Post apocalyptic connotations aside, it might actually seem like a doomsday scenario. The Intel Atom is its low budget, low power consumption series of processors for net books, and due to circumstances, I took the plunge into mobile tech and bought one.
Scenario : Home PC mobo burnout. Quite annoying. Also, 18-55 kit lens on my 450D is bust, and I wanted to replace it with a 17-40mm f4L. Also was planning on getting a new phone, keeping an eye on a Google Android powered phone with a full sized slide out keyboard. Also get a 23 inch LCD monitor to help with the graphics work and reduce power consumption at home. That's quite a strain on the old budget. Which isn't even getting incremented. But I digress...
So, compromises in order. Compromise one, chuck away the old machine and go for the laptop. I could have gone for the Atom powered desktop (the so called Nettops) at a much lower cost, but went for the netbook instead. Mobility being the key. Also, might give up on the 17-40 L idea and compromise by getting a Tamron AF 17-50mm f2.8. Kills me to give up on the L, but unless I can get a major raise, its not happening. Also wait for the newly announced Motorola Droid. 3.7 inch touch screen, fully slide out QWERTY keyboard and Android 2.0 OS. The phone is still serviceable so it can stay in service a while more until the finances stabilize, and until this hits the markets.
But anyway, Back to the Atom™. I decided to save a few bucks by going for an el cheapo Chinese no-brand model. Well maybe it has a brand, but the lit is in Chinese, so who can say? Headline specs, Intel Atom™ N280 processor, 1 GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 10.2 inch screen at 1024x600, WiFi, on board SD card reader, RJ-45 connector, two USB ports, webcam and mic. All for 45,990! (sarcasm, in case you didn't get it). No Optical device tho.
The main reason I went for this was that I was able to get a USB adapter that lets me keep using my SATA HDDs and IDE DVD-RW with it. Not having that was a deal breaker. I wanted plenty of HDD space! Gonna have to buy a couple more HDDs (Ahhh, more strain on the budget. Excellent. But need it to store my photos)
It really is a funky little thing. 1.26 KG with the battery, and the batt is most of that. Without the batt it weighs next to nothing. About 2.5 hours battery life on a full charge. Not spectacular, but usable. Beautifully clear monitor. Even if screen real estate is sorta at a premium and its not really a multitasking workspace. But then, its not really a heavy multi tasking processor, so ... Touch pad is something new to me. A little annoying with its limited size, but usable. Very nice tactile keyboard, but a little small. Also some of the control keys are all over the place so that make touch typing difficult, but its quite comfortable to type on. I've typed this entire post on it so far, after all :). But I knew this would be a problem so I gotta full sized USB keyboard and mouse. And made sure to get a keyboard with a USB hub in it so I can connect two more devices to it. This two USB port limitation is somewhat of a pain.
WiFi is a little on the weak side. I'm within two feet of my wireless router at home, but still not getting a full strength signal. Still to hit some of the free WiFi spots in Colombo and see the connectivity.
Performance is not bad. I know not to expect instant performance. But it quite happily runs Office, Firefox, ACDSee, and Lightroom, which is the most important thing. On XP with Service Pack three and .NET framework. The .NET framework slowed things down immediately, but I needed it to install Paint.NET. In these budget conscious times, best to stick with the freeware as much as possible. I will be looking to upgrade to Windows 7 and Lightroom 3 Beta, but lets see. Like I said, its not earth shattering, but quite reasonable. Boots up pretty quickly, under a minute I'd say. Which is a lot better than my office PC :) Very few issues so far. Quite happily connects to my 19inch LCD at work at 1440x900. Fits quite comfortably in my camera bag. The only real loss is in the gaming department, no more NFS, but older games run fine. I've got Alpha Centauri, Alien Crossfire running quite comfortably. Will probably install Zeus sometime.
So in summary, I'd say I'm quite happy living with the Atom™. :)
