Ubuntu Linux Powered Steampunk Laptop (Pre-order, now!)

If you have over $5000 to spend and looking for an Ubuntu Linux powered laptop that also has the ability to run MS Windwos XP, well then you might be interested in the Steampunk Laptop. And when considering the price the first thing that I thought was, we'll be getting a pretty powerful, high-end laptop, in fact it is not. The price actually represents the handwork of the developer rather than the hardware specifications :).

To be honest this is a bit new to me and according to the developer the original design idea has been lying in his site for few years (,over 5 years) and maybe because of the "demand", he says that now you can actually pre-order it. It's not yet 100% completed, but he's close (over 85% completed).

The outer "shell" is made out of wood but underneath lies a HP-ZT1000 Laptop model and let me be clearer about one thing, the ZT1000 does not carry latest hardware specifications. It's been there for a while and when considering things like the...

*. Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.9-2.2 Ghz.

*. 512MB RAM.

*. 15" Display screen.

*. 40GB HDD.

Oh, it is something!...

*. DVD ROM (combo drive).

*. No Wi-Fi but Bluetooth and v.90 dial-up modem (what tha! :D).

*. Comes pre-installed Windows XP by default. 

*. Little over 2 hours of battery life... as you can see it ain't a "shocker", oh wait, I think it is, in a way ;-).

He wasn't kidding, it really runs Ubuntu (a bit older edition it seems)...

But the Steampunk Ubuntu powered Laptop is not for everyone. So if you want to have a Laptop that comes with a weird looking Victorian style look-n-feel, antique copper keyboard & a mouse, an antique clock embedded into the cover, claw feet, a huge clock winding key mounted closer to touchpad area + the developer has included a PCMCIA Wi-Fi card...  then the Steampunk is pretty good.

As mentioned, when considering the hardware details, don't hope it to run Unity desktop with all those compiz effects but I should be able to run Natty Narwhal in Gnome classic pretty decently. He also seems to build another Steampunk Linux Laptop with an Acer model as well.

Seriously for my taste, it looks ugly as hell :/ but if you have a thing for antiques and computers (they don't go that well together... not yet) and can spend over $5000-7500, oh well, then this might get you interested. I'm pretty sure when you reveal this Laptop to your friends who has a passion for antiques... it'll be a shocker!.

Asus UX21 - An Impressively Thinner Yet A Powerful, Laptop

Although I certainly didn't get my hands on it, yet from those who did, I hear them say, at its most thickest point, it's still about 17mm (about 3mm! at the most lowest). And when looking at the whole design it's apparent that Asus upcoming UX21 Laptop is certainly "inspired" by Apple's Mac Book Air.

But when considering its hardware specifications it's certainly powerful than theMac Book Air. For instance it packs with USB 3.0 mega speed :) ports, SATA III SSD drive as the main HDD, Intel Core i7 processor... yup it may look like a skinny/sexy model (female of course :P) but also very powerful at the same time as well.

But we all have seen these iPhone killers or iPad killers yet none of them have been able to beat Apple at their own game. I honestly can't figure out why Apple products are so much popular but if you are gonna introduce another iPad or Mac Book "Killer", it's not just about Power, which should be apparent by now.

Anyway for those of you haven't heard SATA III SSD doesn't mean it a hybrid HDD with a rotating SATA mechanical drive + solid state disk... again most of you know this but for those who doesn't, UX21 comes with a SSD drive and that "SATA III" part means that the SSD drive is as fast as the SATA III or version 3 which is about 6000Mbit/s (at its peak - Megabytes per second).

So basically with a SATA III SSD drive you can copy/move a 700MB DVD rip slightly above 1 second, how's that for speed.

Well, it looks pricey... :)

Asus say that they'll start shipping it in September. It comes with a 11.6 Wide screen display with 1366x768 HD resolution, gassy touch pad (those aren't that sensitive for my taste), Full and stylish keyboard, mini-HDMI port, no SD card reader (but that may change if they "hear" the complaints), 1 USB3 port and 1 USB 2.0 port, 64/128SSD drive.

A 1.1kg of weight...  although for the "showoff" they had an Intel Core i5 processor running at 1.7Ghz yet they've said that it'll come with an i7.

Although other things such as battery life, price or RAM are still unknown yet when asked whether it'll be cheaper than the Mac Book Air, the answer was Yes! (consider the "bold" :D). Well it's just 3 months ahead, so, we'll see.

New Asus Eee PC Netbook Editions now Support Ubuntu Unity by Default !

