What's The Perfect Balance For a Budget Laptop?

cheapbob writes "Recently HP officially unveiled a budget ultraportable laptop aimed to compete with the likes of Asus Eee PC. According to Compal, one of Dell's assemblers, Dell is also going to enter the budget ultra-portable market soon. All of these devices lack many of the features associated with larger-sized laptops, such as optical drives and large amounts of storage space, yet demand for them is very high. Initial reviews of these devices unsurprisingly expose them to be underpowered and lacklustre. What's the appeal? What do you think is the perfect balance of features and price point for a budget laptop?"

OLPC

[Corwn of Amber]

$100 and it's its own Internet infrastructure.

That is perfect.

4 hours commuting a day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I commute two hours each way, by train bus and subway. Those of us who spend hours in transit every day can't even understand why someone would need to ask the question about what the appeal is.

The Appeal?

[stoolpigeon]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the appeal to me is that the machines can do enough- and they do it for an affordable price. That's the key. It was not long ago - and still is the case - that anything this small and underpowered cost a lot.
 
The HP review says it does fine doing the basics - that's all most people need. For people who are on the move a lot, lugging around a full size laptop gets really old. People want to connect to the internet anywhere, but they don't want to carry a boat anchor to do it. These umpcs may be small but they are a lot bigger than many phones that would by the way, cost more. So there is the sweet spot. Price and size.

light and cheap

[jay2003]

There's a market for light and cheap. To high income people, $400-$500 is practically disposable. You can spend that much on an iPod touch. It's not a big deal to break it or lose it because it's not expensive.

If all you want is email or web access, a cheap ultra portable like an ASUS eee is a perfect match.

Comparing these devices to full sized laptops misses the point.

What's the appeal? You're looking at it

[jeffmeden]

Web two point oh. If you spend all day reading/posting on slashdot, you don't need a whole lot of CPU power (as long as you run adblock plus.) People have less and less use for big local apps, and more and more use for web based apps, so this is where demand is going. If it can post on slashdot, it's good enough for everyday use. If it gets 8 hours on a charge and has multi-band wi-fi and a little hard drive space for MP3s and pictures, it will get the job done for most users, most of the time.

Finally, if it's cheap enough to not really force a user to chose between owning a portable and owning a desktop (or better equipped portable) and instead they can have both, then you sir have a cash machine!

Re:light and cheap

[stoolpigeon]

Comparing these devices to full sized laptops misses the point.
 
Exactly. I'd like to see a review of a pda that complained about the lack of screen size, power, and inputs/outputs. These aren't laptops - they are something between a pda and a laptop and they do a great job of filling that niche. The demand demonstrates that people have been hungry for something like this that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I don't even bother trying to use my laptop when I'm actually traveling anymore. For a host of reasons it doesn't work - but one of these would be perfect.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:depends on your salary

[stoolpigeon]

Macbook air low end is what? $1799?
 
The low end on this HP is under $500. I'd say if it takes me an extra hour to get Suse tweaked just right on this box then my time is worth over $1300 an hour.
 
Even with extra ram, a hard drive and suse - I'm still going to come in a thousand or more under the comparable apple.

Re:OLPC

[Corwn of Amber]

Oh off the top of my stoner head. Was $200? Go find an $200 UMPC now. My point stands.

Re:I don't like the direction they're taking

[AuMatar]

Thickness and weight effect the portability. I'd never take my laptop anywhere- too big, too bulky. Carrying it around for more than the trip to the conference room was a pain, unless you wanted to lug it around in a backpack- which was also a pain.

The EEE is easily carried anywhere. You can lug it around all day and never notice the weight, and it will never be awkward to carry. It doesn't have a lot of power, but I'm not looking for a desktop replacement (I'd rather just have the desktop) or something to play video games on (I have a DS). Quite frankly, I could easily get by on less than half the power the EEE actually does have. I'm looking for something with a keyboard that I can do surfing, email, and light programming and typing on while actually out and about. Laptops just fail utterly due to the annoyance of carrying them- its just not worth the effort. EEE works nicely. My only complaint is that I wish the speakers were moved and the screen enlarged into the spot they are now.

