Have you ever wanted to bugger off somewhere semi-remote to just get away from people? I know I have. However, my idea of enjoying such a location does not involve sitting around staring at the scenery or slogging through random tracts of back country bush for hours on end. Rather, I want to enjoy the serenity of the location but actually do something at the same time.
Since one of my hobbies is writing, I decided that it would be a great way to “decompress” if I could head off to a scenic locale and spend a few hours writing stories or what have you. So why don’t I? Well, my handwriting is barely legible at best and there is little point writing something if nobody can read it later. And that doesn’t even account for hand cramps and so on.
I could take a manual typewriter or something similar along and use that, but those things are clunky, slow, and take a lot of effort to operate. For someone used to computer keyboards, that is a deal breaker. And, if cramping from writing long hand is a problem, a manual typewriter is no better.
That leaves portable electronics. The problem there is most portable devices with a decent battery life are too small to be useful for typing. The ones that are well suited for typing tend to have hours of battery life measured in the low single digits. That means I must compromise.
Fortunately, such a compromise is available. A reasonable netbook does not cost a fortune. It has a keyboard that is large enough to actually use, if not as efficiently as a full keyboard. It has a screen that is large enough to read text. And a decent one tends to have a battery that lasts upwards of eight hours when power drains such as 802.11 are disabled. Even better, should it be necessary, a full sized keyboard can be attached by USB.
To this end, I just acquired an ASUS Eee PC 1005PE. While the screen is smaller than I’d like and the keyboard is also less than ideal, it is a workable compromise between a full sized notebook with maybe three hours battery life and a mobile device like an iPhone. With the correct software installed, it works a charm for what I plan to do with it.
It’s clear from my recent experiences with my new Eee PC that a netbook is not a substitute for a full sized notebook or desktop. However, I can now finally see why such devices sell. There is always a compromise and the netbook makes a different compromise to attain a reasonable combination of battery life, portability, and functionality.