Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under Publishing News. Tagged: computers, ebook technology, EEE PC. You can feed this entry. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways. She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation! Email this author | All posts by Jane

12 comments to “Dell Mini Inspiron Priced at $399”

1. 1	by Jia September 4th, 2008 at 11:55 am What? No red? Bah. I’ll wait until more colors come out.

2. 2	by veinglory September 4th, 2008 at 12:27 pm I have a hankering for a 7″ mini-lap. I have sepnt the last two days trying to buy an ASUS eee pc 8g and not managed it yet. Any advice re: repitable online stores with this in stock?

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   by BevQB September 4th, 2008 at 2:00 pm Emily, I’m not sure which particular model or OS you’re looking for, but there are a few different models of the Asus UMPCs available through BestBuy.com and Amazon.com. Jane, that little Dell is way cool. If I didn’t already have the 12.1″ HP, I’d definitely consider it. At 2.2 pounds, it’s still a little heavy to be used as my main ebook reader, but it would be a great solution if I had to choose only one all purpose device. Although I have to admit that this Dell and some of the UMPCs concern me because they are offering Windows XP instead of Vista. Yes, I know Vista can be a PITA, but whether Microsoft replaces it quickly as it did with ME, or whether it continues to improve it, I worry about buying a device that has an older OS installed. Especially knowing that I couldn’t upgrade the OS without considerable additional expense and hassles to accommodate a resource hog like Vista. And while I know there are other OSs available, like Linux, it all goes back to needing a way to read my gazillion .LIT ebooks. In any case, if Astak doesn’t come through with .LIT support on their 6″ eReader (and assuming Kindle 2.0 doesn’t add support for .LIT), I’ve been debating whether to go ahead and get the Asus, but it’s the XP that’s had me hesitating.

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   by Ann Bruce September 4th, 2008 at 2:06 pm I’d wait for more memory and disk space. Max RAM is 1 GB, unless you want to pop it out and install your own, which then voids the warranty. SSDs are great…but the price point is too high for what you get. If you have to haul around an external HD, what’s the point of a UMPC?

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   by veinglory September 4th, 2008 at 2:36 pm I am after the ASUS EEE PC 8G model–Amazon is out of stock, buy.com gave me the run around until I cancelled out of frustration, newegg is out of stock, bestbuy lists no 7″ models. I have been trying, it seems not to be had from any major retailer that I know of.

6. 6	by Jane September 4th, 2008 at 2:40 pm Do you have a Costco membership? I know that you can order them online through costco. I’m intrigued by the Dell but am waiting for a Touchscreen.

7. 7	by veinglory September 4th, 2008 at 2:46 pm Costco don’t seem to list anything below a 9″ :( I may end up saving some money here….

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   by roslynholcomb September 4th, 2008 at 2:51 pm I’ve been trying to find it somewhere local. I need to actually be able to type on the thing to justify buying one, and I won’t know that until I actually try it. Office Depot claims to have it, but I haven’t found it anywhere around here. Might just have to order it online and take a leap of faith.

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   by BevQB September 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm The other day, in the Perfect eReader comments, Barbara mentioned that she had an HTC Advantage. It’s a Windows Mobile PDA phone with a 5″ screen- although the strong magnets make it not such a good idea to carry in a purse with credit cards nearby. BTW, after mentioning the weight on the Dell, I got curious about the Asus’ weight. WOW! I was surprised that even the smallest one weighs in at 2 pounds (in contrast, my iPAQ weighs about 6 oz). I may need to rethink my backup plan if Astak doesn’t come through for me. BTW, does anyone know if I’m right in assuming that Microsoft Reader will NOT run in Linux?

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    by Jia September 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm The lack of Vista on most netbooks is due to the hardware, isn’t it? Most netbooks have less RAM and slower processors and as a result, Vista just won’t run as efficiently or well. My impression has always been it’s a sacrifice of power for portability and affordability.

11. 11	by gwen hayes September 5th, 2008 at 1:58 am Emily…Target has Asus computers on their website. Both the older and the newer.

12. 12	by veinglory September 5th, 2008 at 8:46 am Thanks, gwen. they also don’t have the 8G but I gave in and ordered the 4G with XP. Which does save me some money.