Isonic Net-Book CE269 Review

[TitanKing]

Introduction
Living in the crazy times with business people wanting more mobility, the Netbook (smaller then notebooks and more internet dependent) market is becoming huge. We have seen the big entrance of the Asus EEE which is loved, with many fan sites popping up everywhere, even dedicated Operating Systems are being created for the EEE. I owned an EEE a while back and I must say that although fun to work with, a mere 4GB of HDD space it provided was simply too small to do anything of real value. The Asus EEE PC 700 that features only a 2GB HDD and 512MB Ram retails at R 2337.98.

Today we are looking at Isonics rival the CE269, we will be comparing it with the entry level Asus EEE so we can better lay out the value for money factor. The better range Asus EEE that matches specifications are almost double the price. The possibilities for any netbook is huge, whatever you decide what you will be using it for. From a Network Admin, PA, kids, business people could benefit from a Netbook.




Specifications

	Isonic Net-Book CE269 Notebook	ASUS EEE PC 700-W White Mini PC
Price from Prophecy Shop	R 1 812.94 (Including)	R 2 337.98 (Including)
Processor	VIA C7M 1.2GHz ULV	Intel Pentium M ULV Processor 900Mhz
Graphics	VIA VX700 Chipset	Intel® 910GML Chipset
Memory	1GB DDR2	512MB DDR2
HDD	30GB 1.8" HDD	2GB SSD Drive
Screen Size	7” LCD Resolution 800x480	7” LCD Resolution 800x480
Battery Life	4 hours 20 mins	4 hours
Other	Web Cam 0.3M Pixel 802.11b/g; 10/100M Ethernet MMC/SD/MS card reader Microphone, Speaker, Headphone Output DVIx1/USBx2	10/100 Ethernet LAN 802.11b/g Wireless Lan SD Card Slot 3x USB 2.0 Mic & Headphone Jack
Operating System	Linux (gOS)	Linux (Asus EEE)

Experience
When opening the box, the packaging is well padded ensuring nothing gets damaged, it is much better packed then what I have experienced with the Asus EEE. Preparing for the first charge I was a bit disappointed to find that no SA compatible power cable was provided, I had to struggle and find a cable to start playing around with the netbook. Some people will probably have a hard time finding a cable to work with the charger.

I found the CE269 extremely well build, it gives an immediate quality feel to it, this unit will be very mobile and can fit almost anywhere while on the move. You would not expect this high quality manufacturing from what you are paying, so a big plus there.
Obviously first boot was rather slow as it was preparing the operating system, it asked me a few basic questions and up and running was the Linux distro called gOS.

The OS and software on it was a complete let down, I have no idea why they opted for gOS, it is as if the unit was shipped before properly testing the it. Most of the applications available are web based applications that we cannot even use in SA due to purchasing restrictions, it has a 30GB HDD but no proper client side music player, what's up with that? Open Office opens most of its packaged applications broken with transparency in the application, like a improperly opened application would act. While going through the application list I found the extremely small mouse pad difficult at first, but soon got used to it.

There was absolutely nothing appealing about the OS, a kid would probably enjoy it very much as it has all their social bookmarked websites in the menus. A Business person would have a problem though. If you don’t have someone to install a proper OS, don’t bother. And don’t think you could just go to Add/Remove and install software like you would expect from a Linux distro, nope this specific version has it removed. This unit would probably be the best value out there if it was running something like Ubuntu Netbook Remix or CrunchBang!

Conclusion
The OS does the hardware no justice, none at all. If I could, I would just rate the hardware but that would be unfair towards average consumers who doesn’t have the knowledge to install a proper OS. Perhaps a guide on procedures to follow on installing Ubuntu Remix would be a winner and make the units odds of being purchased far better.
I handed it to a few people to play around with and give their feedback, most of them also loved the hardware but did not like the software side of things.

Other Reviews
Testfreaks

The Good and Bad

The Good	The Bad
Powerful for a Netbook (Ram, HDD, Processor)	The OS and Software Management Sucks.
Excellent Quality
Silent while operating
Runs cool

Score – Bronze Award:
79%

[C4rn4g3]

A good unit and great price TK, excellent review!

[Maximus]

With 1GB RAM and a 30GB HDD you should be able to run most desktop based Linux OS's on it, I would love to see Ubuntu/Kubuntu or Linux Mint running on it. Are there any restrictions (in terms of the guarantee) for users to install their own OS?

[IonFlux]

Great review TK, this one gets my nom

[TitanKing]

With 1GB RAM and a 30GB HDD you should be able to run most desktop based Linux OS's on it, I would love to see Ubuntu/Kubuntu or Linux Mint running on it. Are there any restrictions (in terms of the guarantee) for users to install their own OS?

Nope, no restrictions you can install any OS of your liking. I would recommend Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

[Razer]

Nice review King T! I especially like the "buy Prophecy" button...will you be doing this for all sponsors or did Prophecy supply the graphic?

[TitanKing]

Nice review King T! I especially like the "buy Prophecy" button...will you be doing this for all sponsors or did Prophecy supply the graphic?

Hi Razer,

No I do the graphics myself, it will be placed for other dealers if the specific item is available on their shop.

[NEO_87]

I almost bought myself a EEEpc a while back but was uninterested in the small amount of HDD space on it. And I knew that almost nothing I want on there would run.

I'll definitely be looking into one of these babies. Thanx TK.