Back at the beginning of this month I wrote about Cindy in Holland. She was customer challenge #5 and I had agreed to give her some sponsorship money towards a Belinea S.Book in return for some reports. She was very quick in sending me her initial review on the device but I haven’t had the time to post it until now. Remember that the Belinea S.Book [details] is the 1Gb/80GB, touchscreen version of the VIA Nanobook reference design and will be almost exactly the same as the Everex Cloudbook CE1200J. Cindy is Dutch so English is obviously not her first language but I’ve left the review almost untouched apart from some formatting and few spelling corrections. Take it away Cindy…
This is going to be my first review ever, on my new Belinea S.book. I have been playing with the S.book during the evening and the night and it really exceeded my expectations. But more on that later. First things first.
What comes out of the box? Well, here’s a list for you (and some photo’s.)
- Notebook
- Battery
- Utility cd (containing the latest drivers, applications and user manual)
- Windows XP pro, SP2, external recovery cd.
- Power adapter
- Power cable
- Quick start guide
- OPTIONAL: external DVD drive
The battery was very easily attached.
Let’s have a look around the device.
On the left side you got the ventilation slots, the DVI-I port and a memory card slot. On the right side, you got a microphone socket, an audio output socket, two usb ports, ventilation slots, an Ethernet/lan port and a socket for the power adapter. On the right side of the screen, you also have a locking mechanism for the Skype telephone.
I have been doing some research on umpc’s for a while now. I think you’ve got a lot of connections. No hsdpa, but it may well that later on you can buy an extra module that you can put where the module for the voip-phone is right now. More about that in a bit.
My first impressions were very good. The material seems to be very solid, I like the looks of it a lot. I think it’s better then the all black-non-exciting of the xs20, but of course that is subjective. The first thing I thought when I unboxed the S.Book was, that is going to fit in my handbag just perfectly! I do think it is small enough to be highly portable and large enough to type good. Actually, I have a picture of my sons keyboard [right]and they are about the same size. I will do some typing tests later on. The thing I do have to get used to is that it’s a uk keyboard. So I will have some keys on different places. But I think that is just going to be a matter of time.
When you open the S.Book, you do not have to open a separate lock. It doesn’t have one. I am very ok with that, because I don’t see the value of that. So once you’ve opened it, this is what you get:
In the upper left corner you can find your stylus. Below that there is the 7 inch touchscreen. On the right of the display you can find the voip bluetooth telephone. It has been designed to work with Skype, but I have been told that it also can be used with f.e. voipcheap, which I like to use. I am waiting instructions on that. It would be nice to have an option in the future to buy extra modules for gps or a 3g modem. Beneath the display, you can find the speakers. I have tested them and I really liked what I heard. I couldn’t believe that was coming out of the little device. Of course, you cannot compare it with a 5.1 surround sound, but considering, it wasn’t bad at all.
In the bottom section of the S.Book you can find the on-off button witch the keyboard below that. I think it is just the right size for the keyboard. Anything smaller, and you really would have to make compromises to typing comfort and speed. I can type very comfortable on this keyboard. I will test my initial typing speed in a little while. The keyboard has a special function key next to the left windows key. For example, when you hold that and you press F2, you can turn off/on wifi and Bluetooth. With other combination you can set volume level and display clarity etc.
Underneath the keyboard, you can find the status lights. From left to right you will find the battery level, hard disk drive led, WLAN/Bluetooth led and a caps lock led.
And finally, the mousepad. I have never worked with a mousepad before, but using it was comfortable. I can scroll from the left to the right side in a little more than two ‘strikes’. But since it is a touchscreen, I find myself touching the screen most of the time. Either with my fingers or the stylus. More on that later.
These are my findings once I powered the s.book up.
I was surprised by the boot times. I was expecting something around a minute and a half or two minutes, but these are the actual numbers:
– cold boot up to welcome screen: 45 seconds
– cold boot till you can start clicking around: 58 seconds.
The S.book comes pre-installed with windows, all of the needed drivers and software and a version of bullguard antivirus and firewall. So I think those boot-up times aren’t bad. Of course I have had no reference to other UMPC’s but from my point of view, that is fairly fast. I’ve uninstalled Bullguard and installed nod32 and online armor firewall. It does take longer now to bootup. Approx. 1 minute and 15 seconds to start clicking.
The screen is very bright and clear. Again, no complaints about that either.
The keyboard is easy to use and as said, so is the mousepad. But of course, I wanted to test the touchscreen. There was a problem. The thing wasn’t calibrated so it was off by half a centimeter. Fortunately, the utility for calibration was already installed and after doing a 9points calibration, the touch worked with very good precision. I can touch very good with the stylus, but surprisingly, I can also tough really good with my fingers. The only thing I have a problem with when I am using my fingers is when I am browsing. If I want to scroll up or down with the sidebars, my finger seems to be to chubby. Now I use my pink for that and it works like a charm.
You can easily switch to the following display modes: 800*480, 800*600, 1000*600 and 1024*768. You can choose 16 or 32 bpp. By default it’s set on 800 by 480. Most of the time that will do just fine. Even when surfing. I did had to change it a few times, when installing other software. There were dialogue boxes which couldn’t be resized. But again, you can switch within seconds so I didn’t find it to be a problem.
I haven’t got the chance to test the battery life yet.
Youtube playback is very nice. No problems whatsoever.
The s.book is very quiet. Not a lot of noise production.
Software installs quickly. I thought that it would take a lot longer, but no complaints on that either.
I have yet to test games.
The startup times of word en excel are very good. The first time since you have booted, it will take about five seconds, after that, they will be loaded within a second.
Well this is what I can think about of reading after testing it for an evening and half a night. I will do some more test later on.
END OF REVIEW.
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Owner reviews are good to read alongside the ‘pro’ reviews that are available. Often more trustworthy too so thanks to Cindy for that. I have a video that I took with JKK at CeBIT that I will post later and I will also post a video that Cindy sent me.
FULL IMAGE GALLERY AVAILABLE HERE
Full specifications and more links. The S.Book is available in most EU countries for under 600 Euros and as the Cloudbook CE1200J in Japan and soon, in the U.S.