Re:The Appeal?

[tverbeek]

Calling these machines "underpowered" shows a gross misunderstanding of their purpose. They're not supposed to be desktop replacements. They're designed to be "enough" computer for use on the road or in the field. You don't need a supercomputer to run an office suite, web browser, and e-mail client, and these laptops are designed with that in mind.

Re:depends on your salary

[stoolpigeon]

No we're talking ultra portable and budget. The HP 2133 is lighter than the air - and so my point stands.
 
I wouldn't want to work with office or photoshop on an air or the 2133 - that is not the point. I want something that size to be mobile. Suse is great for browsing, email, and if I needed to I could even handle office docs sufficiently.
 
I don't work in the business world - I work in the tech world and there isn't really anything I can't do, that I need to do, with a linux box.

Small, Cheap, Fast - pick 1 or 2.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap, small, with features that make sense. This implies:

1. Reasonable battery life (2-3 hrs is probably OK)
2. Don't need CD/DVD
3. Personally, I'd drop audio if it would save a bit of cash/space. Probably too many people want to play mp3s on it for this to be a sensible option, though.
4. Relatively slow processor is OK.
5. Screen should be color, but doesn't need to be wide-angle, especially fast or have top-of-the-line color.
6. Touch-screen. Adds to the cost, but makes sense for an ultraportable. I suspect an ultraportable tablet is the ideal for a "small laptop".
7. Wireless (duh!) and wired networking. USB host (cameras/ipods/whatever)
8. Don't need video out, or a dock.
9. A5 sized (the smallest you can go and still have a barely-tolerable keyboard) Going Mac Air-thin isn't necessary, but getting down to 1" would be good.

Re:I don't like the direction they're taking

[Wdomburg]

Then you're not the market for this particular device, just as simple as that. It's like saying you don't like the direction Honda is taking with the Fit when you want to buy an SUV.

Re:depends on your salary

[Wdomburg]

In my experience, if you're posting on internet forums about how everyone should be using your favourite operating system you're a platform snob, even if you claim you're not.

Re:OLPC

[hattig]

Back in the days, when we were young wee bairns, those bits of paper our elders bought stuff with were worth a lot more elsewhere in the world than they are now.

Cheap, small laptops in the next year or two will be very popular though. People will be cutting back. They're not going to buy something fancy, they'll get something that will do the job. As long as it does the full internet, does their email, has information manager functionality, they'll be happy.

It's not about CPU power in this form factor, unless you do something silly like running Vista on the device. The iPhone shows that you can have a slick, smooth interface, fully featured (um, cut and paste excepted) that works well for the user, on a mere 412MHz ARM11 CPU. I suspect that some tasks (music decoding) are offloaded to the ARM9 on another chip in the system that has acceleration for that. Oh, there's also an ARM7 in that other chip. Probably ARM7s in the wireless controller too. Intel - you really think you can compete when something like an iPhone has so many ARMs to slap you about with?

Oh, I digress for a bad joke. Anyway, it's about the software and its optimisation. Linux has a grand chance here to shine on the lesser hardware.

What problems have you found with OOo?

[tepples]

good luck with your Suse system when you need to run MS Office for compatibility reasons

What specific problems have you run into when trying to use OpenOffice.org to read and write doc/xls/ppt? Sure, there are minor formatting differences, but those are comparable to the formatting differences between Word 2003 and Word 2007, or even between different localized versions of one version of Word. Or by "Microsoft Office", did you mean "Microsoft Access with VBA"?

Re:depends on your salary

[tepples]

Or maybe you just want a consistent user interface for your programs, e.g. not having zombie menus not attached to any window, or not having the close-window shortcut close an entire application.

Several Windows apps have the same thing: the close-window shortcut closes the window, but the application keeps running with an icon in the taskbar notification area.

Re:depends on your salary

[aphaenogaster]

A used ibm x30 is 200 dollars with a 60gb hd 512ram and 1.2 ghz chip. 3lbs and an 1inch thick. In another year it will be 100 dollars. Why bother with a new computer if all you want to do with it is travel, net, and type?

Re:The Appeal?

