The Dell Mini 10 has a 1.6Ghz atom processor, 1GB of RAM and a nice big 160Gb hard drive. It weighs a feather and seems to be sturdily built, perfect for tossing around the lounge. The screen is bright and colorful, and the small keyboard is about the same size as the landscape keyboard on the iPad, so easy to get used to. It even has an HDMI out. On paper then, its a very good machine.
The iPad has a 1.0Ghz CPU, 256MB RAM and a 64GB flash drive. If I compare the paper specs with the iPad, the mini 10 has a much faster CPU (with hyperthreading no less), 4 times more memory, heaps of storage, but slower storage access.
So I'd expect it to take a little longer to load data from disk, but beat the iPad in rendering performance, typing speed, app switching and other activities.
This netbook is rubbish, it runs slow. Too slow, tortoise waking up slow, sitting in english class slow, chick flick slow, waiting in a TSA line slow, slide night slow.
In short, if this netbook ran any slower, it would be running backwards!
Boot time into Windows XP, close to 4 minutes before its useable. Time between clicking on the IE icon and the window appearing, with nothing else running, averaging 40 seconds. Opening a second IE window, 15 seconds. Time between clicking the mouse and seeing an hourglass, 5-8 seconds.
My 1Ghz powerbook with 1GB RAM that is 7 years old runs faster.
This isn't just slow, its ridiculously slow.
But it shouldn't be!
Sidebar, councillor, its slow, but it sells.
Why is this rubbish selling like hotcackes? Sure its cheap, but for $100 more you can get an iPad. Maybe its user expectations? Users expect PCs to be slow. Users expect PCs to be frustrating. Users expect PCs to be running windows. Users expect PCs to be full of crapware. Users expect PCs to, well, be like this netbook.
Does this make our users stupid? Or insane? I don't think so. Smart IT guys like me make normal users feel stupid, and they believe it. The industry projects an image that its the user who is at fault when the computer is rubbish, not the other way around, and users believe it. Software vendors project an image of such superiority that their crappy bloated software is not the problem, and users believe it.
Users should expect computers that work, work fast, faster than they can think, work reliably and forgive the lack of skills of their users. Kinda like the iPad.
But users do not expect these things, and marketing departments know it. They are selling truck loads of these rubbish computers to users who expect them to be as bad as they are. Surely we can all see what's wrong with this picture.
Back to it.
I am a reasonably expert IT guy, and the hardware specs tell me this little Dell Mini 10 can be so much more. So I applied my time and expertise to make it so.
I went ahead and
- Removed all the crapware that came preinstalled. But the machine remained slow, seems the crapware took up disk space, not memory or CPU.
- I optimized the Windows XP installation, turning off services and features that slowed it down. It got a little better, but still way to slow.
- I even removed the anti-virus software that was bogging the hard disk down, not a smart move, but I was trying to get some performance. This seemed to improve things the most, like moving from crawling to hopping, not walking yet.
- I reinstalled Windows XP on it, from scratch, but it was still too slow.
So I tried Ubuntu linux instead, the netbook edition. The current release, 10.04, does not work because the video card in the Dell Mini 10 (Intel GMA500) is no longer supported. But Dell has a special dell version of Ubuntu 9.04 netbook edition that does support the video card. So I installed that.
And...
Well...
It became very useable. As useable as I expected given the hardware specs. Boots to use in 1 min 15 seconds. First launch of firefox, to rendered page, 11.7 seconds. Way better! It's made it to the lounge as a web box, but I have to show people how to use it each time, and that's annoying.
Netbooks are rubbish because the default install of Windows XP is just way to bloated and slow. Netbooks are rubbish because the components (like the video card in the Mini 10) are too old and slow. But with the right operating system software, old software, they can be made useable. Too bad users don't know it, and vendors don't push it.
My advice: spend the extra $100 and get the cheapest iPad. Its fast, just works, is forgiving, light, and is the device and experience users should be expecting, nee demanding, even at this price point.
