Who would buy the new Netbook Pro?

[hydractiva]

Who would buy the next Netbook WinCe if you can buy the Sony U3?

Sony:

http://www.dynamism.com/u3/main.shtml

Regards

Hydra

[fladda]

Sony is yet another laptop with poor battery life.

I presume that the New Netbook Pro will have good battery life (>7hours) and instant on capability.

You are getting confusing between fashion and practicality. Beats me why anyone buts these expensive PC laptops.

Ralph

[hydractiva]

Battery Life: Standard Battery: 2.5-4.0 hours

Enhanced Battery: 7.5-12.0 hours

800 grs. weight (1.8 pounds)

Global magnifier.

Sony U3 (Crusoe 933MHz, 256mb, 20gb,
English WinXP Home Edition)

1699.00 €.

How much will cost the new netbook?

Please, Try to evaluate with sense.

YOU CAN RUN EVERY SOFTWARE YOU NEED

Regards

Hydra

[dukibean]

Have you seen the size of the ugly and, presumably, heavy attachment?

Is that the 'extended' life battery?

It looks as at least big as the main unit . . .

Regards

[hydractiva]

I didnt look the incredible ugly and giant extended battery.

May be the Sony would go untill 1.5 kg with the big battery. (An acceptable weight for 10 working hour), but very expensive too (300 €)

However, I think there would be in a near future really lights laptops with large life battery.

But I have not really found a current replace for the 5mx. Somebody knows any PDA with useful keyboard as the Psion5?

Best regards

Hydra

[MartinMaxwell]

Originally posted by hydractiva
But I have not really found a current replace for the 5mx. Somebody knows any PDA with useful keyboard as the Psion5?

Frankly, No!

Not in the same size range.

HP Jornada comes a bit on the way but not even near. In fact, even Revo is better.

[MartinMaxwell]

Originally posted by hydractiva
Who would buy the next Netbook WinCe if you can buy the Sony U3?

I would buy quite a few netBook Pro if it there is a Symbian OS 7 option.

[cshandley]

The Sony U3 does not have a touch-screen, which immediately rules it out for me.

But using the standard battery, it gets quite impressive battery life for it's weight. My (keyboarded TabletPC) Acer C102 weights nearly twice that for similar battery life.

[Jim Cooke]

It seems so far that laptops are moving away from small and toward things like 17" wide screens. The few small laptops around like the Sony make a lot of compromises to get the size down. I think that battery technology has still not caught up with the miniaturization of the other components. Until it does, I'm not convinced that any widespread market exists for a full-fledged mini-laptop.

I might very well buy a Netbook Pro - after all the pioneers work out all the WinCE.net bugs for me. :) Compared to a Pocket PC, it seems the Netbook Pro has the larger screen and keyboard as the main advantage, albiet at a very large size penalty. I think the price point will be a big determinent of success for this machine.

[pro2type]

I would probably buy the Netbook Pro, if it isnt to expensive.

For me the essential thing is the weight, instant on capability and keyboard of the netbook, not the OS.

With CE.net we get more modern software and uptodate drivers to support modern addon hardware.

One of the things, that made the Netbook unique, was the ability just to switch a CF-card from the Netbook to a 5mx, and suddenly the whole system is to put in my pocket.

Implementing Symbian 7 on the Netbook could maybee give a similar effect with the Ericsson P800 mobilephone, but it would never be quite the same.

[stimarco]

The Psion Series 7 / netBook hardware is absolutely perfect for writing. I've written manuals and books on my two Psions--a S7 and a netBook, which was bought as the S7 doesn't support networking. The netBook does, but its WiFi support is a tad lacking to say the least, with only one or two PC Cards fully supported--the others require that you disable WEP.

Unfortunately, the netBook is clearly showing its age. The lack of USB, poor driver support for PC Cards and the bloodyminded piece of [CENSORED] that is PsiWin has always caused problems.

What I want, as a writer, is a machine that is ready to work with from the moment I open the lid. It needs a great keyboard, decent screen and excellent battery life. And it must NOT have whirring fans, clicking hard drives and other noisy distractions.

