You might want to at least consider the mini laptops. I have been evaluating them for use at my school. The two I have been looking at are the ASUS EEE PC 7" and 9", and the HP 2133 9". The screens are small on these but they quite usable, and I found myself using them a lot more then I expected. Here is a quick and dirty review/ comparison (prices are rough and not nessisarly compairible machines):
Asus eee pc 7" - Cost: $350-$550 - OS: Xandros Linux, Windows XP - many people have put ubuntu on them. - Hard drive: 2gig, 4gig, or 8gig Solid state drive - Comes in mulitple color choices. - The screen and keyboard is small but I still found myself using it over my regural laptop for most things. There are no fans or moving parts to breat or wear out. Asus eee pc 9" - Cost: $550 - Hard Drive 8gig -20gig solid state drive - Same keyboard as the 7" but the screen is a 9" Hp 2133 - Cost $600-up (average is higher) - OS: Suse Linux Enterprise or Windows XP - Hard Drive: 4gig solid state or 120+ ide. - Full keyboard, 4hr battery life. But reviews I have read said the Via processor performs worse then the EEE PC. The cost has a tendency to add up quickly. Bjorn Behrendt Proctor School District [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:48:13 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Dell Ubuntu PCs? Hi Everyone, Our family PC (Dell Dimension 4500, Win XP) is now 6 years old and is showing it’s age more and more every day. So, I’m in the market for a new PC for general use by 6 to 10 people (read as “Accounts”) and I’ll probably use the existing family PC for one of my numerous projects. We’ve owned several Dell computers over the years and are very happy with their quality and service. I’m NOT happy with the way Microsoft has handled the licensing of Vista and I’d like to have our next family PC running an operating system other than Vista . We like XP but I realize that its useful life is short concerning updates and security fixes. I’ve been using Ubuntu Gutsy as the main OS on my laptop for the past 6 months and I’m very happy with it. I’ve also been playing around with an Ubuntu Hardy box in our master bedroom connected to the TV for playing video files stored on the family PC through an 802.11g network. In fact, with Hardy, out of the box, I was able to plug in a $20 USB Bluetooth adapter (IOGEAR) from Wal-Mart and connect one of our Wii controllers to the box via Bluetooth. I was very impressed by that. Do any of you have first or second hand knowledge of the Ubuntu desktop PCs (Inspiron 530 n-series) that Dell is selling? Does anyone have other recommendations about turnkey computer systems with open source operating systems? Thanks in advance for your advice. Respectfully, Gary
