ASUS 1201T, T untuk Tanggung atau Terrific? Part 1

Netbook dengan prosesor AMD? Non-OS? Banyak pertanyaan mengenai kehandalan produk ASUS ini. Aslinya ada 3 varian ASUS 1201, dan produk ini diposisikan di tengah-tengah varian tersebut dengan prosesor AMD 64bit & integrated graphic untuk gaming 'ringan'.

Dengan harga sedikit dibawah 4 juta produk ini bersaing dengan prosesor Intel Atom tapi dengan prosesor 64bit, layar yang lebih lega, hard disk besar, layar resolusi tinggi, bisa memutar film kualitas HD, keyboard lebih lega dan WiFi 802.11n

Agak menyesatkan jika dibilang netbook ini dijual tanpa OS. Out of the box, netbook ini sudah bisa dipakai untuk browsing, Flash gaming, multimedia playing, chatting & Skype (VoIP Calling) melalui ASUS ExpressGate (atau Splashtop dari DeviceVM), sebuah OS ringan berbasis Linux. Facebook dan aplikasinya bisa langsung dijalankan pada OS ini walaupun lambat; kemungkinan karena display driver generik dari Linux yang kurang optimal.

Kekurangan utama yang terasa adalah batereinya. Klaim 5 jam umur menyala hanya bisa dipenuhi dengan 2 jam 10 menit menurut indikator dari ExpressGate; itu berarti kurang dari setengahnya!

Pada awalnya waktu saya akan beli netbook ini, belum ada full OS seperti Linux atau Windows diinstall pada harddisk-nya. Namun saya berhasil menjalankan Linux Mint 7 yang saya install di Flash disk dari port USB yang kemudian bisa dipakai untuk menjalankan aplikasi seperti OpenOffice dan GIMP. Dari hardware sepertinya OK, VGA ATI terdetect walau driver belum terinstall, wireless & network tidak terdeteksi, tapi dengan brand yang cukup bagus saya memutuskan untuk bertualang sedikit demi Linux Mint.

Let The Adventure Begins...

Note: Sedianya posting ini dikirim ke Bhinneka.com untuk review tapi karena tidak ada kabar mengenai waktu publish dan produknya tidak lagi dijual, saya memutuskan untuk menerbitkannya di blog ini

All This Time

Where was I all this time? OK, Here the shorten list:

• Bought some discounted Windows games (Valve's Orange Box, Lucas Art Classics) and Linux games (World of Goo, Penumbra Collection)
  
• Running Linux Mint 7 and Windows 7 RC
• Work Hard, Play Hard?
  

Hopes to fill the blog again, keep fingers crossed ;)

World of Goo & Tomb Raider Anniversary with Steam

For Windows Only
Recently I Installed Steam (Valve Software/half life/half life 2), you can install it freely, register an account and buy game online (no hardcopies offcourse, though I'm not not sure whether any DRM attached).
At First I bought World of Goo for $4.99, a game that I've played before through 'pirate channel'. Downloaded 70MB through 384kbps broadband and straighly playable, it was quite fast. I am so happy that finally I play it legally. On the next month I receive bill from my CC, Rp.60k something, It's the same amount that I should pay for buying a pirated game at Glodok (yes, it's a little more expensive). But then I have the original copy minus the media (CD/DVD)
On the same month came Tomb Raider Anniversary at $5.00 (discounted price from $20). I never play this version before but I did finish the original DOS game (with Lara and her two 'cones' :-D), so I want to have this one (talk about impulse buying...). So I did. To download is another problem. It took approx. 24 hour for me to do it. Soon I was playing it for hours an got other family member envy, so they also played the game. Overall's great for the price.

At Linux part
I also install Steam through playonlinux (it install a compatible version of Wine to run Steam). Alas, seems that Steam they won't let me do that, The installed Steam won't run at all in my Elyssa, so I quickly remove it. I remember when I play the pirated World of Goo, I can run it from Wine. Browsed to my Steam copy of World of Goo, no luck, I cannot run it. So for Linux, Steam is not a gaming solution right now, sigh... May be we can have a petition to Run Steam in Linux or more (cheap) Games on Linux.

PS: As I already buy World of Goo for Steam/Windows I wonder if I can have a copy of it for Linux (Already played the .deb packed of the demo). Maybe I can ask the publisher (2d boys) later...

To Post or Not to Post

Sorry to have you looked into my never updated blog. Again I would promise again to have new post real soon (keep your finger cross :-))

About Game Reviews

Starting today I will post short reviews about free games (there are big collection of them on the internet) for Linux or Windows. Mostly I will test their compatibility with Linux (Ubuntu particularly). For other review points such as story or gameplay I will use existing reviews from internet.

I will also review old (commercial) games for Windows under Linux. At the end I hope to build a small compatibility list or play list for Linux Environment. Stay tuned...

 

PS: I may double post as I use email posting to blog from my office mail (2nd post shouuld be from home to update anything related to online resources e.g screenshots, links etc)

Deus Ex

Played Deus Ex a month ago. Nice, compatible with my Ubuntu via Wine
I should give more review for games I played, specially under Ubuntu / Linux

Return of the ...

Oops, time to get back to the blog. Many things happen. I've got new cable connection 3 months ago. Reinstall my Ubuntu and try to migrate as much as (Windows) applications / games to it.
Guess you will see it later on next posts.