[lupis42]

The big thing I'm always wanting? A few more pixels. The speed on my HTC Mogul is enough, but using it for www quickly gets annoying, because the web is designed for 1024x768, or 1280x1024, and even 480x800 isn't quite there. If the 4gig EEEpc, or this, or any of the others I'd looked had a 10x7 screen, (without costing over 500$), I would be tempted. Otherwise, well, my phone costs 500$ without any rebate, is pocket-size, has a good 8+ hours of battery, and supports wi-fi, bluetooth, and mini-usb. What's more, for around 400$, I could buy a keyboard/screen combo for it that would make the combination as big as a umpc, but would ADD battery life. Why haven't I? Because the screen still isn't big enough.

Re:What's the appeal? You're looking at it

[Xygon]

*cough* Please. Maybe the few simple web 2.0 apps in the world, but the majority of applications are not simply and cleanly built. Have you tried running a powerpoint-like application via Web2.0? Native apps run MUCH cleaner. I need more cpu power to run a few 2.0 apps simultaneously than most native apps, thanks to the hoops they have to run through as a client-server application. Add in a few Flash anythings and now my system is crawling.

Re:The Appeal?

[AmberBlackCat]

Calling these machines "underpowered" shows a gross misunderstanding of their purpose. They're not supposed to be desktop replacements. They're designed to be "enough" computer for use on the road or in the field. You don't need a supercomputer to run an office suite, web browser, and e-mail client, and these laptops are designed with that in mind.

You don't need a computer at all to do those things.

Re:4 hours commuting a day...

[droopycom]

Get another job is easier said than done.

2 hours each way seems a bit high, but at least he is using transit so he is not wasting all that time (thats why he got the freaking laptop!)
I know people who spend 45 minutes driving to work, one way. Thats 1:30 wasted in traffic.

In many places, most of the jobs are in the center where rents are very high.
I know plenty of people who live in San Francisco and commute to San Jose because they want it.
In Paris, young single people who can afford to rent a small flat would rather live close to the nightlife even if they work in the suburbs.
On the other hand, family would rather get an affordable house in the suburbs even if there job is in the city.

Your not even thinking about couple, whose jobs maybe in oposite directions. And its not always that easy to move when you own a house, or when your children are going to school.

Your priorities maybe different...
 

Remember when PCs first came out?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

(I imagine many of you don't. But then the first machine I programmed for money used vacuum tubes for the DIODES.)

The same sorts of questions were being asked then. What could you possibly DO with a little home computer? They were SO underpowered compared with a mainframe.

The question was related to another one that had been asked before: "How many of these first IBM machines will we be able to sell?" "Well, 10 of them would do more arithmetic than all the accountants in the world..."

Surprise: When the price gets low enough there's a LOT of stuff you can do that you couldn't afford to do before.

So it's got a lot less processor and memory than the current top-of-the-line laptop? That puts it far ahead of the laptops - and desktops - of just a few years back. And it would run RINGS around the first Unix machine I bought for my personal use, back in the '70s. A couple megabyte or RAM? 80 Megs of hard drive? Floppies for backup? I still found PLENTY of stuff to do with it. Enough to justify the several thousands of dollars it cost - back when two hundred bux were worth about what a thousand is now.

Bring the price down to a hundred or two, for a small, light box with enough memory and processor to drive a decent display, audio, enough battery to keep it alive for a few hours, USB (or other) interface for external memory sticks / drives / cameras, and internal modem and wireless. Then you've got the bulk of what I need at a throwaway price.

I'd buy one for me, one for the wife, one for each nephew (if they don't have it already), put one in the vacation house to monitor the cameras and phone home in case of trouble, one for the townhouse to phone the vacation house when we're there ditto, one in the camping trailer, one on the boat, a spare in the trunk, ... One breaks? Chuck it and get another.

As for the vendors: Fast nickels are better than slow dimes. Get the price point down far enough and you sell SO many of 'em that you more than make it up on volume.

Re:The Appeal?

