Posts by Robert E A Harvey 3010 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2006
They had a pre-release period of up to a year during which testers and pundits were telling them TIFKAM was broken: they didn't listen then. The system builders wanted to install start-menu (not button) patches and it was forbidden, instead of listened to. After the launch they were told it was wrong, and went on the offensive about education & practice.
The only people they have been listening to are their own sales force sying 'we can't shift this carp - do something'.
Why not treat the phone contract like hire-purchase. Once its paid off it's yours and you can do what you like with it.
And, while we (they) are enacting freedom, lets make it illegal to force you to buy widnoz with a 'puter. Then we will see you enacting from principle, not vested interest.
here's what you need to do:
1. use a decent screen resolution, worthy of the second octile of the 20th century. Not x768, not x1080. We don't all want wide screen TVs, some of us want a computer.
2. Either a minimum of 4 USB ports (all USB3, of course) or ship with a wireless mouse so we don't lose a USB all the time to a plug-in for a mouse. You could offer an optional wireless optical drive too, while you are at it. And 4 USB anyway.
3. Bluetooth. And Let us bung a SIM card in for connectivity if we want, too. My Dell mini-10 cost less than £200 and has bluetooth, sim slot, camera and microphone all built in. You could throw in a bluetooth earpiece too, that parks inside the case or wall-wart for storage and charging.
4. Use bog-standard memory and hard disk interfaces so we can upgrade when we want. It's our sodding computer. It doesn't have to be as thin as a sheet of cardboard. If it is, it will probably break. Oh, and a plug-in battery so I can change/upgrade it later when its knackered and the 'puter isn't.
5. SD card slot. Full-depth. So I can leave a card in all the time if I want. Better yet, two of them.
6. Firewire. Thunderbolt. HDMI. VGA adaptor cable in the box or as an option. Ethernet, or adaptor cable in the box.
7. Touchpad with buttons, not the-corners-are-the-buttons. Adjustable sensitivity for 'tapping', including OFF. (as in FRO?)
8. One of those wall-warts with plug adaptors based on a figure-8 mains adaptor, so we can swap them or use a longer cable if we want. Oh, and stick 1 or 2 USB headers on the wall-wart so I can also use it to charge some other stuff from the one socket in the hotel room.
9. Touch screen if you must but not as an excuse for charging a thousand quid. Meh.
10. As others have said, A CHOICE OF SODDING OPERATING SYSTEMS. Not one rammed down our throats like a randy Geordie lasses tongue on a saturday night, all fags and curry, leaving a nasty aftertaste.
>Also because it was practically impossible to get hold of a
> netbook with built in 3G, Bluetooth etc. etc.
My Dell mini-10 has both. Shame that Dell never took the product line forward. Cost me £189 with ubuntu, and the only thing wrong with it is the hideous x600 vertical resolution - which they kept a deadly secret when they sold it.
The PC makers is building what Microsoft and Intel tell them to build and no-one is buying like they used to.
Maybe they should stop letting two geriatric corporations take all their management decisions for them and start building their own product? Be innovative, creative, and differentiate their offerings from each other?
$MEGACORP supplies Fujitsu. I don't think those would sell at all outside the 'order 5000 doorstops for the troops' style of buying. A Medion would be better value for money, if it had the capital-asset-over-the-network chips, or the smartcard reader.
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