I’m putting up the last post sometime today, but you can check out all of the others here. We hit all of the major notebook vendors from HP, Acer, and Dell on down to Samsung, MSI and Fujitsu (with a lot more in-between). If you’ve ever owned a laptop, please click on the company’s post and let us know how you’d rate your experiences with that brand.

We’re looking for both positive and negative feedback on everything from how long it lasted, how often it broke, how tech support was, how much you loved using it, anything.

Also, if you’re in the market for a laptop, you might want to check out the posts to see if the brands you’re interested in are likely to have the features you need.

The $700 price tag doesn’t excite me. Nothing over $500 ever does. If we ever get a 10-inch CULV notebook I would hope that the price would drop to that, at least. And then my poor Sammy netbook would be in a bit of danger.

Now that Acer has taken this step, I hope other computer manufacturers follow. If\Samsung updated their N line with CULV netbooks there would be no keeping me from the store.

The laptop does include a solution to that in the form of ExpressGate, ASUS’ instant-on OS. This boots up in about 10 – 15 seconds and from there you can access a web browser, Skype, music and pictures. The one thing I wish this instant-on had was a notepad or something so I could do some simple writing tasks (like these posts) without booting the full OS. I can’t access the web on the subway, so even being able to access GoogleDocs doesn’t do much for me.

Boot and wake time can be tweaked, like I said, so it’s not a tragedy.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken the system to several press events this week and it’s not as convenient for taking notes as my netbook. My NC10 wakes up pretty quickly and it’s easier to perch on the edge of a small table or my lap for notes. Of course, if I had a tablet it would be even easier, but we won’t get into that right now.

So again, I find myself wishing for my NC10 instead of the UL30. I do still really like this machine in general. It’s just not a netbook.

For me, this experience reinforces what I’ve always thought: though light and inexpensive 12 and 13 inch laptops have wonderful screen real-estate, when looking for a laptop to carry around with me everywhere at all times, the 9 and 10 inch sizes are better. Even 11.6 is more than I need.

But when it comes to power, I do find myself wishing that 10-inch netbooks came with CULV processors so that I could run more programs at once. Perhaps that will happen sometime in the near future. Or the new Intel Atom “Pine Trail” will provide the power I seek.

The subway is bad for lap typing because my lap slopes downward when I’m sitting. After trying to find a good solution I finally came up with the perfect combination. My ful messenger bag and the Cool-Lift. The ful is square and flat, so it makes a good, steady surface. The Cool-Lift corrects for the small amount of slope that would usually put it off balance, and the straps around my waist keep the whole thing secure. This is how I type with the NC10 and how I’m able to still write with the UL30.

I’m using the messenger/backpack convertible, which is also flat on the back, in the same way. The strap sits a bit differently on my back and I’ve had to do some adjustments with the Cool-Lift, but otherwise it’s a great setup.

I still find that I need more elbow room than I normally would and that using the trackpad is not quite effortless. I use two hands, which I am told is unusual. YMMV.

I think I’m ready to declare that my netbook is better for writing on the subway.  The UL30 isn’t bad or anything, but given the choice I would stick with my smaller laptop.

Firstly, I need more elbow room with the UL30 due to the bigger keyboard and the placement of the touchpad. Normally I’m not always hitting my neighbors but today I am. This is definitely less convenient for typing on a semi-crowded subway.

Sometimes when I don’t have a lot of elbow room I still get out my netbook and read a bit, but I don’t see myself doing that with the UL30. I’m sort of surprised at the difference the few inches make.

I might get better hang of it as the week goes on, so I’ll reserve final judgment for Friday.

I’ve discovered something about Central Park’s wireless: it doesn’t cover the whole park. It doesn’t even cover areas I would expect it to, like Strawberry Fields (lots of tourists taking pictures of the mosaic that spells Imagine) or the bandshell or along the length of the line for Shakespeare in the Park. Frustrating. Wireless should be ubiquitous, especially in public parks. Just thought I’d mention that.

