finding used netbooks?

[bean]

hi,

I'm have been looking for a good mobile platform while out and about. It needs to support standard 10/100 base T(not wrieless)ethernet and have a usable keyboard (its also a macine I can develop on so that I can port some of the more usful apps I use daily). The netbook seems to be the best (indeed, the only) thing advailable.

I'm interested in a mBook, I'm aware of the limitations of the os but it means I can get my hands a nice bit of hardware for a affordable money.

One question about the malayisan netbooks: Do they have the epoc c++ compiler on them like standard netbooks?

Does anyone know if there are any forsale still and where I can find them.
?

c

[netBookBabe]

Hi bean

You didn't give your location, so I can only answer this from a UK perspective. Expansys are advertising the mBooks, although I feel that their price is rather high:

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=PSI_NETBOOK1

I'm wondering whether you could do as well or better seeking out a second-hand "real" netBook, given that an mBook will be a couple of years old at least, even if they are quoted as "unused".

eBay is generally worth a look - there's just one on there at eBay UK at the moment:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2301490355&category=14405

Another idea might be to get in touch with the person who was originally selling the mBooks on eBay before they were withdrawn - might be a way of getting one at a better price. I'm sure that somebody here who bought one of those would be able to give you contact information.

Julie

[Braveheart]

bean/netbook babe,

If you want to contact the original seller of Malaysian Netbooks then write to "Jeff" at ezgallery@hotmail.com I am sure Jeff will help you if he has any left or can still obtain them. The netbooks are two years old but they are delivered in an OEM box in pristine condition. The only issue is this boot loader thing so we can't use the latest ROM unless you substitute a "real" netbook ROM chip but they are good machines.

The link that Netbook babe provided to the Ebay netbook is being sold by a chap called Ian Murray. He seems to me a very solid honest, trustworthy chap who knows far more than me about psions but it may be just worth clarifying what you are buying first. I do not know if the Netbook Ian has for sale is a "true" netbook as we know them or a "7Book" it may be a "true" netbook. Ian tells me that a psion 7 with the Netbook ROM is not different in any way from a true netbook if an e2 reset has been performed. Even the pcmcia power problem does not manifest itself.

This is way over my head. But as I say it may just be worth asking Ian before you bid on the item he seems to me to be very honest, knowledgable about his psions and very good at answering questions.

Good luck with the search bean by the way the other place to post an ad for a netbook is Bio Eddies http://www.bioeddie.co.uk/ they advertise Netbooks in the classifieds and you can post your own ad saying you want one.

Let us know how you go on.....................if you get stuck I may let you have one of my MNetbooks for a good price.............

With kindest regards,

Dave

[ehasbrouck]

MalayBooks are available for MYR990 (approx. US$260, GBP165) from Sita Multimedia Sdn. Bhd. in Malaysia. Sita are willing to ship worldwide, and the price including shipping to the USA worked out to be substantially less than the MalayBook price from Expansys.us, or anything I've seen for used Netbooks. You can contact Sita at:

sales@sita.com.my

http://www.jaring.my/sita/sm/smhome.htm

The MalayBook I received had only one sign that it wasn't new: the "Netbook" logo plate above the keyboard is missing. I consider this cosmetic.

From private messages I've received (unverifiable but to me credible) I strongly suspect that the eBay seller(s) and the other sellers in K.L. and Singapore are getting MalayBooks from Sita, and marking them up for resale. It appears that Sita has access to the primary stock of MalayBooks.

Sita are looking for dealers to sell them quickly, and in quantity. (Does anyone know a dealer who might be interested in importing them to the UK or USA at a less extreme markup than Expansys?)

Sita require full payment in advance by wire transfer (or cash and carry in K.L). Shipping and wire fees added about US$80 to my cost, so it would be worthwhile trying to get together a group order instead of ordering individually. (2 people are already interested, after seeing mine, so I may be making a small quantity order myself. Contact me privately if interested.)

There was no import duty or sales tax on my MalayBook to the USA. Buyers in other countries may have to pay duties, VAT, etc.

The MalayBooks from Sita come with a 200-240V input, 15V output, UK-plug AC adapter. USA buyers will need to buy a replacement separately. I couldn't find a Series 7/Netbook power adapter with USA-style plug anywhere. (If anyone has a USA-plug adapter to trade for my 200-240V UK-plug adapter, let me know.)

The choices seem to be (1) the "UK Adapter" from Psion or Expansys (input 100-240V, output 15.5V), plus a plug adapter, or (2) a 15V or 15.5V AC adapter with US-style plug from another source.

There are 15-15.5V adapters for Toshiba, Panasonic, IBM, and Gateway laptops on eBay. For a spare, I got a Toshiba PA2444U (100-240V input, 15V output), cut off the output plug, and attached a Radio Shack Adaptaplug socket and "C" (yellow) plug. It weighs 18 oz. with cord, vs. 8 oz. for the Psion adapter with US plug adapter, but it has a much longer cord -- the Psion adapter only has a 6' (1.8m) cord.

