Among the Small Form Factor (Desktop) PCs I looked at, I also found some Linux boxes.

The Shuttle XPC series of barebones systems come with no Operating System pre-installed, as far as I could see. They are ideal for installing Linux (according to the gurus at ixbtlabs)

A smaller option that is quite unique is the CherryPal Desktop – it is about the size of a Nintendo DS, and its Operating System in based on Debian/GNU Linux. There is a review of it here at Gizmodo.com. CNET’s Crave also has a small article about the CherryPal Desktop.

A Nettop would also classify as a Small Form Factor Desktop PC, so I could not leave out the Asus Nettop. The Asus Eee Box Desktop is also a green SFF, using only 20 watts of power. The original Asus Eee Box came preinstalled with Windows XP Home, but the newer ASUS Eee Box B202 has Linux pre-installed.

Other Linux SFFs are the fit PC and the linutop. Linutop is also available as a bootable 1GB USB key!

While researching Small Form Factor (Desktop) PCs, I came across a number of interesting ones. Here are two I thought were worth mentioning:

The Dell Inspiron 530s has a Small Form Factor which is also referred to as a mini tower. The configuration which appealed to me was the 2.2GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2200 Processor, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 250GB Hard drive, DVD Writer, and a 19 inch LCD Monitor. I’d definitely do something about the Windows Vista Home Basic, either upgrade it to Windows XP, or Vista Home Premium .

The second Dell is one I have mentioned previously; the Dell Studio Hybrid Desktop. It has quite a unique Form factor - definitely small - which reminds me of an external vertical DVD Drive. This unique system comes without a monitor, so a monitor should be factored into the price. My preferred configuration was with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 processor at 2.0GHz with a 800Mhz Front side bus and 2MB cache,  3GB RAM and a 160GB Hard Drive. The Hybrid Desktop comes standard with a Slot Load CD / DVD Burner and DVI and HDMI video out ports. VGA is not supported, so any monitor which is going to be connected to this system needs DVI (or similar) input.

Even before Netbook burst onto the scene, there was a different kind of small computer available. Not nearly as ground-breaking as the Netbook, these were slowly gaining acceptance, and appear to be here to stay.
Okay, enough of the pseudo-suspense already , it’s only going to be a letdown…

SFF, an acronym for Small Form Factor PCs

The main impetus behind these Small Form Factor Desktop PCs was initially in corporations where desktop (or – that dreaded word -  cubicle) space was limited. Instead of a mid tower PC, a Small Form Factor PC is used. Why not a laptop? Because portability is not a requirement, but a small foot print is. These also are in demand from consumers.

Currently, one of  the more popular Small Form Factor PCs is the HP Pavilion Slimline s3700f Desktop. Even though it has a small form factor, this PC features an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ / 2.8 GHz Dual-Core processor, 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT  Graphics card, 2 GB RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, combo Blu-Ray and HD-DVD reader, built-in Wi-Fi and a 15-in-1 card reader.

The Apple Mini has been around since 1995, but it is more about merely being small Mac than a SFF PC. Although it is still quite unique and useful, its limited upgrade options and price put it in a different category to the Small Form Factor Desktop PCs.

If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it again - the Netbook has carved out its own category in the PC World, or at least a sub-category of Notebooks. Desktop PC, Notebook or Netbook. It would be good to remember that the Netbook is not simply a replacement for a Notebook, but should be considered as an alternative.

The latest Netbook from HP, the HP Mini 2140, is getting rave reviews almost everywhere, like from PC Magazine, Laptop Magazine and Consumer Shopper.

The HP Mini 2140 is basically a follow up to the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC, with the CPU upgraded from a VIA C7-M (1.6 GHz) to the Intel Atom (a Faster 1.6 GHz). The aluminum construction of the 2133 Mini-Note PC are kept. In addition, the HP Mini 2140 has 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.

The HP Mini 2140 is slated to go on sale later this month (any day now?), and if you’re in the market for a Netbook, it would be well worth keeping an eye out for it.

It’s been a while since I drooled over a laptop - figuratively speaking of course! In fact, it’s been a while since I even blogged about a laptop (actually only less than 10 days!).

“The Dell Latitude E6400 Laptop is a total revamp of Dell’s business laptop line“, according to CNET in their review, and the rest of their summary “Bottom Line” reads “(The Dell)Latitude E6400 offers Intel’s latest Centrino 2 mobile platform and introduces a brushed-metal design that works at home or office, but the real highlight here is the long battery life.”

Long Battery life and a good-looking brushed-metal design sounds good, but what about the rest of the Dell Latitude E6400 Laptop’s specs?

The cheapest configurable CPU is the Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB). 2GB of RAM is standard, but that can be bumped up to 8GB for an extra $1000 - that’s a rather expensive. Since this is a business laptop it offers the option of Windows XP - 2GB should be fine with this processor, unless you plan to do a lot of multitasking or use memory intensive applications. For Windows Vista 4GB would be better than 2GB. Ah, it also has a backlit keyboard!

There are two downsides to this laptop which should be kept in mind. Although it is highly configurable, the performance is still just average. Also, at 5.7 pounds it is a bit heavy for a laptop with a 14 inch screen.

That said, it does appear durable (but not drool-able).

In my previous blog about OpenMoko and the Neo FreeRunner, I didn’t get around to describing the Neo FreeRunner smartphone.

