The white box it comes in is refreshingly simple, with no images of desirable women emblazoned on the outside requesting an invite, no lurid slogans or fanciful claims about how you’ll brew tea and cook your meals while trying to work your life for a living! In fact, there is very little in the box other than the ‘Webbook’ printed on it.
And that in itself leads you to discover what might be inside.
I opened the box and inside was a small computer, remember those Toshiba Librettos that were made a while ago? this is about the same size, I unpacked the machine from the wrapping materials, connected the battery, and then connected the power supply (18V 2.2A). It was ready to turn on.
Well, from the looks of it, it’s a bit weird, it actually looks like a real laptop! and sports a true 10″ widescreen LCD (16:9 aspect). It comes in a stylish silver palm rest and LCD bezel, with a very dark gray top cover, a sensible choice and limits those scratches from showing when you in serious use.The keyboard is an actual Windows keyboard and is sturdy with good key action, no bending or flexing.
Towards the top, near the screen hinges, there are three buttons: ‘Email Button’, ‘Power’ and ‘Sleep’. The machine features 3 USB sockets conveniently located on each side of the machine, a multi-purpose SD card reader on the front, two audio sockets for your Skype/MSN activities, and a 10/100 LAN port. On the right side of the palm rest are panel indicators for common features and indicators. Inside is a preconfigured and installed Intel 2200BG 54G wireless card and of course a reasonably sized hard drive (80 GB) which is the latest 2.5″ SATA type hard drive.
Pressing the power button is nice to see a machine running quietly, this one really is very quiet, only the CPU fan kicks in to prevent thermal runaway from time to time.
The webbook comes standard with Linux Ubuntu 8.04 LTS pre-installed, the machine boots fairly quickly, around 1-2 minutes, and after you’ve entered your username and password, you’re presented with the Ubuntu desktop.
I confess that I had never used Linux before, but when I was introduced to the desktop I was pleasantly surprised how Windows is like everything on Linux. All functions, such as opening, executing, and copying files, are almost the same as in Windows. By the way, Elonex offers a Windows alternative on the same machine with Windows XP Professional installed out of the box.
The Linux installation has a lot of software installed as standard, such as Open Office, Wine (?!), many games! a programming interface (you could write your own Linux programs), Firefox which is pretty much the same as Internet Explorer and endless utilities and folders.
The great thing about this machine is how Linux connects to virtually all network devices with such ease, in fact when using the manual network setup dialog it’s just one click and your network device is instantly configured, much better than in Windows!
My wireless connection was detected and connected in less than 20 seconds! on the first try.
The touchpad has a relatively good feel and moves smoothly across the desktop without excessive work to move the cursor around the edges of the screen. Audio quality is pretty good and good for most apps
So you might be wondering if the screen is usable this small, well the answer is a resounding YES. I think this is where the designers have really done their homework, the clarity and sharpness of the screen at this size and price is very good. you can not complain.
The LCD will gradually dim from very dark to very bright, a nice touch, this type of adjustment is not very common among laptops, even most laptops available today.
Performance is impressive considering this is a single core CPU it will perform most tasks very well and I found the web responsiveness to be very good, web page loading and ‘You Tube’ don’t seem to put the machine under any kind of stress. .
I had no problems using the machine, whether it was browsing the web, watching videos, writing a few emails, or just messing around.
Conclution
I haven’t found many machines this year that have really impressed me as much as this one, especially at the price, the webbook blends real world needs into a small package without going flashy in appearance or gimmicky beyond practicality, and as a benefit Bonus: It looks like a proper widescreen laptop instead of some wool!
Performance was very impressive, it is responsive and will run most programs thrown at it. Obviously due to the category this machine goes into gaming and very heavy applications are not recommended, if you need a powerful machine I suggest a full size Duo Core laptop. I think for most people considering buying this I doubt anyone would be put off by its performance.
Second, it’s built modular, which means you can easily upgrade your RAM or HDD without a major rebuild or relying on service outlets to do it for you.
You can put this laptop in the glove compartment of your car, it’s that small! or if you are a lady with a small bag, it would not be much of a challenge! to fit it in.
If your needs are a small laptop that can surf the web, run your business/EBay, video conference over the internet, or just for entertainment, this one gets my vote.
web book data
VIA C7-C 1.6G CPU
512 million DDR2 RAM
80GB SATA Hard Drive
10″ wide screen
3 X USB 2.O Skts
1 X 10/100 Lan
Multiple SD card reader
2.5 hour battery Weight 1.3 kg
optional equipment
External USB CD-ROM drive
Wrist Vault USB flash drive with a Linux backup.
In car adapter holder to fix your web book on it.
I hope you found the above useful.
Until next time
-Benny Holden
This review is written by me, Benny Holden, all views, opinions expressed and endorsements given shall not imply any liability on my part nor will I enter into any litigation, entertain disputes or for the personal gain of any entity you wish to follow.