I would also really, really like to see a connectivity app that is 100% transport-medium neutral, for once. I.e., I want to be able to sync with whatever I damned well please via wired Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, GPRS, GSM, dial-up--maybe even carrier pigeon! It is possible, technically, though the UI design will be 'challenging'. :)

I recently bought a Sony PCG-C1MGP laptop back in January as my netBook's problems were causing much head-scratching. It's not an ideal replacement: Windows XP takes a while to boot, even from Hibernation mode; it has moving parts and a fan, so I get clicks and whirring noises while I'm working; it has WinXP's support for hardware, but a battery life in the region of 2 hours.

I'm fed up with PCs. They're like expensive penknives: lots of fancy tools, including many that seemingly have no rational purpose, but they're jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none. Psion need to take a leaf from the Amstrad of the 1980s, producing versions of their devices optimised for specific tasks. They're doing this with the netBook Pro, but they could take this approach so much further.

Amstrad have finally turned a profit with their em@iler phones, even though everyone thought they'd flop completely. We have clearly forgotten that Amstrad made their fortune from their PCW computers--PCs optimised for word-processing, that simply flew off the shelves.

Go on, Psion! You know you want to...

[cshandley]

A bit off-topic, but I was just curious as to whether you had considered a
keyboarded TabletPC? They make a different set of trade-offs to most other
laptops.

Originally posted by stimarco
I recently bought a Sony PCG-C1MGP laptop back in January as my netBook's
problems were causing much head-scratching. It's not an ideal replacement:
Windows XP takes a while to boot, even from Hibernation mode; it has moving
parts and a fan, so I get clicks and whirring noises while I'm working; it has
WinXP's support for hardware, but a battery life in the region of 2 hours.

[fladda]

Originally posted by stimarco

Amstrad have finally turned a profit with their em@iler phones, even though everyone thought they'd flop completely. We have clearly forgotten that Amstrad made their fortune from their PCW computers--PCs optimised for word-processing, that simply flew off the shelves.

Correction. I read in the FT that Amstrad had made a profit DESPITE their email phone business. Amstrad say that the email phone business should hopefully be in profit next year. However the email phone business made a loss this year.

Apologies for the off-topic post.

Ralph

[dave99]

I might........I'm a total Psion fan. I currently run a Netbook (last in a long line of owned Psions, starting with an Organiser back in 1985!). I don't need to rabbit on here about the virtues on the Netbook. Fab though it is, it does have some profound drawbacks for non techy users.

I wanted to introduce the device to the team I manage. In some ways it would have been perfect (for all the reasons we know) but it had three real and currently insuperable drawbacks. Cost, Document conversion and web browsing were why we ended up sticking with "portable" PC's. I can get pentium 4 notebooks with CD writers and DVD drives for the same money, Word can't handle tables nicely, Sheet can't handle multiple tabbed sheets and Opera really can stumble with Java scripts and frames.
Personally, I don't care about theses "faults", but I know my barely computer literate staff would struggle. The Netbooks form factor and the wonders of ER5 may just make up for it....but they are are all so used to PC's, unstable and virus strewn they may be..

ER6 would sort of help, the mythic ER7 would be wonderful but probably doesn't exist (though it does in my imagination!) That leaves with the Netbook Pro running Windows CE. I don't know whether they are porting Pocket PC software onto this platform and we all know the standard fare is pretty poor (Pocket Outlook must rate as the worst application ever released on a handheld!) The third part stuff is absolutely killer though. The likes of Agenda Fusion and Text Maker are a significant step up from the ER5/6 apps (praise indeed...ER5/6 apps as we know are superb). Just imagine...the Netbook form factor, bluetooth, native and exacting document conversions, proper web browsing.....add to that MP3 and video.... could the clumsy interface and wobbly OS be worth it for all that?

Hmmm.......anyone need a hand with ER7?

[MartinMaxwell]

the mythic ER7 would be wonderful but probably doesn't exist (though it does in my imagination!)

I'm not sure what you mean here. ER7 currently runs in the following machines:

Motorola A920
Sony Ericsson P800
BenQ P30
Nokia 6600
Sony Ericsson P900

So why do you think it is mythical and doesn't exist?

