Comments | jrittenhouse: Everyone has a preference:

jrittenhouse

Everyone has a preference:

Dec 08, 2008 09:53

Mere’s top wish for Christmas is a Mere-sized laptop, Ubuntu Linux only, please. We know that her own laptop is something that she’s wanted for a while; the PC she ‘owns’ is my old one, and it’s a little slow in spots. I’m not sure if we could gas it up with some RAM and make any significant difference; she prefers to ‘borrow’ her mom’s PC. Her ( Read more... )

ubuntu, winxp, parenting, computers, tech, susan, meredith

Comments 8

johnridley December 8 2008, 15:32:27 UTC

I'm pretty happy with the MSI Wind I bought last week. It does come with XP Home but word is that it accepts Ubuntu quite happily. I'm only vaguely curious, I don't really care what OS I'm using as long as it just gets the damn work done, so I'm not really that likely to install Ubuntu on it.

Normal price on it is $349. I got it with a Black Friday $50 rebate; they may repeat that as Christmas draws closer. 1GB RAM, 1.6 GHz Atom (single core hyperthreading) CPU, 120G HD. Minimal shovelware. No optical drive, you plug in any you like via USB.

I also picked up a Microsoft (because it was cheap at Staples - $12.99) wireless optical mouse, which she'll want for extended use.

johnridley December 8 2008, 15:36:04 UTC

If you do look at netbooks, you'll probably want 10". Yeah, the 9" might fit her hands better now, but it'll be completely impossible for you to do any work at all on it, and she may not even be comfortable on the 9" keyboards for long. My boss got one and she says the keyboard is horrid. Of course, her hands are bigger than mine, but it's generally said that the keyboards are all but unusable.

She may want it "Mere sized" but really the 10" is still pretty small and light (2.3 pounds). The battery life is only 2 hours, but eBay vendors have 6 hour batteries for $80.

dek9 December 8 2008, 16:06:15 UTC

Have you looked at these? :

http://www.amazon.com/One-Laptop-per-Child-Give/dp/B001GB87EI/ref=pd_ts_zbw_pc_565108_3?pf_rd_p=364099001&pf_rd_s=gp-right-4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=541966&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1WYRSKA05GHZG0NHK7PJ

jrittenhouse December 8 2008, 16:14:05 UTC

Yeah. She thinks and we think they're highly interesting, but the screen resolution / setup is too small for her online games.

eviljohn December 8 2008, 17:05:59 UTC

I was about to mention the OLPC... I have a EeePC 701 and am pretty happy with it, runs Ubuntu Eee quite well, and works great for what I want to do with it. Was wonderful for traveling on my Germany trip. The screen size is small, but that's you pay for a small form factor, light and cheap.

I'm intrigued by the Inspiron Mini 9s. A co-worker bought one and will be bringing it in for me to play with.

sciffy_circo December 8 2008, 22:48:41 UTC

I got my laptop at Aldi, of all places ( ... )

(The comment has been removed)

Re: Dreamweaver jrittenhouse December 9 2008, 04:36:06 UTC

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