[backpackcomputing]

It's a bit of a misnomer to characterize these UMPCs as "budget" devices. Of course they are much less expensive than the high end sub-notebooks, particularly the Sony products. However, they retain most of the functionality and thus they may be better understood as a fundamental shift in the market to new functionality/price point. (just look at the huge sales of the Asus Eee PC) This holds particularly true for the new HP 2133 top of the line model which has 2 GB of RAM and a 120 GB HDD. (as for optical drives, disc based storage and distribution is rapidly fading) This capacity is going to provide 80%, maybe even 95% of the functionality the average user will ever need. I think the "lack of features" argument will be even less forceful when the Intel "Atom" CPUs are used in these devices, beginning probably in June. Yes, these devices are not the ideal platform for complex weather modeling or playing Crysis, but neither are the $2000 sub-notebooks.

Re:4 hours commuting a day...

[poot_rootbeer]

it scares me that anybody would think that ANY job is worth wasting 4 hours a day of your life commuting to. They should either get a new job, or move closer to their job. I think the grandparent poster probably has their priorities wrong.

I think you should cram it. Who the hell are you to tell anybody else what their priorities should be?

Spending four hours a day in transit is only a waste of time if it deprives one of the opportunity do things one would otherwise be doing. If somebody can check email or write a TPS report or take a nap seated in a train instead of at a desk in a building, what time is being wasted?

Re:light and cheap

[poot_rootbeer]

That will solve one of the two worst problems about school : rote learning. You simply CAN NOT ask kids to learn anything by rote when they KNOW they can find ANY information whasoever with a few skills that complement the "relevancy" algorithms of search engines.

That doesn't mean that certain knowledge isn't still appropriate to be learned by rote.

Yes, I have a calculator on my mobile phone that can multiply any two numbers in less time than it takes to key them into the thing, but I'm not going to pull it out of my pocket just to find out what six times eight is.

I know instantly that the answer is 48, because I was in 3rd grade once, and had to learn the multiplication table from 0x0 to 10x10. By rote. Now I have a hashtable burned into my brain.

Battery Life

[OldSoldier]

In a word (or 2) I'd say the perfect balance is battery life. Though this completely ignores the "ultra portable" part, but if you go for battery life it also gets you a not overpowered CPU too. I find high power CPU to be a double whammy wrt battery life. A) the CPU consumes more power and B) the fan runs more often and hence consumes more power. So... if you go for battery life ALONE you'll also get a mid-range CPU with a reasonable fan activation cycle.

Re:4 hours commuting a day...

[deragon]

I have been using a laptop in the subway for 3 years now and never had a problem. Granted, there is less vibration in a subway than a bus, but the HD are built to stand the beat.

And... always backup, just in case. I backup multiple time per day.

Re:OLPC

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Vista will have a hard time on these devices. I'd say, Microsoft picked a wrong strategy for that system. As gigahertz race is over and mobility takes over, size, power and price are becoming more important than performance (except for desktops). For many people it's enough.

The most scalable system (Linux) will be mostly used on those computers.

Re:What's the appeal? You're looking at it

[homer_ca]

I know Slashdot just recently went to AJAX for the comments, but check your processor usage sometime on a really heavy Web 2.0 app. I know killing the Flash ads helps, but web surfing on a PIII class CPU ain't what it used to be.

Re:4 hours commuting a day...

[paulthomas]

"Naturally it's better to live in Germany. Unfortunately, I'm American."

Re:Are we asking for small, or cheap? Pick one...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it's a great machine, but are you seriously calling it durable based on the fact that you're able to subject the machine to daily carrying and use without destroying it in just one year?

Seriously, have standards dropped that far?

(From someone who carries his laptop daily, and replaces machines about once every three years--typically not because of breakage)

Re:4 hours commuting a day...

[Chrisq]

If I work 9 to five it takes me 45 minutes each way to commute the 7 miles. Most days I work 7 until 3, when it takes 15 minutes in and 25 back.

On public trasnsport I would have a choice of two busses and a five minute walk (1.5 hours each way) or a two mile walk and one bus (1.25 hours each way).

I would not want to live where I work, it is in an area that has been on the news for the wrong reasons!

Re:4 hours commuting a day...

[bkr1_2k]

Love the train when the US finally figures out a system that allows the train to get me to work in a time frame approximating how long it takes me to get there by car.