The two latter are using the slightly updated ER7s, which has a new multimedia framework and support for right-to-left scripts like Arabic.

There are a few more ER7 devices under development.

cheers
Martin


Note, herein as before:

ER5 = Symbian OS v5
ER6 = Symbian OS v6
ER7 = Symbian OS v7.

[cangiante]

Originally posted by dave99
the mythic ER7 would be wonderful but probably doesn't exist (though it does in my imagination!) That leaves with the Netbook Pro running Windows CE. ...
Hmmm.......anyone need a hand with ER7?

ciao Dave,

please give a look to the following new thread called "netBook pro Symbian"

sometimes reality goes further than fantasy and I hope that this will be the case ;)

[dave99]

Point taken re ER7...my mistake.....I guess I don't think of it as having much relation to ER5 and the Netbook....

From what I've seen though, it's the not the perfect business solution yet. No native conversions, and where still using Opera aren't we.....and they haven't (and porbably won't) port it onto the Netbok Pro...

[stimarco]

Originally posted by fladda
Correction. I read in the FT that Amstrad had made a profit DESPITE their email phone business. Amstrad say that the email phone business should hopefully be in profit next year. However the email phone business made a loss this year.

Apologies for the off-topic post.

Ralph

Ah, you're right. My mistake; I misread the text. (Serves me right for not having my glasses on.)

But my point about the PCW is still valid.

[stimarco]

Originally posted by cshandley
A bit off-topic, but I was just curious as to whether you had considered a
keyboarded TabletPC? They make a different set of trade-offs to most other
laptops.

Yes. Too expensive, too slow to boot, too bulky and crap battery life. And few of them are built to the same leather-covered-brick standard of the netBook. There's something about the way the netBook 'feels' that's perfect for spontaneous bouts of writing. Nothing else seems to come close.

The Sony C1-series laptop I own has a much better screen, but it's running Windows XP Pro on a Crusoe 733MHz CPU and 384Mb RAM: handy for the development side of my work, but it takes far too long to get started, even from hibernation mode. (Standby mode is pointless when the battery can only keep it up for a few hours.) The mouse-stick thingy is also poor; I'd much rather have a touch-screen.

My problems with the new netBook are those others have mentioned:

* too expensive
--part of that price is probably the Windows CE license;

* poor choice of applications as standard
--and WinCE third-party apps are an unknown country for me;

The problem with asking for Symbian OS v7.0s is that the office productivity apps have likely stagnated as they haven't been used in anything since the Nokia Communicator 92xx series. (I almost bought one of those, but they're way out of date and the keyboard is nowhere near as good as the netBook.)

So, Psion would need to:

* Port Symbian OS 7.0s (or later) to the netBook hardware;

* Port the apps to the same hardware. (GUI tweaks would be needed.)

* Upgrade the apps to today's standards, so they support current versions of Office (and KEEP updating them, Psion!)

* Support for connectivity between platforms other than Windows, such as MacOS and Linux.

* Support for transparent file and data synchronisation over any available connection, including USB, Bluetooth and TCP/IP.


Looking at that list, it's probably more effort than it's worth. Symbian has evolved away from the subnotebook platform, which could cause some problems. Software is usually best when it focuses on doing one thing well.

They could just back a Linux port project and be done with it. Linux has the advantage of far greater flexibility and lower development costs compared to WinCE and is likely a better fit for the market. (Imagine a netBook Pro running StarOffice!)

[eriksandblom]

Hello all,

just wanted to point out that Opera 6 is already available for Symbian 6 and 7 and is running en masse in lots of telephones, presumably also being very much updated and developed. Opera 6 has better javascript support than Opera 5.

Should a new Symbian Netbook be released, it seems obvious Opera would be there almost immediately. This version would likely be less buggy than the current Opera 5.14 for Epoc R5.

http://www.opera.com/products/user/index.dml?platform=symbian

A Symbian Netbook would thus almost certainly fix the somewhat temperamental Web support in the Netbook Classic.

