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Android / Windows 7 Dual Boot Netbook Disappoints

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the accepting-patches dept.

Barence writes "PC Pro has got its hands on Acer's Aspire One D250 with both Windows 7 and Google Android installed. Anyone who's played with an Android phone had better get ready for a let-down: Android is far from ready for netbooks. The review laments the lack of a proper Marketplace, the poor implementation of both the inbuilt browser and Firefox, and the general pointlessness of it all in its current incarnation as a quick-boot alternative. Yes, it will get better, but at the moment it's hardly going to lure people away from even Windows 7."

31 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. People rarely try twice by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    [...] at the moment it's hardly going to lure people away from even Windows 7.

    Not only that, but it will give Android a bad reputation. And given that people usually stick with what they know and rarely (if ever) check alternatives, it might be a long time before they try Android again.

    Heck, Apple switched to a Unix core for their OS almost a decade ago and I still talk with people who think Mac OS 9 when they hear about Macs.

    1. Re:People rarely try twice by rumith · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not only that, but it will give Android a bad reputation

      Why? The masses aren't likely to even hear about this netbook should it be a commercial failure (which is most likely), and the techies know better than to expect a smartphone OS to work for netbooks. So if anything, this will give Acer bad reputation.

    2. Re:People rarely try twice by skgrey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This makes me very sad. It seems lately with all of the press of Android that's being aimed at the "typical" (read: non-geek) crowd (especially that Droid commercial against iPhones), usability like this is extremely bad. My wife, a total non-geek, knows what Droid and the Android OS is because she found the commercial interesting. If she tried Android out on a Netbook and had a bad experience she wouldn't ever try it again.

      I've had a hard enough time getting her to use an iPod touch and now she loves it, but believe it or not she is doing INCREDIBLE with Windows 7 with little to no help from me, right off the bat. She actually said it was intuitive, and she is not a computer person in the least.

      Android needs to get their act in gear quickly, especially if they are going after main-stream, non-geek people, as these people won't be coming back anytime soon, no matter how much their geek husbands beg.

    3. Re:People rarely try twice by LarryRiedel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So which mobile phone OS (not Moblin or Chrome OS) will they be running on their netbook as an alternative?

    4. Re:People rarely try twice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People tend to talk. Stuff usually lasts your generation + some of the next.

      Look at diesel engines. GM so farked up their implementation that everyone thinks they're slow, smokey, smell and can't start it the winter. Meanwhile Europe has 50+% diesel adoption.

      I STILL get people (and young people that don't even remember the 70s) that tell me diesels can't start in the winter. I ask them how they like my 1998 TDI that is sitting out in the parking lot and they're floored. I tell them that my previous car was a 1986 diesel. Anemic as shit with no turbo but I was getting 50 MPG before Toyota even thought of a hybrid. Not to mention I can run it on any heavy oil from JP-1 to the shit that comes out of your deep fryer.

      Anyone that has tried Linux in the past and found it too difficult has passed that knowledge on to their friends. "Linux doesn't do X" even though X was solved 3 years ago. Android has given a good name to Linux such that they don't know that it is. If Android screws up then someone big (as big as Google) is going to have to come up with another name for it.

    5. Re:People rarely try twice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Android needs to get their act in gear quickly

      This doesn't have a damn thing to do with Android. Android was not made for laptop computers. Properly implemented on a cell phone, MID, or PMP, Android runs exceptionally well, is intuitive, powerful, and fun. Acer is the problem here. I don't understand why companies take something like Android or Linux and implement it so poorly as to be practically worthless. Seriously, if you're going to do it, do it right.

      Look at Apple, they took BSD and made it into something beautiful (not that it wasn't beautiful before). The implementation job they are doing is awesome. There is no reason at all why some other company can't do the same thing other than either gross incompetence or just not giving a shit.

    6. Re:People rarely try twice by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      True, an OS that takes many attempts and several years to get it right will never make it in the marketplace.

  2. Editorializing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nice editorializing - "Even Windows 7?" Cheap shot - you can do better than that, Slashdot

    1. Re:Editorializing by Churla · · Score: 2, Informative

      Look, if we as a community can't even get some cheap shots in on the new OS how will we ever stay on "Big Steve's" Christmas Card list?

