Starling NetBook

[paracelsus]

The Starling NetBook I ordered from system 76 just got here and I'm reasonably impressed. The keyboard is a bit cramped (my first netbook) and the keys "feel" good when pressed, if you know what I mean. I was worried that the atom processor just wouldn't have enough processing power for my liking but it isn't slow and the xbmc live cd runs great on it! The battery life is less then impressive, I haven't done a proper test but they should last for about three and half hours. Having two gigs of ram is nice, and the screen is better then I expected. I'm not sure I like the interface of netbook edition. Plasma netbook worked better as a virtual machine and I'm creating a live usb of Kubuntu netbook edition 10.04 (daily build that's a couple days old) to give it a test run on the Starling.

I doubt the Starling is the best netbook on the market but for $350 it packs a mean punch.

I'll work on a proper review and post some benchmarks in the coming weeks (unless I forget )

[paracelsus]

Things I like
: It can handle everything I'm going to use it for at the university without "lagging" or
locking up
: Light weight, a godsend to anyone lugging around a backpack
: Doesn't get hot enough to burn your lap (I have an old laptop that could cause serious burns)
: ~$350
: Screen produces a surprisingly sharp image
: Ubuntu with drivers installed before hand
: Not having to pay for a windoze license
: Wifi gets great range with the new drivers (the old drivers, and ndiswrapper had
shit range; some reviews I've read mentioned this, mine is getting better range then my tower
with a cheap omnidirectional antenna)
: Sound output for headphones is nice
: Keyboard utilizes available space well and doesn't feel cramped now that I'm used to it.
: Sd card slot is nice if you have a camera or mp3 player that uses them (or to hack your
wii)
: 2 gigs of ram

Things I don't like
: Does fine playing most media but the higher quality video files lag and 720p just isn't going happen.
: ~3.5 hours battery life is acceptable but more would be nice.
: View angle of the screen is ok but I was hoping for more.
: Glare can be an issue
: Speakers are quiet but the sound quality is bearable though barely audible. Headphones
recommended.

All in all I'm impressed with the netbook. I was a little unsure about system76 but the Starling seems solid and it fits my needs well. I'll be keeping them in mind in the future.

[Cell]

Thanks man.Good review.

[widget]

The battery life on the wifes Pangolin is only rated for 1.5 hours. Seeing that she uses it where power is available means that is not a problem for us but it is kinda short. I have run it down and recharged it so I know that time is about right.

Other than that the System 76 folks seem to build a mean machine.

[paracelsus]

The more I used the default interface the more I hated it. To be honest I'm not sure what the fuck Canonical was thinking when they decided to use it. It's a neat idea but using it is like switching from a graphing calculator to a slide rule. It gets the job done but not without effort. Finding and launching programs is a pain. It is absurdly mouse reliant for something designed to be used on devices with a trackpad. The folder view is a joke (lacks configuration options like what folder to display; also can't add more folderview tabs). Switching between programs is painful!

After trying gnome-shell and plasma-netbook I'm saying plasma-netbook wins. The top pannel is useful and auto-hides well, changing between programs is a breeze, and even though it's KDE it doesn't lag performance (though it is more resource intensive; act surprised). Only thing is I can't get krunner to control amarok (think it has something to do with me using the KDE 4.4 backport) so I have to use gnome-do.

netbook-launcher can't do this!

snapshot6.png

Or this!

snapshot9.png

Alt-tab just got more useful, the mouse can also be used to select a window

snapshot3.png

The autohiding panel lets programs get the most out of available screen space

snapshot7.png

Gnome-shell is a nice attempt and I'll be paying close attention when Gnome-3 is closer. Gnome is a good option for a netbook but gnome-shell doesn't really improve usability at the end of the day. It's fun to mess around with and hints at what they want for Gnome-3 but I don't see any practical reason to use Gnome-shell at this stage in it's development.