[ZenBee]

Regarding the Opera questions:

The version of Opera that is running on the current Symbian devices (like the SE P800) aren't so much different from the other platforms (like windows and unix) like they were before.

Opera has rewritten most of the code to be multiplatform (mostly by using QT for example).

How Opera finally looks is decided by the compilation flags.

In other words:
They recompile the source for the destination OS and it runs on that OS.
Of course there are things like sceen layout and page formatting that have to be dealt with, but users of the P800 Opera know that Opera knows what they are doing.

(For non P800 users: Try to install opera on you computer. Load a page and press Shift-F11 to see how pages are displayed on such a small screen!)

Cheers,

ZenBee

[cshandley]

A bit off-topic, but I was just curious as to whether you had considered a
keyboarded TabletPC?
Yes. Too expensive, too slow to boot, too bulky and crap battery life. And
few of them are built to the same leather-covered-brick standard of the netBook.
There's something about the way the netBook 'feels' that's perfect for
spontaneous bouts of writing. Nothing else seems to come close.

I definitely agree that nothing comes close to the Netbook in feel/etc (hence my
signature on the petition), but if we HAVE to find an alternative (and currently
we DO), then it comes down to what is the least poor solution.

In my books:
- "Too expensive"? The cheapest Tablet PCs reach that of new Netbooks, i.e.
1000 pounds sterling (ok, more like 1100 in my case). So it's not cheap, but
not expensive either.

- "Too slow to boot"? Actually quite fast to restart from Hibernation (30
seconds), or Standby (10 seconds). I have mine Hibernate by default, when
closing the "lid".

- "Too bulky"? Mine is hardly larger than my Netbook, which is why I consider
it a reasonable Netbook substitute. Sure it weights a bit more, but only by
about 50 percent.

- "Crap battery life"? Definitely there is room for improvement (maybe Centrino
will help?), but 3+ hours isn't bad in my books.

Personally I think the greatest problem with TabletPCs is that they are no-way
as robust as a Netbook; I'm dead-scared of dropping mine, whereas I am only
mildy worried about dropping my Netbook. :(


BTW, I don't want to turn this into a TabletPC discussion, I am just trying to
show that keyboarded TabletPCs may be a suitable Netbook replacement for *some*
people. :-)

Regards,
Chris Handley

[stimarco]

Originally posted by cshandley

- "Too expensive"? The cheapest Tablet PCs reach that of new Netbooks, i.e.
1000 pounds sterling (ok, more like 1100 in my case). So it's not cheap, but
not expensive either.


Fair point, but they're quite expensive compared to other PCs. And I prefer keyboards; my handwriting is far too slow to make handwriting recognition worthwhile.


- "Too slow to boot"? Actually quite fast to restart from Hibernation (30
seconds), or Standby (10 seconds). I have mine Hibernate by default, when
closing the "lid".


Whereas a netBook is instant. To me, even 10 seconds is an eternity. WinCE has the advantage here over WinXP.


- "Too bulky"? Mine is hardly larger than my Netbook, which is why I consider
it a reasonable Netbook substitute. Sure it weights a bit more, but only by
about 50 percent.


Hmmm. I've used a couple and they weren't particularly svelte. Presumably yours doesn't have a 10" screen and keyboard.

One other point: neither of the two tablets I tried were comfortable with finger taps on the screen the way the original netBook is, they both required the use of the stylus. (Admittedly, both were on a Wacom stand, which would explain it.)


BTW, I don't want to turn this into a TabletPC discussion, I am just trying to
show that keyboarded TabletPCs may be a suitable Netbook replacement for *some*
people. :-)


Granted, but I can't see myself using one for writing on. Taking notes, perhaps, but even then, I think the netBook form factor is spot-on.

--
Sean Timarco Baggaley

[cshandley]

Hmmm. I've used a couple and they weren't particularly svelte.
Presumably yours doesn't have a 10" screen and keyboard.

Actually it does have a keyboard (one reason why I won't touch a PocketPC!).
The screen appears to have 10.5 inches visible (diagonal).

If you want to be picky about dimensions, it's has about 1 inch extra width & 1
inch extra length than a Netbook. It has almost exactly the same thickness. So
not quite as small as a Netbook, but to be honest I don't notice it.


