I’ve been looking to buy a subnotebook lately. Since this is such a new market segment, the technology in this area is changing rapidly, which means it’s tempting to keep “waiting for the next big thing”. This segment was dominated in the last year (and arguably brought to the mainstream by) the Asus Eee PC, which recently launched a version with a bigger 8.9″ screen and 1024×600 native resolution.
Although I wanted to get the new Eee, a few things held me back at first. I was really looking forward to the MSI Wind, with its battery-saving new Intel Atom CPU and LED backlighting. But when I read about its long-awaited specs, I found that the Linux version would be woefully crippled with less RAM, and that the U.S. version would be available only with a 10-inch screen, which unfortunately is the same resolution (1024×600) as the smaller screen. Plus, it has a traditional hard drive rather than solid-state.
I appreciated the fact that Asus fully embraced Linux from the get-go with the Eee, even though they unfortunately chose the patent-license-encumbered Xandros distribution. So I was looking forward to see which distro MSI would choose for the wind, hoping for Ubuntu or Fedora. No dice — they chose SuSE, another distro from a vendor that entered into a licensing deal with Microsoft.
And thus the first test of my open-source pledge: do I wait even longer to see if someone would come out with a completely Microsoft-free product, or do I let practicality prevail and get what’s available today? I chose the latter. At least I can feel good about not paying actual money for Windows.
So I ordered the 8.9″ Linux Eee PC from Amazon today. I’m really looking forward to giving it a whirl.
Post a Comment