Life On The Road

I've also tried loading a 25,000 line Excel spreadsheet tonight and this worked fine: it was in fact two worksheets and the math calculations were very acceptable. It's very tempting to add ".. for such a small machine" but I`m not going to - despite its small size its pretty packed with software and the fact that it appears to be running a 486 processor (remember those?) shows what can be achieved when a you don't have to run Windows.

I also tried plugging in the Bluetooth dongle I use with the Dell laptop and that wasn't recognised at all, which was a shame as that kinda rules out trying to hook up the Nokia for roaming Internet facilities. Ah well, I still have the PDA for that but I was just hoping to carry one device on the road.

As regards disk space, the standard is to put documents in folders off the "home" directory, and on the "One" there's not much space allocated for this. The most efficient way to organise this I think would be to store all your working stuff on a USB memory stick and just use the internal memory as a scratchpad: this would also have the benefit of making your documents more portable between machines.

That's all for now though - I'll be doing some more testing soon and then it'll be time to tell you more about the actual hardware and Operating System.

The unit boot ups fairly slowly, but based on the fact that it's running a 300Mhz processor that's only to be expected. On arrival, there's a very clear, sharp screen on the desktop which although small is very legible. The mouse is like one of those "nipple" versions but a lot larger: I'm getting used to it now, but it's not easy to negotiate at first. The duplicate "mouse" on the back of the display is also very easy to use, and intuitive which rather surprised me.

First task was to set up the WiFi network access. This was easily done by clicking the WiFi aerial icon and running a site survey: it found the numerous access points in the block very quickly indeed and I was soon connected to the Billy Nomad. Starting up the web browser, it tried to connect to an Elonex site and was automatically routed to the 'Nomad instead: very cool, and very fast too - road warriors are going to love it. I tried to get it to connect to the streaming radio part of the Nomad and it went to download the .M3U file: unfortunately it was unable to save it to /tmp and suggested I contact the site (E One) administrator. This may be just a permissions problem but I can't tell at this stage. I then tried the "Club Nomad" MP3 library, and again the same thing. Definitely one to revisit when I get the replacement unit.

Undeterred I clicked on the "Media" icon and the ubiquitous XMMS player started up, looking for media to play. I had nothing to hand so grabbed my external USB drive on which I store my iTunes library to see if I could use that. The drive was recognised and attached (mounted) within moments and I was then in a position to browse for tunes to play - obviously not the encrypted iTunes purchased ones, but the ordinary MP3s would have been okay. Sadly, the screen picked that moment to die and my experimentation was over - for now.

The unit itself doesn't openly reveal itself as Linux, but if you've ever got down and dirty with that OS then it's immediately obvious that's what it is. Potentially it'll be a geek's dream - not as a serious games machine but as a robust carry-about capable of a variety of useful functions. I noticed that in one of the menus there was an option to start a terminal session (like a Windows/DOS command prompt) and I know that a lot of people including myself will find this very useful for digging deeper into the machine's internals and perhaps putting something truly useful on it.

Other useful applications include the Abiword suite, version 2.4, which takes a little while to start up but could be tremendously useful. I'll tell you more about the others when I get the new unit which I really hope will work. The media player and the MP3 player are one and the same: XMMS but both formats work well and I was able to play the small MP3 loop that Elonex have bundled with the unit. I've heard a rumour that the maximum file size (across the board is 8Mb) so that effectively rules out my DJ 1-hour-plus tracks, but whether this is just a rumour remains to be seen and I'll report back later.

Other observations.. The batteries are sealed into the unit and appear not to be user-replaceable, at least at this stage. The manual is fairly good but really only tells you about the educationally-biased applications. It doesn't tell you how to separate the screen from the keyboard!! Careful with this one - the small PCB connector is quite small and doesn't look like it'll stand much abuse: I don't think it'll be separated much though as there's no touch screen to operate the "tablet" when it's undocked. For 99 quid? Don't be silly :-) The unit itself looks well made and is really not much bigger than a summer-read paperback book. There's no locking mechanism for the keyboard/screen clamshell but the construction seems solid enough (I.e. the hinge is stiff) to keep the two together in normal use.

Well, that's all so far: not much of a review but for a machine that's dying on its feet and I haven't even removed the screen protective film yet, that's the best I can do. My next report will be when I've had the unit swapped out and will include some screen pics as well.

More on this as it happens!

But what can I do with a small laptop that has 1Gb of solid-state disk space and an OS that runs in a measly 128Mb? Plenty! For starters it'll be my new "in-between" box that I'll be carrying around on business trips, and with that in mind I've today signed up with the excellent Zoho, "a suite of online applications (services) that you sign up for and access from our Website. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations". I don't even have to have MS Office to use it and I can maintain even large documents and spreadsheets hosted remotely and securely from a variety of devices. This will mean that as long as I have an internet connection I can create, edit and distribute MS-Office documents. With the Elonex One this will mean that I won't have to worry about having a high-spec laptop with me, and this should solve a lot of problems.

Reading some initial reviews, it would seem that the keyboard and mouse aren't wonderful, but with the two USB2 ports it'll be possible to add a external versions if required, but this is one of those things I'll have to judge for myself. I might even stretch to a powered USB hub if necessary, but really I shouldn't need to as I still have the Dell Windows laptop for, er, "serious" work. Anyway, I'll give you a full report with pictures once the little beast arrives and then we can have some fun seeing what can really be achieved with it. I'm hoping to be able to add some serious data-based applications, especially as it can be networked wirelessly or via a normal CAT5 network cable. L8rs!