[NTLUG:Discuss] Reviews: iPad – the problems, My amazing new device - Lenovo X301

Robert Pearson e2eiod at gmail.com
Tue Apr 6 17:10:19 CDT 2010


On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Jay Urish <jay at unixwolf.net> wrote:
> On 4/6/2010 3:12 PM, Robert Pearson wrote:
>>
>> [rdpcomment] - Interesting contrast... despite all the hoopla and
>> ballyhoo the iPad is the most recent fundamental shift in the Personal
>> Computer (PC) form factor toward a "friendly" User Experience (UX)...
>> once and if the changes in the "iPad – the problems" review below are
>> made it will be a "must have" production device (personal or work),
>> along with a "Droid" or Nexus One phone...
>>
>>
>> {iPad – the problems}
>> <http://www.jasbone.com/wp/2010/04/ipad-the-problems>
>> [Article excerpts]
>> "So you’ve no doubt read many glowing reviews about the iPad, how
>> wonderful it is and how it will clearly bring world peace, cure all
>> disease and feed and house the planet. While there are many things I
>> like about the iPad there are also many things wrong with it or that
>>
>
> This is all very good info, but the question remains..Will it blend?
>
> Jay
>

I have the same question.
This iPad review, and the contrasting Lenovo X301 review, are part of
a thread I see developing on the NTLUG mailing list. The first post
was about Patrick Michaud's presentation at NTLUG:
[copy of email]
from	Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com>
reply-to	NTLUG Discussion List <discuss at ntlug.org>
to	NTLUG Discussion List <discuss at ntlug.org>
date	Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 3:39 PM
subject	[NTLUG:Discuss] Followups from today's presentation
	
A few references for people who attended today's presentation
and are curious about some of the items and/or references
(based on discussions after the presentation):

 - Micro SD / M2 reader (keychain usb memory adapter)
     http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012Y02CE

 - Individual (and often hard-to-find) USB and power adapters
     http://www.cables4computer.com/Ziplinq/USB_Adapters.html

 - Android marketplace (Android apps)
     http://www.androlib.com/

 - Webcam and software used as document camera
     Microsoft LiveCam Cinema, guvcview, mplayer

I'll be glad to provide details on other parts of the presentation
as well -- just ask.  Thanks to everyone who attended, it was fun!

Pm

------

The second was a series of posts on NTLUG that started about KDE but
wound up with an interesting post from Gilbert Morrow:

[copy of email]
from	Gilbert Morrow <gkfmorrow at gmail.com>
reply-to	NTLUG Discussion List <discuss at ntlug.org>
to	NTLUG Discussion List <discuss at ntlug.org>
date	Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 9:33 AM
subject	Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] SuSE post 11.0 BAD NEWS - Need a new distro
	
I hope in the not to distant future you will just dock your phone in a
station and have a framless Oled touch screen , wireless keyboard ,  and
enjoy a full PC experience.
Still need a laptop for somethings but getting a lot less dependent on one
real quickly .

Posted with a Droid . Droid !

{in reply to}

On Apr 5, 2010 3:32 AM, "Robert Pearson" <e2eiod at gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 1:56 AM, Gilbert Morrow <gkfmorrow at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmmm,I have no proble...
How would you rate the fungibility of your Droid versus a netbook
(80-100%) or laptop (40-60%)?
For Information capture, exchange, etc. (like email, text files,
etc.), is it probably 100% fungible?
How about for computing? Code development? Other?

[rdpcomment] - some very interesting trends in these emails...  I also
track EFI/UEFI and CULV:
I'm waiting for Linux to commit to the Extensible Firmware Interface
(EFI) or the Unified
Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). Actually Linux has been able to
use EFI at boot time since early 2000, using the elilo EFI boot loader
or, more recently, EFI versions of GRUB. Mobo makers have held off to
keep from losing Windows business. Apple switched first to Open
Firmware/OpenBoot for the PowerPC chip and then added EFI for the
Intel based Macs. Microsoft is slowly coing around. I used Open
Firmware/OpenBoot for years on Sun SPARC platforms and loved it but
with Sun gone it is a fading memory. The PC BIOS is a PITA.

I'm also keeping a very interested eye on Consumer Ultra Low Power
(CULV) processors. The target market has been laptops to extend
battery life, especially netbooks.
The bigger market is going to be desktops once the mobo makers snap to
the fact they can get equivalent performance, a TDP of 10 watts (or
less) and a price of about 1/4 the top chips.

I can remember when it cost several million $ just for the A/C to cool a Cray.
Just a few years later a much less expensive, smaller, faster,
air-cooled Cray could sit by your desk.



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