Silent adversaries

Hey there.

Are there any silent adversaries to the AAO? I'm thinking of the MSI Wind, ASUS eeePC (10" and upwards) or maybe one of the upcomings Dell Mini, HP or any other mininote.

The noise is actually my only problem with the AAO, and it has really impressed me a lot! BTW. I'm using the A110-L linux version, and I'm grateful to not be in the hands of M$$ and has been more than satisfied with the software available for Linpus!

 

Possibly a different AAO? It seems it's hit or miss with the fans. My 160GB/6-cell has a fairly silent fan.

 

My AA1 works perfect also. Is really quiet. Sometimes I have to even check is it still working... The noisy fan issue has been described already as it's common problem...

 

I really believe there is no competitor to the AAO.
EEE has crap processor until the newest one comes out, random unupgradeable storage, tiny keyboard etc etc, you all know the probs
The Mini-Note i think has a Via C7 processor which is crap
The Dell has 16GB max storage...

They all have problems with specs, and the only problem is a noisy fan on some machines...

Pretty damn good..

Rory

 

Wait til the end of the month for the Samsung NC10 at £299. True competitor!

Check out my other entries in the forum too for the specs!

 

It's difficult to make comparisons between the UK and the US, as the prices seem to widely differ. I remember blithely posting that there was little difference between the XP HD model and Linux SSD (3 cell version of both) and someone pointed out that in the UK it was close to or over 30% higher for the XP version.



I see Amazon is offering it for pre-order at $487 vs. $399-$420 USD for the Aspire one with similar specs. The Samsung has the 10 inch form factor, which also starts to move it beyond netbook. It's probably easier to upgrade the RAM, though I don't know.

The Toshiba one also seems as if it may be nice, and is being offered with an Ubuntu netbook remix, which seems a good move in my opinion.

For we Linux folks, part of the issue is the hardware. For example, at this point, the Aspire's wireless is fairly easy to get working under any distribution. I don't know what wireless card the Samsung will use.

Of course, the trouble is that with the constantly expanding market, (and I believe that manufacturers weren't expecting the netbooks to be this popular) not only do we usually think, Darn, I should have waited a month, but the line between netbook and small, cheap laptop is becoming more and more blurred.

 

To tentatively answer my own question--judging by downloading the drivers for the WLAN at Samsung's site and looking at the included files, it seems it's an Atheros 5008 card.

Depending upon which one, which I wasn't really able to determine, it might or might not work with Linux.

Sigh.
<rant>
These days, wireless cards seem to be the biggest hurdle. It's a pity that all OSS users can't unite and simply boycott manufacturers that don't include Linux drivers. Of course, it's rather difficult to know the hardware till you buy the machine, as they also make it harder and harder to determine what hardware they are using. </rant>