit what you can do.

What will limit most of all what you can do is that the processor is NOT an Intel clone, I can't find out whether it's an ARM or a MIPS clone, either way this laptop is incapable of running Windows!! (actually, that may not be a bad thing, but it's worth pointing out that fairly major thing)

I can't find out which distribution of Linux is included either.

Tech Specs

Manufacturer: CnMemory
CPU Type: XBurst 32bit
CPU Speed: 0.4 GHz
Screen Size: 7"
Resolution: 800x480
Memory: 128MB
Memory Type: Flash
Memory Speed:
Maximum Memory Capacity:
HDD/Flash Drive Size: 2 GB
HDD Speed: 0 rpm
HDD Cache:
Graphics Memory:   
Graphics Chipset:
Optical Drive:
Card Reader:  Yes
I/O: 1 x 10/100 (LAN), 1 x Line In, 1 x Line Out, 1 x Mic In, 3 x USB 2.0/1.1
Express Card Slot:  No
PCMCIA:  No
1.44" Floppy:  No
TV Tuner:  No
Wireless Lan:  Yes
Bluetooth:  No
Integrated Camera:  No
Speaker(s):  No
Bag/Case Included:  Yes
Operating System: Linux 
Colour: Black 
Dimensions : 222 x 165 x 29.5 mm (WxHxD)
Weight (Inc. Battery): 0.650 kg

[mr_chris]

Upon closer inspection, it's basically an Elonex OneT+ without the Elonex branding. There's no info on the Elonex website, and it's not available to purchase yet, apart from one page (here).

For that sort of price, you'd be better off getting an Asus EEE PC - which has an Intel processor and more RAM, so is basically a small, low powered normal laptop, rather than an oversized PDA!!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[tonyappuk]

I did say "no guarantees" but I thought others might be interested. The EEE has become very popular which I don't personnally understand because of all its limitations. As for the "unable to run Windows" if you are thinking about going down the limited performance road that these mini laptops offer, it doesn't really matter providing the operating system and supplied applications do the job for you. I thought Roseway might be interested 'cos it's Linux!
Tony 

[mr_chris]

Yeah, I was interested myself in what it was, and thought I'd try and post up some additional information about it.

I was merely stating that the key difference between it and the EEE was that it wasn't based on an Intel chip, so therefore would be unable to run Windows. I thought it was only right and fair to point out this important fact in case anyone else didn't realise that.

And... for under £10 extra, you could get an EEE with 4GB storage, 512MB RAM, and an Intel CPU, which would do everything the Minibook would do, but allow the flexibility of a "standard" x86-compatible setup.

[guest]

The cpu is Chinese-made AND designed. It has basic x86 functionality (emulation) but not enough to run Windows. It also (IIRC) has some nifty encryption in hardware but I rather suspect that's disabled.

Personally I can't see the point in these SCC "laptops". The price differential between them and "real" laptops is too small now and frankly I have more storage/cpu power on my phone than most of this SCC junk

[jid]

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/705895

This should be able to handle Vista lol   

[mr_chris]

Well - depends what you mean by 'handle'

[guest]

I can't help laughing at Intel pretending to be interested in power consumption with the woeful Atom.

Has nobody noticed VIA over the last few years? Great little low-power cpus that actually have enough processing power to be useful....

* rizla looks at self-built mini-ITX videobox that draws 18W. With a hard drive.

Oh and it will do HD. Unlike Intel's Atom - which amusingly has now gone multi-core and already has a "desktop" variant. Intel and power? Intel do performance (Netburst excepted). Power consumption is incidental