Hasta La Gadget!

Netbooks are good for many things, although none of those things is “actual work." For simple browsing, e-mailing and perhaps even listening to music, the little laptops are ideal. For actual, heavy day-to-day use, they’re still lacking.

I was reminded of this today when I took my Wind Hackintosh to the local library to work. I was lazy and figured it would be easier to sling in my bag than the usual MacBook and, given that blogging is an online activity and my NetNewsWire account is synced across machines, I would have all my tools with me.

It quickly became clear that I was wrong. First, there were no power sockets free, so I was running against the clock. The three-cell battery in my Wind lasts for around one-and-a-half hours on a good day. By the time I had replied to mail and dithered around, I was at around sixy-some percent. After one post, I was halfway to a dead battery.

Next was the keyboard. I have a mouse hooked up, so the terrible trackpad doesn’t matter, but the keyboard is just too cramped. My typing is always bad, but trying to tap out more than two words without a typo is impossible on this thing.

So I got to wondering, why do I have this machine? What else could I use it for? What is it actually good for? I came up with the following:

Photo Assistant

This was my first thought, and one I will test out this weekend on a trip to Rome (don’t tell the Lady — it’s a surprise). I will be taking the Wind to use as a portable backup for my photos.

It’s perfect: A netbook is tiny, and can be thrown into carry-on luggage. The screen is big enough for basic viewing and editing, and all netbooks have SD card readers built in. My Wind clone has a 160GB hard drive so there’s plenty of space, and the addition of a tiny, bus-powered external drive will mean I have two copies of everything.

Compare this to buying extra memory cards. I use Sandisk’s Extreme IV CF cards in my D700, and the 4GB ones are around €50 ($70) a pop. Just five of those cost the same as a Wind, and are easier to lose.

Traveling Researcher

This one is fantastic. I recently spent a week in Berlin with the beautiful and vivacious John Brownlee, formerly of Boing Boing Gadgets. We hung out with another of his friends, a guy named Travis who reads stuff for a living and had a netbook tethered to his BlackBerry’s data connection (he also had a couple of six-cell batteries).

We had a typical geek week, hanging out in Wi-Fi bars with our computers, but as Travis was always connected, he ended up as a human version of the Star Trek computer. Every single fact could be checked, and he did it. It sounds simple but the change this makes to a conversation is incredible, if impossibly nerdy. And that’s before we get started on the Instant Rimshot.

Clock

Download the excellent Fliqlo screensaver (pictured above) and turn your netbook into a nightstand clock. Any clock would do, of course, but this one has just the right retro-ness (it’s just like Marty McFly’s clock in Back to the Future) and is free. OS X and Windows.

Alternatively, use your computer’s built-in ability to display a slideshow as a screensaver and use the netbook as a $350 photo frame.

Product page [Fliqlo]

iTunes Streaming

The Airport Express is a great piece of kit — hook it up to a pair of speakers and you can stream music wirelessly from any computer in your bachelor pad. But if you already have a netbook knocking around, you can save yourself the $100 that the Airport Express costs.

You’ll need software. Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil is an application that will stream anything to an Airport Express, not just music from iTunes (it even does movies). The $25 app comes with a free companion application (which can be downloaded separately) called Airfoil Speakers. It runs on OS X or Windows and turns your netbook into a virtual Airport Express. You just hook the netbook up to the speakers and stream from anywhere in the house.

Product page [Rogue Amoeba]

Laptop Tray

I’m not kidding. Right now I’m sitting on the Lady’s bed typing this, using my MacBook (the battery on the Wind died at the library after two posts). My lap was getting a little hot so I looked around for something flat to tuck underneath and protect the family jewels. The little netbook came to the rescue and is now adding an inch or so to the gap between lap and laptop.

Your turn now, readers. To what other uses can a netbook be pressed? Suggestions in the comments.

Like a plus-sized dress on a skinny runway model, Windows just doesn’t fit when it’s loaded on a netbook.

So entrepreneurs are taking a page from the fashion industry playbook, and creating new operating systems that are tailored exclusively to fit the smaller, less powerful and inexpensive netbooks.

