Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

The Asus OS is Xandros with a new desktop manager/launcher. If you look at screenshots and videos, everything is effectively KDE (which is what Xandros is based on).

Xandros claim that their remix of KDE is indistinguishable from Windows XP. In fact, their CEO once claimed some clients swapped Xandros for Windows and the users were totally unaware. :rolleyes:

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

I think that this would be the EEE 1001 which had a 10" display in a slightly larger case. Apparently ASUS withdrew this model as it would eat into their lappy sales.

Whatever, the next couple of years in this market are going to be interesting.

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

Impractical in what way?

Apart from having a menu bar instead of a drop-down and skinny scroll bars why is Hildon such an improvement?

What it does mean is that the source for every application running under Hildon has to be modified. The result is that we have relatively few FOSS apps available for the n8xx. At least on the EEE you can run Open Office even if you lose some real-estate to a menu bar and big scroll-bars. Users will not have to offer a bounty to get an office suite on the EEE.

I don't understand why these things (the menu bar and scroll bars) cannot be 'auto-Hildonised' by the window manager without having to modify the source of the underlying applications. I think that Hildon should be a theme, not a new completely new UI.

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

That's because you don't understand what goes into ITOS to make it run quickly and conserve battery life on the small hardware of the tablets.

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

They make a ITOS that runs quickly??

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

I do. And I still think the additional overhead of Nokia maintaining a Gtk+ fork to auto-Hildonise menus etc. is a better investment in the platform than many more developers maintaining forked versions of their software. 1 < n.

Yes, thought needs to be given at the high-resolution, small-size screen that we've got; but things like the menu positioning and window border would be much better implemented in Hildon, rather than exposed as Hildon-specific Gtk+ widgets.

The patches could even be submitted upstream: Gtk+ could allow for a MenuFactory for a window(s) which would control how the menubar appears; by default, it'd put it in the window. Hildon's plugin would put it hidden off the top of the screen. The Mac OS X-style hacks would put it on the top of the screen. A RISC OS-style plugin would put it on a popup based off a window click.

Applications would still require a recompile, battery-level optimisations and UxD, but the barrier to entry to getting an integrated application would be that much lower.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

Thanks for confirming this.

What kind of battery-level optimizations do Hildon app.s typically make?

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

• Make sure you stop updating the screen when you're not in the foreground, or the screen is dimmed
• Save state when receiving "shutdown due to power loss" DBUS messages.
• Don't send packets to the network when idle, as this keeps the radios on/prevents the timeouts kicking in.
• ...

Much more listed in the developers' documentation at maemo.org.

Just as important to the end-user is rethinking interfaces to fit on such a small screen with high pixel density; an emphasis on finger control rather than stylus, for example.

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

If this mini eee pc had a citrix client, it would be great for an overnight (or maybe more) business trip.

I continue to think that Nokia should be paying Citrix to make a client for the n8*0 tablet.

Re: Asus EEE reviewed by C|Net
 

And I don't see why a small tablet should be burdened with a desktop OS. In fact, I'm with those thinking Hildon should go even farther toward being unique.