      --
      I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
    2. Re:Editorializing by kingduct · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Slashdot community doesn't pretend to be unbiased, and why should it? The important thing is that you, as a reader, be able to interpret and understand what others say.

    3. Re:Editorializing by megamerican · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nice editorializing - "Even Windows 7?" Cheap shot - you can do better than that, Slashdot

      I don't think the editors of Slashdot can do any better.

      Just the other day they made it sound like Windows 7 was uninstalling google toolbar and iTunes but it turned out that Windows 7 reinstalled it after the update. The person who made that comment in the story said it was the best Windows upgrade he had ever gone through.

      If you had just read the title and/or summary it would seem like Microsoft was purposefully uninstalling competitors software when it wasn't even remotely the case.

      --
      If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
    4. Re:Editorializing by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe slashdot should change their slogan to "opinions for nerds" then ;)

    5. Re:Editorializing by Churla · · Score: 3, Informative

      As a note from personal experience.

      Going XP 32 bit to Win 7 64 bit - The "export your files and settings" thing actually WORKS now. Fresh install, reinstall office and firefox, import the previous settings all worked flawlessly (including ALL my FF add ons...). Most painless Windows upgrade I can remember.

      --
      I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
    6. Re:Editorializing by recoiledsnake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Opinion for anti-MS nerds" perhaps? There are plenty of nerds who aren't religious about hating "M$" and appreciate cool technology wherever it comes from.

      --
      This space for rent.
    7. Re:Editorializing by dangitman · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, a more fitting slogan would be "Slashdot: Because we just don't care anymore."

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
  3. I'm completely shocked. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who would have expected that a slipshod port of a system designed for one human interface mechanism would fail on another? They even left out important features, what could possibly have gone wrong? Does this mean that my plan to port Bash to my wristwatch will be unpopular in the marketplace?

    Seriously, though, this seems like completely unsurprising news. Just slapping dead-stock android on something(without even bothering to include features that are standard on smartphones, like the app mechanism), while giving no thought at all to the differences between a touchscreen and a touchpad, seems like an invitation to failure.

  4. Well... by rumith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt that Google had netbooks in mind when they released Android. Keep in mind that they have announced ChromeOS to be their operating system for netbooks (and possibly over time more powerful machines as well), and it should be pretty clear that Acer's experiment had very low chances to succeed anyway. However, if ChromeOS and Android somehow use compatible app markets, that might be interesting...

    1. Re:Well... by cptdondo · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's a plot! Redmond is secretly paying off Acer to do this, so that they can give Android a bad rap and save Windows CE. I have proof but I can't take my tinfoil hat off right now....

  5. no touch screen by czmax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the article:
    "Indeed, where Android's browser makes sense on a smartphone's touchscreen, it just doesn't translate here. The process of clicking and holding the left mouse button, while pushing up to scroll the page down, seems clunky and counter-intuitive,"

    Gosh, they took an OS designed for a touchscreen and tried a simplistic hack to make it work with a touchpad... and this isn't easy to use? Well, duh. This says nothing about Android and everything about the marketing folks that messed up.

    1. Re:no touch screen by unitron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know they aren't your words, but it is "scrolling" as we know it that is counter-intuitive, at least to anyone who's ever seen actual scrolls, even if only in the movies.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  6. Here we go again... by nhytefall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't this the same old story we keep hearing? This F/OSS OS isn't ready for primetime, etc, no better than Win xxxx ... Seriously, can't we do better as a whole? So what if one "analyst" at a tech website says it sucks. Everyone jumps on board... maybe try it out for yourselves, and exercise some independent thought for once?

    --
    0100010001101001011001 0100100000011010010110 1110001000000110000100 1000000110011001101001 0111001001100101
  7. Holy vague summary batman by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I'm not really sure what the writer is trying to say with things like

    the lack of a proper Marketplace,

    Do you mean you can't connect to ebay, craigslist, or google shopping? What is a marketplace in relation to an operating system on a computer?

    the poor implementation of both the inbuilt browser and Firefox

    I presume this means built-in browser?

    and the general pointlessness of it all

    When did things need to have a point to be featured on slashdot? It wasn't that long ago there was a front page story here about running linux on the kindle. Though if you want a point in the general sense, try:

    in its current incarnation as a quick-boot alternative

    Because that is probably all the more point a lot of people need from it.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Holy vague summary batman by mypalmike · · Score: 2, Informative

      >> the lack of a proper Marketplace,

      > Do you mean you can't connect to ebay, craigslist, or google shopping? What is a marketplace in relation to an operating system on a computer?