This is seriously some gooood news for all you Ubuntu geeks!. Asus, like Intel has started to give some serious attention to the GNU/Linux world... mainly due to the popularity of Ubuntu. So, thank you Canonical for that. We first heard about their first MeeGo powered Linux/Laptop now the Ubuntu powered Netbooks.

Although they had 2 other models certified by Ubuntu in the past, but those are now "old" Laptops :). For a start they'll be shipping Ubuntu 10.10 with certain Eee Laptop models such as 1001PXD, 1011PX and 1015PX. Even though they come preloaded with the now old 10.10 edition yet when considered their hardware details and the fact that they're certified by Ubuntu... all these Laptops are more than capable of running Unity nonetheless.

The reason for the 10.10 edition could be because Asus has been designing these Laptops well before the 11.04 Release. Anyhow, all the hardware details are very similar in all three of these nebooks.

Main features...

*. Intel® Atom™ N455 Processor , Dual Core.

*. 1GB of RAM upgradeable up to 2GB.

*. 150-360GB of SATA HDD (5400rpm), so no solid state disks here... good actually.. because SSD are bit speedy yet... they are pricy.

1001PXD model...

*. 0.3MP front camera, I forgive you Asus :P.

*. Hi Definition audio support.

*. VGA connector, 1 USB port (2.0 high speed), RJ-45 LAN, SD/SDHC/MMC card reader and an audio output jack. 

*. 1024x600 resolution display with 10.1 Inch screen.

*. 1.1kg - 1.25kg of weight (depending on the battery).

*. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The interesting thing is that when asked Asus officials said that...

"many more Eee PC models running Ubuntu will be available later this year..."

This is certainly good news since if a certain hardware supports GNU/Linux Kernel by default, then it doesn't matter whether it's Ubuntu or Fedora Core, etc because they'll be able to run most other GNU/Linux distributions with ease, most of the time. 

Notebook Hardware Control (NHC), Powerful ACPI Manager for your PC!

Windows Vista and 7 do come with advanced ACPI options when comparing with windows XP. For instance, if you have a never CPU (AMD or Intel) with Vista or 7 you can easily set-up different speed settings (if your CPU support that) and other hardware power related settings ... especially for Laptops which can help to get a longer battery life which is very handy.

Main GUI... (use it at your own risk)

But with Windows XP, the OS is so old that even if you have a CPU which was introduced around 2005-2007... with XP, setting advanced options, most of the time are not possible. In that case if you're looking for a fully featured ACPI manager that lets you control not just CPU but other things like...

*. CPU speed/Voltage settings.

*. Hard drive speed settings (which can help to get a noticeable amount of battery life).

*. Various battery related options/settings and readings (how many percentage it has, etc).

*. ATI GPU (VGA cards) related speed settings that can enhance battery life.

*. CPU/HDD temperature monitoring.

*. Easy to use GUI +, you can set it to display live data about your PC on the desktop as well.

These are among the main features of NHC - Notebook hardware control.

Unfortunately this is only for Microsoft windows users... cannot be run in GNU/Linux. Even if you have Windows Vista or 7 still I think this is a more powerful tool than what those OS allow their users to change (safely). It comes with main two versions, free and a professional one.

Before downloading, I advice you to read this FAQ first and then proceed to this downloading page.

Agora 12", Ultra Protable Laptop Powered by the Upcoming Ubuntu 11.04!

It was announced by Canonical sometime ago that, starting with the 11.04 version, they're going to merge some of those "editions" to a single "Ubuntu download". But, even before it's been released, already manufactures are releasing ultra-portable laptops with Ubuntu 11.04!. Agora 12"runs the upcoming Ubuntu edition but according to the manufacture, it fully supports MS Windows too.

The "Agora 12"...

Here are the main features...

*. Comes with an Intel Celeron M (mobile) processor, low voltage edition, which runs at 1.2Ghz (800FSB).

*. 1GB DDR2 RAM (max supports 4GB).

*. 250GB SATA HDD.

*. Intel GS40 integrated graphics (240MB shared).

*. 11.6" WXGA Widescreen HD LED Display.

*. 1366 x 768 (16:9) screen resolution.

*. 1.3M front camera.

*. HD audio.

*. 3 USB ports.

*. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

*. 4Cell 4000mAh batter (lasts about 3.5 hours, according to Kogan, the manufacture).

*. 3 in 1 Card reader.

*. Weights about 1.3 kg.

Well, this is interesting actually. Although now, many has started to criticize the "Unity movement" by Canonical, yet some of the electronic gadget manufactures seems to think otherwise. If Canonical could create a little empire in the near future, it should really interesting how it's going to affect the GNU Linux and the reactions of the developers as well. We'll see :).