Sunday 15 May 2011

iPlodding


The list of books i'll never read continues to grow as great works and greater drivel is penned each year, and hours of commuting eventually exhausts even a reasonable music collection and it doesn't take long to tire of news. As a motorist I did rather wish there was a bus or train that would take me the route so that I could read, fiddle with my laptop and work, rest or play for the entire journey.
Driving alone is not enough to excite me, and as a commuter you eventually dread the feel of the wheel. That is, until I started listening to audiobooks during the journey.

Formally "books-on-tape" and latterly "books-on-tape-but-on-CD" MP3 Audiobooks gave a shot in the tired arm of a serial commuter which is the context for this review. Not an individual audiobook or author, nor a particular technology, device or gadget. Just Audiobooks.

Continuing an aural tradition that predates the homeric epics, I stated by picking from the already long list of Books You Are Supposed To Read and I enjoyed both abridged and unabridged tomes from those famous authors - you know the ones. I moved on to a few more contemporary authors, and dabbled in science and education. There is nothing quite like a lecture series with pause, rewind and skip buttons to empower your learning beyond the restrictive structure that would otherwise be imposed.

The opinion on books you should read varies with each person you ask and I won't presume to prescribe or endorse even the ones I've really enjoyed, but I will recommend the experience of being read to. The spoken voice brings forward such character, its a different sensory experience to the written word and one you can thoroughly enjoy while travelling.

As a pedestrian I've continued to listen to books - both fact and fiction - on my journey into work. The return journey is usually reserved for music as brainwidth is a little lower at the end of the day. Audiobooks are cheap and plentiful in this day and age and you don't have to limit youself to the reading list prescribed by the literati, in fact I recommend against it. Go with what you enjoy and enjoy going with it.

I'll give hearing things five stars. Its like reading but its out loud and you can keep your eyes on the road.

Laps, tops, and laptops.


Since its launch in mid 2007 I've enjoyed the easy computing of the Asus EeePC 701. Spurned as "sublaptop" by the bulky, expensive laptop owning elite of its day it was the pioneer of a netbook revolution that reshaped the digital marketplace. Small, robust, lightweight and packed with features the Asus EeePC was also one of the cheapest laptops you couldn't buy - I got mine on import some 6 months before the UK release, complete with Chinese keyboard layout and mains adapter.

As a landmark in hardware the Asus EeePC provided WiFi, webcam and microphone and sported a shock-proof SSD all built in - in an age where all of these were expensive optional extras for the traditional laptop crowd. Even its big-icon tabbed UI paved the way for the tablet iOS and Androids that followed, challenging the desktop-and-start-menu status quo with a glimpse of the future.

After years of service, a few OS installs and bricking it every now and then the EeePC is currently close to being laid to rest. When its been good, its been very very good, but when its been bad its been horrid. Having a Netbook was once like holding a little piece of stardust future in your hands, but the world soon caught up and overtook the humble EeePC. While its battery life is alright "a few hours" doesn't feel like so much any more, and occasional wifi glitches prevent it from being the perfect coffee shop companion. The aged cpu and reduced memory are always 'just less' than you want for all but the most basic netbooky tasks. At around £160, I've had if for something like 160 weeks so its one-pound-per-week value for money brings a smile to my thrifty side too.

The new contenders were a new Gaming Laptop from Alienware - a beast of silicon and steel with a price tag to match, or Googles own Chromebook which follows after the EeePC as the next ultra-thin client netbook. Meanwhile Always Innovating were back in the limelight with their smartbook, packed with and experimental feature set and attractive low price tag. Macintosh also have a new tablet out, which is to be considered as a sleek appliance computer.

...However the final judgement came in favour of the new-model Asus EeePC. Packed with features and apps, its a 10" form factor netbook with a trick up its sleeve - the keyboard detaches and can be discarded rendering the device a touch-screen tablet for a best-of-both worlds device. If it delivers as well as its predecessor I can expect at least a four-year lifespan again and have joined the tablet revolution.

Fractal Design XL Case.


Sturdy and spacious, the case comes with two 120mm fans and a larger (140?) one, lateral mounted 3" bays and cable cavity which all add up to excellent airflow. The case is rock solid and has no sharp edges. Removable dust filters on the air intakes will be easy to wash and help keep the inside clean.

The PSU is mounted at the bottom with its own intake/exhaust and in a thermal chamber that isolates it and its airflow from the rest of the case. The Three large case fans have a variable speed control for them, there are USB, eSATA and 3.5mm jacks on the top of the case next to the power button. Mainly black, with a few white bits on the inside and a sleek door in titanium grey, the box looks great for what is ostensibly a functional item that you don't look at. Its got all the normal luxuries and a few extras thrown in I've not been able to find a fault with it.

It's larger than many cases however you measure it and heavier too - weighing in at 17Kg empty - the weight is likely to be a problem for me personally because I like LAN events and social gaming, but its not a negative about the design or engineering of the case. Its something you may want to consider before buying if you plan to travel with your PC or have a fragile table made of balsa wood and glass.

While 14 drive bays sounds like a lot, the ratio of 10:4 in favour of 3.5" bays doesn't make too much sense. In the Terrabyte age, ten drive bays is a lot for a domestic computer (~20TB) and I'd prefer to see three more 5" bays replacing the top four 3" Bays - it'd still be plenty of drive space (six of each) but provide a lot more flexibility as bay adapters are easy to come by, and I think the case came with one anyway. Its not a bad design decision, but its not a good one either.

Secondly, custom drive trays and screws - while they look great on paper - will ALWAYS cost a star in a review I write. One by one they ARE going to bend/buckle/break, and now i've got to keep track of specific screws for this case too (the SSD bays need screws 1 or 2 mm shorter than normal HDD screws). This knocks the case down from its perfect ten to a maximum score of nine and represents the only thing I might really regret about the case.

Lastly for consideration, I'm not going to subtract any for size and weight and I'm letting my first-impressions score stand at 9/10 but its a great score on thin ice. If the weight or drive bays are a dealbreaker then you might want to choose again, but otherwise the Fractal Design XL comes up aces - even 9/10 feel low for this superb case that comes up trumps in every category.