      The capital "M" means it's a proper noun. It's referring to Android Marketplace.

      --
      There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
  8. The burning question is... by westlake · · Score: 2, Interesting

    but at the moment it's hardly going to lure people away from even Windows 7

    From the reviewer's POV Win 7 Starter Edition looks pretty damn good.

    The burning question, though, is why anyone would opt against booting into Windows 7 in the first place. Cold booting does admittedly take about three times as long as Android...but waking from hibernation takes a mere 20 seconds, just five seconds longer than the quick OS.


    Windows 7 might feel a touch more sluggish than XP Home...but its refinement and ease of use come as ample reward, and importantly it suffers none of the aggravating limitations of its Google-powered rival.


    As it stands, novelty merely serves as a brief distraction from the D250's competent, but unremarkable charms. We still hope future updates will reinstate the marketplace and make more of Android's obvious potential, but there are much better netbooks available for less.


    The Verdict:


    Google's Android OS provides a disappointing distraction from an otherwise average netbook

  9. What I don't get by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I don't get is the choice of BOTH OSes on this thing. If you read the specs this thing is maxed out at 1Gb, which makes it a poor choice for Windows 7, which most reviews I've seen set 2Gb as the "sweet spot" for that OS to really perform, and Android? WTF? A mobile phone OS? Neither choice makes any sense at all. If they wanted a "quick boot" like we see in certain motherboards they should have put an embedded Linux in a ROM and went that way.

    So to me this whole thing makes no sense whatsoever. Windows is being starved for RAM, and the Linux based OS is running on a platform it was never designed for, and which they apparently didn't bother to really tweak it for, although I doubt all the tweaks in the world will turn a phone OS into a Netbook OS. The only thing I can figure is some marketing genius got caught up in the buzz behind both OSes and said "Hey, if Android and Win7 have buzz, we can put out a Netbook with BOTH and get double plus buzz!" but as we have seen time and time again playing buzzword bingo usually ends up a giant can o' fail, as we can see here.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  10. "even Windows 7" - no need to be snarky about Win7 by DoctorSVD · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry, but I think your "even Windows 7" swipe is silly. As much as I love *nix and like to poke fun at Microsoft (I grew up on SunOS, HP-UX, IRIX, and Linux), I find Windows 7 to be a delight to work with (I run RC1 at home on two systems, an old P4 system and a newer Core 2 Duo). I would love to see a good desktop version of Linux, but Gnome, KDE etc. are just not polished enough (yeah, yeah, Ubuntu is pretty nice and all, but the desktop is still klunky). As a developer I miss the power of the command line tools in the Linux development environment, but as a casual user (and casual gamer) I am really liking Win7.

  11. Obligatory... by jDeepbeep · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Perhaps Linux just isn't ready for the desktop. I'm sticking with Microsoft.
    :P

    --
    Reply to That ||
  12. Re:Serial-Killing Pedophile/Windows 7 Disappoints by jpcarter · · Score: 2, Funny

    It reminds me of watching Chris Matthew on Hardball.

    Anyone who criticizes Obama or supports the 2nd amendment is automatically a lifetime member of the KKK and believes Obama was born on Pluto.

    Good thing he's the only cable news personality to behave in such a manner.

  13. Re:"even Windows 7" - no need to be snarky about W by Rockoon · · Score: 2, Informative

    I run plenty of steam games on Win7 RC with an 8800GT and have experienced absolutely none of your issues

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  14. "alternate" desktops work well in the smartphone by alizard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    market because people don't have fixed expectations as to how a smartphone UI will look, feel, and act, and expect to have to dig through menus or the instruction manual to do anything over and above simply making a phone call.

    Netbooks look enough like "real" computers that people expect the UI to look and feel like a computer UI, not a smartphone UI.

    --
    Tech Public Policy stuff
  15. Once again... by Alex+Belits · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...a Windows PC company tarnishes Linux reputation by pre-installing something that is not Ubuntu on a consumer device.

    --
    Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.