After today’s errands, I came to the park again because I was promised more drumming and some house music. So here I am. Carrying the UL30 in my backpack has been much better than the messenger bag. This is definitely the way to go. However, I prefer messengers over backpacks because they give you much easier access to your stuff and are a bit more secure. Not being able to carry it with that style as comfortably as I do my NC10 is a mark against the UL30 for me. For folks who don’t walk around a city and take a subway everywhere, this might not be as big a deal.

I live in a walking city, so it’s sometimes hard to put myself in the mindset of people who mainly get around in cars. When is an ultraportable desireable for those folks? I would say if you travel a lot you don’t want a heavy laptop weighing you down. Or if you do much moving between locations during the day. College students or messengers or even people who work in office parks where the meeting is in a different building than your office/cubicle. In all of these cases, portability is a major factor. If you don’t have to walk 20 blocks, the UL30 in a briefcase or messenger is probably not going to phase you.

Tomorrow I will begin my working week, and that means the commuting test!

This machine is actually a perfect one for writers. It’s powerful enough to handle many programs open at once, unlike netbooks that get kinda slow after 4 or 5. The keyboard is full-size and easy to type on. It doesn’t have the spring I like best, but it doesn’t hinder typing in any way. The big screen is great for writing and editing. And it’s skinny and light enough to carry around all the time.

Well, I think it might be. So I’m putting that last part to the test. I’m leaving my Samsung NC10 at home for a week and carrying around the UL30, instead. This weekend I’m going to write with it. (More than blog posts, hopefully.) During the week I’ll write with it on the train, like I usually do.

Today I’m taking the UL30 to my favorite café in my neighborhood and then to Central Park to hunt for free Wi-Fi and a drum circle.

After that I ran a few errands and came down to Central Park. I’m not wearing my normal messenger bag because, by itself, it’s a little heavy. My NC10 doesn’t weigh me down, even in that, but the UL30 is 1.2 pounds more. You wouldn’t think that extra pound would make a big difference, but it does. My shoulder hurts a bit more than usual, but I don’t feel really weighed down the way I used to with my large screen laptop. Still, I can tell. Carrying this isn’t quite effortless.

The bag I’m using now is a bit smaller and lighter by itself. It also converts into a backpack, which is what you need when tech is straining your shoulder a bit. IN backpack mode I barely feel the weight.

Now I’m sitting by the bandstand enjoying the late summer evening and a group of excellent drummers. Earlier in the day the UL30 didn’t do that great with direct sunlight. The glossy screen is too reflective.

If you’re the type of person to sit and type in the dark, then you might not be down with the lack of backlit keys. I don’t usually type in the dark, so it’s less of a consideration for me. The light from the screen is plenty to see by.

Now I’m going to settle in for a little writing since that’s why I came out here in the first place. The UL30 is at 92% currently.

Today’s adventures are almost over. Once they kick me out of this place I’ll head home. Having carried the UL30 around all day, I can conceive doing so on a regular basis. I definitely felt it, but not yet so much that I’d rather leave it at home than take it with me just in case I can get some writing done. We’ll see how I feel at the end of next week.

I’ve steadfastly resisted the temptation to buy an external DVD drive for my netbook mainly because of the research I did for that piece. I haven’t had trouble installing any program I have on disc and in the past few months I’ve installed various Linux distros from USB drives (over and over and…).

It’s very odd to me that, when I was in college, having a CD-ROM drive was a big deal, then it was a big deal if you could get a DVD drive included, and then came the wonders of writable DVD drives which seemed so fancy and awesome. Now we’re back to having computers with no optical drive. But considering how you can download almost anything you need from media to software, it isn’t such a big deal any more.

I try not to feel old when I think of things like this…

Anyway, go buy Laptop Magazine. It’s a great issue even beyond my small contributions. 31 free apps that don’t suck! And more.

