We’re still struggling to get the Cloudbook onto our WPA-PSK network. It appears to be getting through the wireless router (using a spaceless pass phrase), but our DHCP server isn’t giving it an IP. The Cloudbook is on the road this week. I expect we’ll conquer the DHCP thing once it’s back in the building.

NotebookReview.com has the following review of the Everex Cloudbook laptop:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4282

Pros

*

Excellent high-resolution scaling on the tiny screen
* Innovative design

Cons

*

Very low performance
*

Included gOS operating system is a joke (a bad joke at that)
*

Horrible touchpad interface
*

No easy upgrades, opening chassis voids warranty
*

System gets too hot … overheats and stops working
*

Loud cooling fan that is constantly on when plugged in

Pros of the Cloudbook:

1.) very lightweight

2.) stylish and the whole in the middle makes it

very easy to carry around without dropping it.

3.) built sturdy, this is good especially for those concerned with the hard drive.

4.) cost efficient

Cons:

1.) Very slow to boot and some other applications are slow.

2.) Software is horrible too many bugs to fix

3.) Technical support is horrible also, you have to figure things out on your own.

4.) Wifi problems, even after software upgrades

Overall I think if you’re willing to change out the operating system, or wait for a better copy from everex then the cloudbook system will serve it’s purpose and be good to have if you’re looking for an alternative to the Eee Pc from Asus. However do to the solid state drive in the Asus it is much faster. It is also very sturdy and has many help forums. Installation is easy for the Eee pc and so is installing other operating system such as Windows XP. I love the performance of the eee pc, but I’m sure everex will tweek the cloudbook for better software and performance. I guess it all boils down to how much patience you have with the cloudbook and what your speed requirements are. I have both and will probably keep them but if I had a choice it would definitely be Asus because its more user friendly and easy to upgrade.

And, contrary to what is said, gOS v2 is -not- the same OS as what was available as “gOS” before, but was totally rewritten for the CloudBook (and the coming gBook laptop) to be based on GNOME instead of the inadequate Enlightenment desktop manager, making it 99% the same as the Ubuntu, on which even the older gOS versions are based on.

The current performance problems have nothing to do with gOS as-such (because as I said, gOS v2 is 99% Ubuntu) but with the fact it is currently using a regular, non-tweaked non-optimised kernel, which among other things switches the CPU speed to half-speed during booting (600 MHz), and has other performance limiting issues. Once a specific kernel for the CloudBook is released, that has had some optimisations, the performance will be as one would expect Ubuntu to have on this hardware, and it won’t matter at all if gOS or Ubuntu is used.

Of course a flash based EEE PC will always boot faster than any 1.8 inch hard-disk laptop based system, but that is to be expected, and is just the price you have to pay for a tenfold larger storage capacity. There is no real reason though that the CloudBook couldn’t boot in a minute and a half or so, the hardware is very comparable to the gPC, and it boots Ubuntu in about that time, or faster.

Then, yes, the current batch of systems have had no optimisation for the small screen, it’s expected the next batch will have those optimisations already installed, but gOS has a built in update manager, so many tweaks etc will be automatically installed as they come available.

But even as it is, gOS is perfectly useable even with windows larger than the screen, as the windows can be easily dragged around using the Alt-left mouse button + mousepad trick.
As shown on you-tube. It was just that this information was not provided with the verions distributed by Zareason, CloudBooks from wal-mart will have a sheet describing this trick, so even newbies will be able to overcome the “large windows problem”.

but it sounds like everex did the cheap way out and slapped their existing distro on the hardware without properly checking first. something that will, sadly, in the end give all linux distros a bad rep.

You are very defensive. You must love XP. So do I. I have it as the preferred OS on the PC right by my iMac. Still, I am on the iMac writing this to you. At my office, I have a Dell running XP Pro with about a 3GHz Pentium 4 and 1Gb of ram. The Eee boots and gets on line about the same (20 seconds approximately). The Cloudbook has me waiting near 3 minutes. This is “subjective” and it is an “opinion”. But I have the CPU benchmarks for most recent CPU’s (I’ll take a Xeon X5365 any day) and know that there are different ways of measuring performance. You can do it by the numbers or the speed in which an OS and a CPU work together for a specific application. There is much literature on this and debate, as to which measure is more accurate. It takes both a CPU and an OS working together. I agree with you on that. Most of the time it is the OS. That is why I am on OSX Tiger. But the XP Pro at my office has different issues besides speed. Comparably, they Eee and Dell work about the same. But the security issues and size are another matter. The Eee travels. The Dell sits on my desk. Back to the Eee and Cloudbook. I can only speak having both and using both. Do you? I do not want to argue test numbers. Computing is how I get my job done and a “hobbie” now. When I was in the game, I knew every number for every machine. It got to be a pain. All I was talking about was 2 LINUX machines with different chip sets and OS’s. I could put XP Pro on the Cloudbook and the numbers would be better than the odd variation of Ubuntu with Gnome that Everex has installed on it. The Asus with its strange version of Xandros is a different machine, in terms of CPU and OS. On paper the Cloudbook’s CPU is superior. In real life, under LINUX, one takes less than a half minute to boot and get on line. The other almost 3 minutes. I am losing valuable time in my “opinion”. I should go out and spend $2700 and buy a Sony Vaio Premium with a 2.5 Ghz T9300 and 4Gb of RAM. I just played with one. It gets me on line about the same as the Eee , which I paid $400 plus shipping. The Sony runs Vista Business and not XP. It would perform better under XP in my opinion. The Cloudbook has potential as a LINUX machine. I do not want to run Windows on it. But I believe in Ubuntu and want the “unit” to work better. As an XP user also, I do not want to speak “poison” about it as an OS. I only wanted to put on record support for the Cloudbook. Get one and try it out. Compare it to an Eee as much as the Sony. Then tell me what you think based on experience and not a spec sheet. Then you would know what you are talking about. I can only stand by my opinion knowing the specs, but having worked and timed the performance on the application level.

Benchmarks show the VIA CPU in class above the Intel CPU. Benchmark tests are actual numbers and not feelings. Your remark that the EEE PC is faster is not measure of speed but opinion.

You appear to be looking at the OS of the Cloudbook and the EEE PC. XP Pro for me.

I just wanted to point out the “poison” by calling the cloudbook slower when its the OS!