[ale] eee in Atlanta

[Charles Shapiro]

Heh. I just dropped $350 on a Nokia N810 (
http://www.nseries.com/index.html#l=products,n810 ) and am pretty happy with
it so far. It's running Maemo ( http://maemo.org/ ) on a 400 mhz TI "OMAP"
processor in 2 gb of mass storage and 128 mb of RAM.  Other  hardware
features include a mini-SD slot, sound through speakers or 'phones, a pretty
sensitive touch-screen and integrated stylus, a slide-out keyboard, a
microphone, a camera, and an on-board GPS receiver. The whole package is
about 8 ounces and maybe 5x3x1/4 inches. Battery life is good if you turn
off the networking, so-so if you're connected or searching for a connection.

 It picks up wifi pretty very well, and it allegedly can connect with
bluetooth as well. The browser has a flash player installed and is capable
enough to run gmail or watch youtube without issues. The GPS is pretty ok
but doesn't acquire as fast as my Garmin Etrex Legend. The included case is
pretty basic, so I'm considering buying a spiffier one. Getting a waterproof
case may prove difficult; I'm currently keeping it inside a plastic bag
since I occasionally wind up outdoors in the rain.

The dev kit is easy to install on kubuntu, although it'll be next week when
I try using it. The machine allegedly supports python, although I've run
into apt(8) troubles trying to install it on the very latest & greatest OS.
There's clearly a bunch of interesting and relatively quick projects still
to be done -- for starters, GPE ( http://gpe.handhelds.org/ ) doesn't appear
to have a shopping list app, something I use weekly on my Palm 3XE..

Alas, matchbox ( http://matchbox-project.org/ ) currently supports scroll
bars _only_ on the right side, a big trouble on a touch-screen/stylus driven
machine if you're sinistral. Of course, matchbox is also FOSS.. Hmm.

-- CHS


On 7/15/08, tom <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Henry wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Is there anywhere I can look at the eee and similar computers in
> > Atlanta? It is important that I can actually see and use them, because
> > their form factor is so integral to their value.
> >
> > So far, I've come up with Frys, BrandsMart, and Microcenter. Last I
> > looked on their website (it is down now), Frys did not have the eee
> > there. Microcenter and Brandsmart do have the eee, but their selection
> > appears limited (no 900, which I think I am most interested in, for
> > instance).
>
>
> Well, if you can stand the utter oddness of it, I've seen eeepcs at a few
> Target big box stores (Charlotte), and I _think_ it was the 900 but I'm
> not going to swear to that. I think it is the first time I've seen a
> computer stocked at Target, and not all of them by a long shot.
>
>
>
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