Sita does not supply the MalayBook CD, and charges extra for a CF card with the OS.img. (I got a copy from a kind eBay MalayBook buyer. Contact me if you want a copy of the CD and the OS.img to out on your own CF card.) Sita does not include a PsiWin cable, and charges more for one than Expansys.

(I find I don't really need a PsiWin cable. For file transfer, I either run the FTP server on the Netbook, and "drive" it from an FTP client on my desktop PC, or I use a USB CF card reader. For backups and sync, I use EpocSync over FTP, either with an FTP server on my PC on the LAN, or with an Internet FTP backup site. EpocSync's "sync with FTP server" option works well for me, and would enable me to restore remotely in a pinch.)

Sita includes a Psion WAN Global PC Card (56K + Fax, CombineIt) modem and RJ11 dongle in the MalayBook price.

Sita offer a RfNet model PCM-01 wireless card, FCC ID LLM002WL11000-1, for MYR300 (approx US$80). It worked out of the box for me with an SMC 2655W access point (US$48 from TigerDirect.com) and an Apple AirPort, although I haven't gotten WEP to work. It's flat and doesn't block the stylus:

http://www.rfnetech.com/products/cardbrochure.pdf

(I was unclear until I got the MalayBook: it works with 3 types of wireless cards -- Lucent/Orinoco Intersil Prism, and Cisco -- but there are only 2 Netbook setup menu options, Lunent/Orinoco and Cisco. The RfNet is an Intersil Prism card, so it uses the Lucent/Orinoco Netbook settings.)

NetStatRF and all other Internet apps seem to work fine.

Spell with the UK English dictionary is installed with the MalayBook OS. Uninstalling Spell, and reinstalling over serial link from the MalayBook CD with the US English option selected did not switch the dictionary. If anyone has gotten the US spell checker on a MalayBook, please post how you did it! (I'd really prefer to be able to have both distionaries installed, since I write for both USA and UK audiences.)

I don't know if the MalayBook works with any wired Ethernet PC cards. I'm willing to test one if someone wants to lend it.

I paid an extra MYR40 (approx. US$11) for a case from Sita. It's oversized for the Netbook, but well padded, and it was worth it for the extra padding in shipping -- Sita basically just put the Netbook in the case in a plastic bag for shipping.

I got a Wetsuit 3.0 neoprene case on eBay. It's a good fit for the Netbook, but not the tight stretch fit the Wetsuit is designed to have on a slightly larger machine. There's plenty of room in the Wetsuit zippered side pocket for PCMCIA and CF cards -- even enough room for a Revo. I can fit the Toshiba AC adapter, which is relatively flat, but not the Psion AC adapter, which is boxy.

The MalayBook comes with Opera 3.62, with a custom home page with a link to http://www.one-ed.com.my . I bought Opera 5 and installed it on the MalayBook. Opera 5 retains the silkscreen Web icon, and appears to have installed as an upgrade on the Z drive.

I use IBM Desktop On-Call (DTOC), a browser-based cross-platform Java remote contral app (US$50):

http://www-6.ibm.com/jp/pspjinfo/javadesk/english/intro.html

DTOC version 4 remote control of my Windows machines works perfectly from the MalayBook in Opera 5.14 with the JVM installed. However, DTOC 4 falls back to "basic" mode", in which file transfer functionality isn't available. (I don't know if this is a javascript issue, or a browser detection issue. I don't have DTOC 5 to test if it would support remote file transfer from the Netbook.)

I haven't tried the Citrix or VNC clients.

My inital impression of the MalayBook is very favorable. I'm moving from a Gateway Handbook 486 with upgraded processor. It's the Windows machine most similar in size and shape to the Netbook. I wrote a book on the Gateway Handbook, but the Netbook keyboard is even better. The touch screen is a huge improvment over a mouse-stick or touchpad. Mostly, though, I like the instant on/off, ruggedness, and battery life -- you just can't handle anything with a hard disk, even a MicroDrive, the way you do a solid-state device like the Netbook with CF memory. I feel compfortable throwing the Wetsuit with the Netbook in my backpack on my bicycle.

Thanks to all here for giving me the confidence to order a MalayBook without ever having gotten my hands on a Netbook/MalayBook/Series 7 to try it.

[netBookBabe]

Goodness, bean - you should have a bit to work on there!

It sounds like the Sita route to purchasing could be the best bet, in my opinion. The price is very good, even with the shipping costs, and the inclusion of the Gold Card modem offsets those quite considerably in any case.

Thanks to Braveheart and ehasbrouck for very useful information.

Julie

[bernieckm]

Ehasbrouk,

Hi ... i got an mnetbook too and agree with you on most of what you mentioned. it works really well except that i don't have a copy of the OS img file.

would it be possible for you to send me a copy? zipped up of course. =)

if you can, let me know at my email add. below - croissant@time.net.my

I will let you know my office email add which you can send the img file too, which can actually take the size of the file.

cheers.

[diem]

Originally posted by bean
One question about the malayisan netbooks: Do they have the epoc c++ compiler on them like standard netbooks?

AFAIK, the standard netBook does not come with an EPOC C++ compiler. There is a free SDK available which has a DOS command-line compiler, but not an EPOC-native one.