Netbook of choice? (Page 1 of 3)

I tried one of the original Eees and found the keyboard too cramped and the 7inch screen unusably small. Things got better when they upped the screen to 8.9, and then 10inches, but I still find the keyboards hard work.
I was particularly impressed by the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook - the build quality is fabulous and the screen is bright and vivid. I also thought they had done a nice interpretation of the Ubuntu netbook remix, with plenty of easy to use options for new users allied to all the standard Ubuntu tools and choices regular, more experienced users will be happy to play with.
I believe the Dell is also being sold through Vodafone's UK stores with a built-in 3G mobile broadband SIM, which makes for quite a compelling package.

^^Excellent, I haven't looked to closely at the Dell's yet. I'm looking forward to your review

I've had the AA1 for awhile now.  I tried the 8 GB SSD version, but the write speed on the drive was extremely slow--no doubt, in order to keep the price point lower, they use a lower quality one.  From what I understand, the EEE's with 20 GB of SSD have one fast one of 4 GB and a slow one of 16 GB, but I could be wrong on this--it's hearsay, not experience.

I then got the hard drive version of the Aspire One.  I have my own little review of it--I'm not sure if it's Ok to post links to one's own pages, if anyone's interested, they can google computertaijutsu.  I didn't try crunchbang on it yet, but did run Ubuntu with no problem. The wireless card should be the only issue, and as long as you install the backports modules, you should be fine.  (It's the common AR5007EG, now supported by the ath5k module, which Ubuntu decided to leave out, but that's another story.)

Either starting from the 900's or 901's the ASUS now uses a Realtek card--I've forgotten which, but apparently it's relatively trivial to get it working.  With Ubuntu the webcam worked, although not that well--it's a pretty lowend webcam.  Sound should work. 

I just discovered Crunchbang today, and at present the AA1 is with my wife on a business trip. 

In the US at least, the hard drive versions only seem to be available with XP, but I just wiped it off and installed various distributions.  (My work is mainly with CentOS servers, so I tend to concentrate on RH based systems, I'm afraid.) 

The screens are of course, a bit small (a bit bigger with the ASUS), the mouse buttons are a bit of a nuisance, but I suspect most OpenBox users don't use the mouse that much anyway.  The keyboard isn't bad, and that's actually the main reason I choice the AA1 over the others.  The MSI Wind also has a nice keyboard, but at that point, they were considerably more expensive than the Acer. 

When she comes back, I'll probably replace the Ubuntu installation with Crunchbang, and can probably give more specifics then, but it's running Intrepid with no problems---the only issue was the wireless, quickly fixed by installing the backports.

At the risk of being accused of being a self-publicist, I reviewed the Dell Mini 9 on my blog a while back - it's here if anyone's interested: http://reddevil62-techhead.blogspot.com … tbook.html

No, it was a loaner and I hadn't discovered Crunchbang at that time.

I've still got my 701, thinking of upgrading with my christmas bonus to a Mini9. Not sure yet. The 701 is nice, but as aadb mentions, things have moved on.

I am running #! on an AA1 110 with a Samsung SSD and it works great.

Have anyone tried #! on Amilo Mini http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/home/pro … _3520.html?

@Zwopper: Good to know... I have to go some day to see those more closely.

I did that recently with an Acer Travelmate (accidentally as well). It was okay at first then slowly died of the next couple of days... sigh

I was looking at the Advent one, since it has a built in 3G modem. Just needs the SIM.

I have an EeePC 701, and I like it. The cramped keyboard actually makes my typing better.