One other point: neither of the two tablets I tried were comfortable with
finger taps on the screen the way the original netBook is, they both required
the use of the stylus. (Admittedly, both were on a Wacom stand, which would
explain it.)

Mine needs a special stylus too, and AFAIK all Tablet PCs do. Although this
initially annoyed me a little, it does have the advantage of not worrying about
accidentally clicking something when wiping the screen (or otherwise leaning on
it in Tablet mode).


Granted, but I can't see myself using one for writing on.

The hand-writing recognition is actually pretty good; but since I don't use it
in Tablet mode (i.e. keyboard hidden), I only use the keyboard. It's also
supposed to have voice recognition...

Regards,
Chris Handley

[payneha]

I work for a business which has traditionally kept its computers very firmly bolted to its desks. Now management have decided that mobile working is a good thing, we've been looking at secure solutions.

A Windows CE device can run secure Virtual Private Network clients over an Internet connection (fixed line or wireless), and for when it's turned off there are programs that encrypt the memory and can even wipe it if the wrong password is entered too many times.

The NETBOOK PRO with its SVGA screen and enhanced connectivity over the old, beloved netBook looks like an ideal platform for this sort of thing. Users can draft using the built-in apps, connect to the office and check their e-mail or calendars to see where they're going next, and if they visit an office with a desk but no PC, they can just plug the NETBOOK PRO into the company network.

I'm recommending we take a look at it.

[MartinMaxwell]

A Windows CE device can run secure Virtual Private Network clients over an Internet connection (fixed line or wireless)


Nothing against your reasoning. For the sake of completeness, just wish to add that a NETBOOK PRO running Symbian OS 7 could have the same functionality. There are very good VPN clients available.

cheers
Martin

[MartinMaxwell]

- "Too slow to boot"? Actually quite fast to restart from Hibernation (30
seconds), or Standby (10 seconds). I have mine Hibernate by default, when
closing the "lid".

Perhaps you are luckier than me, but I have had extremely bad experiences with hibernation on Windows notebooks and tablets. After having used a PC for a few months, the wake up routine hangs with a probability of 20-40% after which you need to reboot.

Nowadays I always turn hibernation off if it's possible.

cheers
Martin

[MartinMaxwell]

>>>* Port Symbian OS 7.0s (or later) to the netBook hardware<<<

This is very easy.

>>>* Port the apps to the same hardware. (GUI tweaks would be needed.)<<<

This is not too work intensive for apps that are already running on Symbian OS 7.0 and OS 7.0s.

>>>* Upgrade the apps to today's standards, so they support current versions of Office (and KEEP updating them, Psion!)<<<

The converters already exist. However, Symbian Office is - as you say - not updated since Symbian OS 6.0 / Series 80. But the necessary engines, e.g. Symbian Word and Symbian Sheet, are included in OS 7.0. It might however be a better option to make use of QuickOffice. They seem to be very serious in making Symbian OS 7.0 their default platform and they are much more interested in providing good support than Symbian itself. Moreover, QuickOffice claims that they can read all MS Office formats, as well as both Ascii and Unicode versions of Symbian Office formats (i.e. both Symbian Word for OS 5.0/Eikon and OS 6.0/Series80). And the icing on the cake, QuickOffice includes QuickPoint!!!

>>>* Support for connectivity between platforms other than Windows, such as MacOS and Linux.<<<

I think that could largely be left to third parties. Many of the softwares that are being used for synchronising Sony Ericsson P800 with MacOS and Linux could be used straight off.

>>>* Support for transparent file and data synchronisation over any available connection, including USB, Bluetooth and TCP/IP.<<<

Existing synchronisation software for P800 etc could be used with little modification. Currently Bluetooth and TCP/IP are not supported, but I think this will change very soon.


cheers
Martin

[Steve Moore]

Regarding VPN etc.

One interesting thing is that .net can run run Remote Desktop when you have XP Pro on your desktop PC - making it a properly useful webtablet-type thing (e-mail, Tesco.com etc. in the kitchen, just as if you were using your main PC)