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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."

8 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 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.

    2. 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.

  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 CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    2. 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.
  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...