The Dawn of Atom

By Zander Sprague (Intel) (12 posts) on September 16, 2008 at 2:40 pm

I wanted to talk about my new netbook, no, I want gush about how very cool it is. Two weeks ago, I decided to go to a conference and I was pondering what technology I might need. Since this is a personal trip, I would not bring my work laptop. I have a wonderfully heavy notebook that is 5 years old and is ponderously slow. I do have a blackberry and that does give me all the access and e-mail I need, but I have large hands and writing long e-mails on the blackberry is cumbersome. Plus, I will mostly likely be e-mailing folks that I am trying to influences and will need to be adding attachments, and I want them to look professional.

I had a quandary on my hands. Then a friend of mine was asking me what a netbook was. Since we at Intel seem to be credited with coining the term, I knew what it was. I went on to explain what term meant. A light bulb went off; HEY I COULD GET A NETBOOK.

Like any good techno geek, I did my research and decided on the Acer Aspire One, powered by the totally AWWWSSSSOOOOMMMME Intel Atom. I decided on the Limpus lite flavor as the price point for the windows version was more than I wanted to pay. (As a side note, at roughly $330 this could almost be an impulse buy). It is also nice to be the recipient of some techno envy from my friends and colleagues. I am not usually this far out on the wave, and I have to say I like it.

To show just how small these things are, the company ended up sending me 2. I guess the people in shipping did not realize that they came 2 to a box. I did get a call from the company asking me to return the second one.

So I get my Acer, unpack it and I am connected to my home network in less than 2 minutes. I am surfing and writing docs and really enjoying my little white wonder. I have had to resurrect from the far reaches of my memory the command line protocols that I once used when I worked in Unix. (Yes I know there differences, but I can hack my way through when I need to. ) I keep reminding myself NO rm *.*

I think with the price point and the portability, there truly will be a netbook or two in every house. I can foresee taking this on vacations and trips so that I can stay connected and organized.

So, my question to you is, do you think netbooks are the next ubiquitous form factor?

Categories: Mobility

Comments (7)

September 16, 2008 4:16 PM PDT

Josh Bancroft (Intel)
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 Cool! I've been loving the Eee PC 901 I've been using, and lots of my friends are getting different netbook models (the Aspire One and the Eee PC 1000 are popular options). This is a HOT segment right now. And you're right that the little Atom chip is awesome. At 2W max power consumption (compared to something like 35W for a Core 2 Duo laptop chip), with a big 6-cell battery, you can easily get 5 or 6 hours of battery life (at least, that's what I've been observing).

Welcome to the netbook club, and keep us updated on your thoughts from using it! Share cool things you've learned, or cool stories from it usage. Someday we'll all have one as our little "companion" computer in our bag! ;-)
September 16, 2008 5:58 PM PDT


Neil		 Cool stuff. I'm tempted by the MSI Wind myself -- apparently it has a full(ish) size keyboard. And of course the Atom...
September 16, 2008 7:03 PM PDT

Zander Sprague (Intel)
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 Hey Neil,
I can tell you that my Acer's keyboard is almost full size and I do not have any problem with it, and I have big hands. What ever you choose, I know you will have fun.

Have a great day
Zander
September 16, 2008 7:10 PM PDT

Josh Bancroft (Intel)
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 Neil, the MSI Wind is at the top of my list, too, right next to the Eee PC 1000 (10" screen, full size keyboard, but slightly larger than the 900 series).

The Acer Aspire One is an interesting middle ground. It has the larger keyboard, which is nice, but it has the small(er) 8.9" screen, to keep costs down. Sorta straddles the line between the 8.9 inchers and the 10 inchers.
September 17, 2008 12:45 AM PDT


Vasileios Anagnostopoulos		 Hi all in this thread,

I found http://www.one.de with lots of small affordable atom desktops. Is it possible to have Solaris installed on these? I prefer other processors for my Linux, but for solaris Atom seems attractive.
October 5, 2008 8:30 AM PDT


JP		 I recently purchased an Acer One netbook 150 powered by the Atom. What a sweet deal!
Power efficient, light weight and powerful, it made for the perfect weather server. Seeing as the thing will be on all the time logging data from the station, I didn't want something that would be sucking back too many electrons :)

I will be experimenting with it to see how well it can support ip cams in the near future.
Marvelous product. The only small quirk is that it overheats and freezes up if you run it too long with the lid closed (screen off) but by leaving it open, this problem is avoided.
December 16, 2008 2:24 PM PST


emmanuel lopez pulido		 say happy to leve commes son of my mothers just is opening his new spire book hey u people dont play arround new tech nology sent us new cool this in our language is way out

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