I was prepared to watch another vaguely interesting segment about whether the new PC vs. Mac ads were making a difference to consumers, etc., but instead I spent almost the entire time making this face: >:O  I was so completely appalled by how much CNBC Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Jim Goldman was straight out lying about Macs.  It wasn’t just that he got a few things wrong, he took wrong, fed it some steroids, and then sent it to the gym for 6 months.

It was a lot of wrong.

Avram does an excellent job of taking Goldman’s points apart on Laptop’s blog.  I think I started to see red when the guy said that Photoshop comes with a Mac but you have to buy it fr the PC.  I don’t know what crazytown Jim lives in.  Or perhaps he’s never had to buy a Mac for himself, therefore doesnt know that these programs do not magically appear on the hard drive. 

I had a fleeting thought that maybe he was talking about iPhoto, but then dismissd it.  No one would mistake iPhoto for Photoshop.  After all, I have not yet been able to figure out how to make the free version of iPhoto that comes with Macs resize an image.  Yes, a basic function such as resizing is beyond iPhoto’s capailities as far as I can tell.  If it can resize, the functionality was hidden.  Mac people are free to correct me.  

Another thing he said made me roll my eyes forever:  ”If your PC breaks down — Macs tend not to — if your PC breaks down…”

Stop right there, Sunny Jim.  I know too many Mac users to even give you credit for being ignorant on that one.  Macs break down, crash, get messed up, just like any other computer.  They may be more durable overall, but they are not so much less likely to break that you can make a statement like that on national television.  All technology breaks, whether through manufacturer flaws or human error.  And I’ll bet the percentage of problems caused by human error is about the same on both kinds of computers.

This is why people do not respect Mac cultists.

And its a shame because, as Avram pointed out, there’s no need to lie in order to make a case that Mac gives users value over PCs in some instances.  It depends on who you are and what you want.  This is a partculrly egregious lie because Jim Goldman is supposed to be a journalist.  But he’s no better than a blogger.  And we all know about them.

I usually carry around the lapdesk, USB drive and mouse and I own the speakers. I would consider the majority of these to be essential, with the exception of the mobile broadband and TV tuner.

I used to tote a portable keyboard around (don’t need it now!) and a tiny mouse with a retractable cord. I don’t need the keyboard for obvious reasons, and I dig the wireless mouse much more than I thought I would.

How would you trick out your netbook?  Any products you love not on the list?

I don’t think I’m all that different from most informed computer users. I use this funny box to do more than just check email and process words. My computer is central to my livelihood. And yet Linux held no temptation for me.

Then I got an Eee PC.

When I heard that Eee PCs came with Linux on them (a tweaked version of Xandros, as we all now know) I wasn’t put off. I was actually happy to hear it, because I figured not having Windows helped keep the cost down. After I bought it, I used that little netbook every day for months. In that case, I did mainly use it for surfing and writing and not much else. Still, Linux didn’t make things more difficult, trip me up, or otherwise annoy me. I actually enjoyed it. Plus, I will admit, it made me feel like an ubergeek, which is a good feeling.

When I interviewed for my current job I even said that I thought Linux was pretty awesome and would be willing to try it elsewhere. My boss hasn’t let me forget that yet. Especially in light of the last 5 weeks.

A few of you are aware of this (mainly because of my ranting), but I had to review 5 Linux distros in the past 5 weeks. I got to choose them, and I went with distros that I’d heard of and that had a reputation for being newbie friendly. Ubuntu (of course), Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS, Fedora and Mandriva. In order to review them, I installed, used, added to, configured, and poked at all five. I actually installed each of them more than once — some 3 times. I mostly tested them on different computers from LiveUSBs, but one of the sections in my reviews is all about installation and whether it’s easy for Linux newbies like myself.

And again, I’ll point out that I’m not a newbie or clueless computer user. I’m pretty savvy. Still, every version of Linux I installed made me curse out loud and break things. Ubuntu and Mint were, I admit, the easiest. But even then I was lost a lot when dealing with the partitioner. Fedora is the worst, then PCLinuxOS, then Mandriva. Fedora made me want to shoot myself. Repeatedly.

