My little Dell Mini 9 is feeling unloved.http://bit.ly/uwsvNl.
I can’t help but think that this is a short sighted decision, there must be a market for notebooks alongside tablets, ultrabooks (whatever the hell they are, nobody actually seems to have one yet, apart from Apple) and regular notebooks of all form factors.
Ok, I don’t use my Dell much, nor my Android tablet, but they both have their uses, and both prove useful when they are needed. Maybe an iPad could replace both, but I emphasise the ‘could‘, I’m not sure an Android tablet could, and I’m not sure I’d want to spend extended periods typing on any tablet, but I’m sure a cheap sub- £200 netbook has an important place in the product line up.
I guess this is Dell we are talking about, they killed the Streak just before 7″ tables became more mainstream, they committed to Ubuntu, if you could actually find anything with Ubuntu on it in their catalogue, and like all netbook manufactures killed the concept of the netbook by bowing to Microsoft and trying to fit Windows onto the things, bloating both hard, and software in the process.
My Mini 9, though running OSX, is a joy to use, and equally happy, and useful, running Jolicloud. Boot time in seconds, proper sleep so it is ready when the lid opens, responsive and very handy it is perfect for what I need it for.
It is a real shame no-one really committed to making Linux work properly on the netbook, and by no-one I mean the actual manufactures, take a look at Jolicloud to see how it should have been done.
