OLPC: Minimal First Impressions

Hooray, my OLPC arrived this morning!

Without having the time to go in to any detail, here some initial first impressions.

- It's really small, but the carrying handle and LCD hinge/swivel assembly make it larger than my Eee PC. Not a huge issue for me, and the hinge/swivel makes for some cool functionality that I want in a small notebook. Handle I can live without, but it won't be a deciding factor for me. Tie.

- It's marginally heavier than the Asus. Subjectively I prefer holding the Asus in one hand; the weight distribution seems better/more convenient. Winner: Asus. UPDATE: I just found a nice way to hold the OLPC; if you wrap your arm around it you can rest the back end on your forearm while the front rests on your chest. It's a little awkward, but the additional depth makes it a bit more convenient than the Asus (I think). NEW WINNER: Tie.

- You've seen the keyboard, you don't need me to add anything, right? Fine. The Asus keyboard is obviously better for most of what I need to do. That said, I'd be more comfortable taking the OLPC into harsher environments, which I need on occasion. Winner: Asus, with caveats that make it seem more like a tie.

- Boot-up time is acceptable, but slower than the Asus. Again, this won't be a major deciding factor, but a quick boot-up is rather important to me: the quicker it starts up, the quicker I can do something useful, the more likely I'll be to make use of the functionality I can hold in my hand. Asus (20-25 seconds worst case), OLPC (90+seconds?!). Winner: Asus, hands-down.

- The OLPC screen is pretty nice, and the no-backlight mode is really easy to read in bright light, and passable in low-light. The Asus screen is good too, but (so far, anyway) I haven't been able to turn the backlight off. Winner: OLPC.

- Apps: The Asus is a typical Linux box. The OLPC as delivered isn't set up for non-kid use, but there's a shell available, vi is installed by default, and I'm assuming I'll be able to use it as a generic Unix box w/o much of a hassle. I could be wrong. As delivered, winner: Asus. In reality, most likely dead even.

- Speed: Asus, no contest, at least so far. The OLPC is running a Geode at 433MHz, the Asus a Celeron M (at 630MHz?). I'm surprised the perceived speed difference is so great, and I'm not sure where the biggest differences are. Hopefully someone with more time will post some I/O benchmarks.

- Battery life: Don't know yet. I'm guessing the OLPC, perhaps even by a landslide. The Asus will go ~3 hrs, depending on what you're doing. I'd rather it was... a full day :)

- Noise: OLPC, hands down. The Asus gets pretty hot and has a fan and isn't afraid to use it.

- Networking: So far, I can't get the OLPC to connect to my WPA-PSK wireless; this is a MAJOR lose. I'm sure somebody else has this figured out, though. Temporary winner: Asus. UPDATE: Heng's comment does, indeed, solve the problem. New winner: Tie.

First Final Verdict: if only they could combine the two... I may end up going to dynamism.com and getting a UMPC at this rate, but they cost 2-10x as much, so I'm in no hurry. I suspect I'll be using the Asus more because of the keyboard, but once I have time to start hacking on the OLPC (and mod the case) that might change.

I'm excited by both, which is an unfortunate commentary on my life. This *is* a useful form factor (at least for me, and, I suspect, a lot of other people) but I'm not sure the optimal ergonomics have been figured out yet, and, as usual, we still need better batteries.

Asus Eee PC: First Impressions

Good heavens, it's small, and I got the one with the whiny fan.

The screen, while low on density, is easily readable indoors, and adequate for my needs. The LED backlight is adjustable via Fn-F3/Fn-F4. It goes to sleep via Fn-F1 in about 3 seconds and comes back with the power switch in about 5 seconds.

Typing is... challenging, although I suspect I'll adapt with a few days use... So far the only stumpers have been the right-hand shift key (it's small, and I often hit the up-arrow by mistake), the number keys, which are shifted a half-key or so to the left, and re-training the fingers to not track as far--the keys are quite close together.

Ctrl-Alt-T brings up xterm; I replaced that by editing my ~/.icewm/keys file to use konsole:

key "Ctrl-Alt-t" konsole

Setting up virtual desktops was also straight-forward; I edited ~/.icewm/preferences to include them, and a start menu:

TaskBarShowStartMenu=1
ShowProgramsMenu=1
TaskBarShowWorkspaces=1
WorkspaceNames="1", "2"

Putting the unit to sleep seems to mess up wireless connections; it's irritating--hopefully I'll figure out why that's happening so I don't have to keep typing in my ridiculous wireless password (it supports WPA, which is handy).

A real desktop can be had by installing kicker:

apt-get install kicker
apt-get install ksmserver

I had some issues with the task bar in full desktop mode that haven't been resolved yet; it redraws incorrectly when there's more tasks than taskbar. I may actually stick to "simple" mode for the time being.

While some have panned OpenOffice.org's performance, it's not that bad. I probably won't use it very often, but it's nice to know it's there. AbiWord is another option. VIM comes pre-installed... while I'm an Emacs person, I'm a little scared to even try it (I dread an even more-cramped Emacs claw), so I'll probably stick with something else on the little guy.

When my OLPC arrives I'll be comparing the two to see which will be my "drag it around" machine--the Asus is light but I suspect not as robust as the OLPC, and I really like the OLPC's screen.

For now the Asus will serve as a note-taking little-bits-of-work machine used during commutes. Battery life will be an issue; my MacBook Pro 17" Hi-Res will go round-trip w/o recharging, about 2.5-3 hrs, doing word processing and Java web development. The Asus is claimed to last 3.5 hrs and I doubt I'll be doing any Java development on it, but I may be able to continue using OOo for some books-in-progress.

It will also make an interesting hackery platform.