At least four new operating systems are in the works, all promising to offer a better experience to users struggling with tiny Windows icons on their 10-inch laptops.

"This is an OS built for the Facebook generation," says Tariq Krim, founder of JoliCloud, a new OS being created exclusively for netbooks. "People have their lives on the net now and they want an OS that understands that."

JoliCloud is one of several efforts to create a netbook-optimized operating system. Another startup, Good OS, is planning a browser-centric netbook operating system it calls Cloud OS. Intel is spearheading an open source project called Moblin that aims to create a netbook OS based on a Linux kernel, while offering related software development tools. And while details are sketchy, MSI, a market leader in netbooks, has created a new operating system called Winki aimed at mobile internet devices.

Amid a slowdown in PC sales, netbooks are popular among budget-conscious consumers, with nearly 15 million devices sold worldwide last year. Sales this year are expected to double, says ABI Research. Almost 90 percent of netbooks sold by Acer and Toshiba run Windows XP (the newer Windows Vista is too resource-intensive to run on these underpowered machines). Dell says one in three of its netbooks carries a Linux flavor such as Ubuntu.

But existing operating systems don’t take into account the netbook’s quirks, say the developers of the new OSes. A netbook is much smaller than a laptop, which means a smaller screen size. That’s why the user interface becomes the most pressing issue. Makers of the new OSes hope to create something more appropriate to netbooks’ small, 8- to 10-inch screens and their puny keyboards.

"XP uses a lot of tiny icons that are scattered on the startup screen," says Phil Solis, an analyst with ABI Research. "With a different OS you can reimagine the way your computer looks and reacts to your needs."

Netbooks are also used for different tasks than traditional desktop and notebook PCs — mainly web surfing, e-mail and chat. In short, they are used more like mobile phones, says JoliCloud’s Krim. "I have been a Linux evangelist for a long time and I love the interface of the iPhone," he says. "So I thought, why don’t we have a perfect mix of both?"

JoliCloud’s OS will offer iPhone-like icons to navigate. It plans to offer a custom browser, and the entire OS will be built on a Linux kernel, says Krim. The icon-based interface also makes it easier to support touch screens.

Apart from the interface, these new OSes should better serve users who are increasingly living "in the cloud."

Creating a system for users who live, work and play online has driven the development of Cloud OS, says David Liu, founder and CEO of Good OS. For these users, their word processor is Google Docs, their e-mail is Gmail, and their phone service is provided by Skype. For such users, the browser isn’t just an application — it’s a lifeline.

That’s why Cloud OS will have a small Linux kernel at is core and will offer a browser screen on startup, says Liu. "The idea is to make the browser the starting point for the user," he says. "It fits well with the internet heavy usage pattern of netbook users."

The rise of netbooks offers one of the best opportunities in more
than two decades to challenge Microsoft’s near-monopolistic dominance
of the operating system business.

But Microsoft isn’t taking
the threat lying down. The company is hoping to establish its dominance
in the category with the upcoming Windows 7. Windows 7 will be
optimized for netbooks and could even come in a lightweight edition for
smaller devices, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a recent interview. The Windows 7 Starter edition will be offered for less powerful machines, such as netbooks, and will be able to run only three applications at a time.

Ultimately,
whether netbook-optimized OSes live or die will depend on PC makers.
Although Good OS and JoliCloud plan to distribute their software
online, the key to success in the operating system market is getting
your product pre-installed.

Their one hope might be PC makers’
need to differentiate cheap netbooks from ostensibly similar,
higher-priced notebooks. Netbooks, priced at an average of $400, offer much lower margins to companies than their bigger, more expensive counterparts, says Paul Moore, senior product director at Fujitsu Computer Systems.

Netbooks
with well-tailored OSes could help companies build greater differentiation into their products. Often consumers are disappointed with their netbooks because they expect similar experience and performance from these cheap ultraportable machines as they do from their heftier notebooks, just because the two run the same operating system, says ABI Research’s Solis. Putting a different interface on the netbook might help signal its different purposes.