Granted, I was having troubles because I was attempting to install these Linuxes alongside existing operating systems (dual-boot) and thus had to deal with partitioning, which Ubuntu and Mint make fairly easy. If I just wanted to wipe out everything on the disk and do a clean install it wouldn’t have been so fraught with the other three. But I’m sure a lot of people would like to try Linux for a while to make sure that they can switch over successfully. Not everyone wants to ditch Windows or Apple forever and right away.

Even distros that claim to be friendly for new users and easy and such do not even have something as simple as on-screen help. I don’t understand the mentality here. Or, I do understand a bit of the mentality, but I think it’s kind of dumb.

Anyway, the reviews are all written so I don’t have to live and breathe Linux anymore. I’m probably going to end up reviewing other distros as time goes on and updating my reviews as new versions come out. (I may refuse to do Fedora, though.) I also pitched an idea to the editor concerning Linux software which I’ll probably end up doing for the website, if not for print.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m going to buy a new netbook soon (a Samsung, yay). It’ll probably only come with a choice of XP and… XP. Will I dual-boot with Linux? Actually, yes, most likely. I’ll probably end up putting Mint on it alongside Windows. My netbook needs are simple: access the internet, get my email, allow me to write and edit my files. Obviously I can do all of that with any Linux, but Mint is the only one I have any affection for. Perhaps it’s the color scheme. I can see myself ending up like this someday:

In a few years I may have left Windows behind completely. It all depends on how the first installment of my proposed software article comes out. I’m going to try and replicate all of the tools I use for web design in Linux. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Also, about that Acer Aspire One…

When we first tested the battery it lasted almost 8 hours.  Like 3 minutes shy of 8 hours.  And all across the land there was rejoicing.  Then we found out that Acer didn’t plan to put that battery on all the Aspire Ones, just the first batch.  Subsequent batches have a lower capacity battery (why?  I don’t know. ) and thus less life.  We actually got that “normal” battery in yesterday and the test results are in today:  4:24.  Ugh.

Yeah, 4:24 isn’t horrendous, but it’s not 8 hours!  It’s not even 5!  Meanwhile, the Eee PC got over 7.

ASUS really stepped up their game with the 1000HE (even if it could use a better name).  I’m pleasently surprised.

But I’m still buying a Samsung.

Some laptops come in red, and that’s cool. The Samsung NC10 comes in dark blue, also cool. There’s pink… well, I have issues with pink, as do some other people. I don’t dislike pink totally. But I do dislike the idea that making a notebook pink means it will appeal to women.

There aren’t enough patterns, as I said. And there are some tragically overlooked colors: green, purple, dark orange, brown, teal. I could start whipping out the names of shades from Benjamin Moore, but you get the point.

I think that netbook makers are being especially remiss in not doing something similar to Dell’s Design Studio. I think many people would buy a netbook with less than perfect specs if they got the chance to choose from over 100 really cool designs.

Also, it looks like branded netbooks might be on their way. Yesterday my colleague Dana went to ToyFair and saw some netbooks at the Sakar booth. For those of you who don’t know, Sakar makes electronics, mostly for kids, that are branded with some popular toy or company name. Hello Kitty, Crayola, G.I.Joe, etc. If you go into a Radio Shack, say, and pick up one of those $20 Hello Kitty cameras for little girls, Sakar is probably behind it.

They had pink, purple, red and silver on display. The pink is very hot pink/fucia, so perhaps not intended for Hello Kitty. It’s more of a Barbie pink.

Right now the netbooks run a kid-friendly Linux, which is apt. Click over to Laptop Magazine’s blog for the deets, if you’re so inclined.

No patterns as of yet, but if Sakar plans to use these netbooks as the base for branding, then we’ll probably see something cute and different. Keep your eye on the local Toys R Us!

Hello Kitty isn’t really my thing, I admit. I would not run out to buy an HK netbook, no matter how cute. But maybe this will prompt other netbook makers to get more creative in their designs and consider putting something funky and different on the chassis. I await this day with great patience…