Firstly, although it looks like an uninteresting slab of a phone, it is actually relatively small, about the length and width of the first generation iPhone, but a bit thicker. Instead of being rectangular, it is oblong, and has a 2.8 inch screen with a VGA resolution (480 by 640). The screen is naturally a touchscreen, and the phone only has two other buttons, bottom right and top left.  As well as 256 MB of flash memory, the FreeRunner can take microSDHC cards up to 8GB. It is a tri-mode cellphone, having either a USA-specific (850/1800/1900MHz) or Europe-specific (900/1800/1900Mhz) bands. For data it has GPRS and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.0. There is a built in graphics accelerator and two 3D accelerometers. So much for the hardware.

When I placed the order for the phone, I had a choice of two software distributions: OpenMoko or Qtopia. I had read that Qtopia was the most stable with regards to use as a phone. I wanted to try other software revisions out to check out other aspects of the phone.

To explain – the Qtopia dialer software worked, but not the contacts – that was unstable and crashed. In comparison to the T-Mobile G1, this phone is still “Under Development”. Unfortunately, there isn’t a Neo FreeRunner for Dummies book, as I mentioned previously the documentation is all online. It is also helpful to realize that the T-Mobile G1 is a completed phone, the development paid for by Google, whereas OpenMoko is a small company with limited resources.

A long weekend, a some time to spend on a pet project. Since the cat is part of the family, and the aquarium is no more, I had two choices left. Actually more, but I’d narrowed it down to something constructive. Setting up a recently acquired Vista laptop was an option. Yes, I remember what I have been saying about Vista, but this Vista laptop (something like one of these Lenovo R61 Thinkpads) was a bargain which I had to take as is or not at all. With another setup being required if I did it now, that ruled it out.

The second option was to try to re-flash my Neo FreeRunner. Okay, for those readers who are wondering do the what? The Neo FreeRunner is smartphone from OpenMoko. It is not just any smartphone, but an “Open” smartphone, which, according to ars technica means “completely open in both hardware and software, and is designed to encourage third-party modification and customization.”

Now the Android platform used on Google’s G1 phone is also open, but not that open.

Back to the OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner. You won’t find it on Pricegrabber (not yet anyway), because it is not currently a consumer product. OpenMoko says the phone will be ultimately aimed at general consumer use . Right now though it is aimed at developers and power users.

There is no printed documentation for the Neo FreeRunner. There is a whole lot of documentation online in the form of a wiki. It didn’t take me long to found out that to upgrade the firmware I needed a Linux Desktop. So I installed Ubuntu Linux on one of my main machines using Wubi. I was still reading through the wiki to figure out the next step when I ran out of weekend…

At CES this month, Palm announced the Palm Pre, which was the toast of the Consumer Electronics Association (CES) 2009 conference. It even got some “Best in Show” awards. This is quite good news for Palm as a company – they have been limping along for a while now.

So what is the Palm Pre? (Or pre-what is the Palm Pre?). Some people would be inclined to write it off as another touchscreen iPhone wannabe. They would do well to remember that it comes from a company that has been making touchscreen devices for over a decade, and touchscreen smartphones for over five years. The main difference is that Palm’s products up until now required a stylus to use the touchscreen (or the navigation key on the smartphones).

The Pre initially looks like a relatively elegant touchscreen device. The hardware keyboard is kept out of sight until you need it. For pictures of the Pre and a review, see CNET’s First impressions: Palm Pre.

The Palm Pre runs on what Palm calls Web OS, which is the first device with a new OS which Palm has brought out since Palm OS 5.0 in June 2002. Web OS (or “palm webOS”) according to this Wikipedia article is “is designed for use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface” and runs on Linux.

Palm had some success last year with the Palm Centro, which was its smallest smart phone offered to date. It needs the Pre to be an even bigger success.

Does your Notebook’s keyboard light up in the dark, so you can type away in a darkened room while tuning out the noise of the television. If a backlit keyboard was that one thing that was missing every time you need to write a report or spend time chatting online – whatever – here are some Notebooks which will help complete your writing quest for you, no matter what the ambient light

Before we start, if you are one of those fortunate few who own an Apple MacBook, and then only on certain models – your MacBook may already have a backlit keyboard. The
Apple 13.3 inch MacBook Notebook has a backlit keyboard (well how about that!)

Another Notebook which has a backlit keyboard is the Dell XPS M1730 gaming Notebook. So you can frag aliens in the dark!

It all started with Netbooks, which where mini-sized Notebooks. Then along came Nettops - no, not small laptops, but smaller Desktops.

Now MSI, maker of the popular MSI Wind series of Netbooks, like the MSI Wind U100-432US, has brought out what they call “Wind Netons”, which are all-in-one PCs. They didn’t just announce one, but three – see this article from CNET’s Crave “Crave: MSI announces three all-in-one PCs, calls them Wind Netons for some reason“.
The all-in-one PCs are related to the Netbooks as they both make use of Intel Atom CPUs.

MSI is not the only Netbook manufacturer to introduce an All-in-One PCs running Intel Atom CPUs. Asus has introduced an “all-in-one touchscreen PC” called the “Asus Eee Top ET1602 PC”. A third All-in-one Nettop to be announced was the “Averatec 18.4 inch All-In-One PC”. It also runs the Intel Atom CPU, but doesn’t feature a touchscreen. Instead, it has a DVD burner and a larger screen

One question which needs to be asked is why Desktop PCs are using the Intel Atom CPU, which is primarily intended for low battery usage on Netbooks. It could be that it is a “greener” option, but it does leave the Nettops rather underpowered.