It’s an argument that plays well with former netbook user
Kaan Yigit, president of SRG Solutions Research Group. Excited by all
the buzz around netbooks, Yigit bought a Asus Eee PC with a Windows XP
operating system earlier this year. "It looked extremely attractive
online and offline and I thought, ‘Let me try small form factor,’" he says.

Barely days into using the machine, Yigit found the keyboard too
cramped and the XP user interface grating. "You couldn’t do anything
with it that you could do with a standard XP machine," he says. Using
the small trackpad on the keyboard to maneuver through XP icons required great dexterity for
even the simplest tasks, says Yigit.

Six weeks later, frustrated with the challenges, Yigit gave the
netbook away to a colleague at work. "Design of everything, including
the OS, has to follow the users needs and the form factor of the
device," says Yigit. "Old school XP in a tiny machine does not work."

It’s that call to entrepreneurship that upstarts JoliCloud, Moblin and Cloud OS hope to answer.

Photo: JoliCloud OS Interface

Asus on Tuesday launched its ultra-thin netbook at the CeBIT computer expo.

Dubbed the Eee PC 1008HA, the netbook measures 1-inch thick, weighs 2.4 pounds and sports a 10-inch screen.

No word on price yet, but we’re going to guesstimate somewhere around $650. Asus also has not yet announced specification details or a release date.

From what we can see, however, it looks nice. As the owner of an MSI Wind, I find the most unattractive part of a netbook is its thickness — about 1.5 inches closed. Shaving off that half an inch should make a nice difference.

Asus launches Eee PC 1008HA ultra-thin netbook [Liliputing]

Photo: Asus

The upcoming Touch Book from start-up Always Innovating will be the first netbook that detaches its screen from the keyboard in order to create a standalone touch screen tablet.

Whether that versatility will make it a top must-get gadget is up in the air. After all, many available tablet laptops (Fujitsu makes the best ones), are able to switch between tablet and laptop form with the help of a simple twisting hinge between the keyboard and the screen. And Asus displayed its own version of the ‘flip-style’ tablet netbooks at last January’s CES show.

But the Touch Book, with its versatile design, appears to make good on previous failed promises by gadget-makers to physically transform for different feature applications. One example of this is that the netbook/tablet is magnetized and is light enough to stick on the fridge as a kitchen computer, or you can just use it to watch a movie on your lap without getting weighed down by an extra keyboard.

Almost always, we find it’s the user who needs to adjust work/play habits to accommodate the physical limitations of gadgets.

The netbook tablet, previewed at this week’s DEMO 09 conference in Palm Desert, is also aiming to be the first notebook to come out with an ARM processor (from Texas Instruments), which has promised to boost the battery and processing performance of all netbooks. Always Innovating is claiming the Touch Book will have a battery life up to 15 hours due to this chip. Brian earlier talked about the further implication of ARM processors right here, including always-on booting. 

The Touch Book will also have plenty of open source features, and will come with a 3-dimensional accelerometer, a 1024 x 600 8.9-inch screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and perhaps most surprisingly (and limiting), only 8GB of storage, provided in microSD form. This means that this could be a great portable travel device, but you’d be bothered by the endless accounting of cards for your travel gadgets.

As for the OS, it’s a custom Linux that works like a regular system when using the keyboard but switches to a touch-screen interface, presumably increasing the desk icons and focusing on media features. 

According to Always Innovating, the Touch Book will be available in the next few months for $300 for the tablet only, and for $400 for the rig with the keyboard. Check out a video from Always Innovating CEO Gregoire Gentil showing the tablet after the jump.

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Photos: Always Innovating, Rafe Needleman/CNET

Netbooks are getting so cheap you’ll start to feel like you’re losing money by not buying one. A good example is Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9, which is $200 today only.

The specs:

• Display: 8.9-inches, 1,024-by-600 pixels
• Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom
• RAM: 512MB
• Storage: 4GB solid state drive
• Battery: 4-cell
• Operating System: Ubuntu Linux 8.04.1

Sometimes hard times ain’t so bad, huh? According to Technabob, the deal is expiring 11:59 p.m. central time.

Product Page [Dell via Liliputing]

Photo: Saravanan07/Flickr