Tuesday 22 November 2011

Cheap Windows CE Laptops, Good? Bad? or Ugly?

I’ve been taking a look at the low end Japanese Windows CE ‘Mini NoteBooks’ systems lately (also sometimes called Mini NetBooks) after seeing these slated on various public forums and especially on YouTube, and it didn’t take much digging before I realised that a lot of this venom seemed unjust, unfounded or at best misguided...

Most of the naysayers seemed to be ill-informed of what these machines actually are and of what their purpose may be. A lot of the comments seemed to be based solely on comparing the specs of these machines with those of a modern full-blown PC system. Something which is akin to comparing the specs of a smart-phone with a modern PC, although this fact seemed lost on the barraters. Some of these comments just didn’t add up to me. I had managed to get a quick look at one of these some time ago, and you can get one for around £30 on eBay. I have to say that I thought the one I saw was perfectly adequate for what it is. It won’t replace a desktop system as a main computer, and won’t ever get near the lofty heights of the iPood... sorry, iPad for ‘coooolness!!’ But as a basic big-PDA come network-browser it works fine, with very little to no configuration.

Just remember: It is not a PC, but it isn’t intended to be...