Hello all, Perhaps Silk is the best place to ask this question.
Now that Apple's long-awaited ultraportable has been confirmed as the iPad and not a netbook-class machine with open access, I'm wondering what it takes to fully kick the Apple habit. I want a machine that weighs no more than 1.3 kg. I'm not rich. I like Ubuntu. What do I get? I've been a happy netbook user since the original Eee PC 701. I've been through three netbooks so far -- the 701, an MSI Wind, and an Eee 1005HA. Sold the latter last week. Much as I loved them all, they never became my primary machines. They fell short, on just two counts: 1. Photo processing 2. Music None of the photo processing apps are as usable as Lightroom, and the Atom processor simply isn't beefy enough to process raw images, unless I'm content with posting four or five from each batch. I gave switching a proper trial when my Mac died last September. The Eee became my primary machine and worked rather well, but I had to give up photography and move all my music to an ailing seven year old TiBook. I pretty much gave up listening to music too. Amarok's UI makes me cry. Rhythmbox and Banshee are no more than demo apps. iTunes on an ancient machine with the music on network storage, synced to an iPod via USB 1.1, was far more tolerable than these three. Then the 2006 MacBook Pro kicked back to life, I sold the Eee as per my 6-8 month turnover plan, and I'm once again reminded that at 2.5 kg, this machine hardly qualifies as portable in the modern world. Meanwhile, in netbook-land, the Atom N450 is out and battery life has gone up an additional hour, but Intel still won't allow screens larger than 10 inches. As far as I can tell, the best netbook available today is the Samsung N210 at Rs 19k, with a claimed 12 hour battery life and a 160 GB disk. The lesser N140 sells for 17k with 11 hours and 250 GB. In other words, there's been no notable improvement. (Asus has been having a glossy fit, so I'll stay clear of their 'books.) Assuming I were to pony up a bit more, what's a decent machine, and what does one do for music and pictures? (The hackintosh obsession took hold for a while, until I went to the Dell store and looked at the Inspiron Mini 10v. Now I know why Dell is ailing.) Best, Kiran (Fire survivor and already forgotten fifteen minute celebrity) -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://jace.zaiki.in/
