When Dan at APC asked me to take a look at some recent netbooks, I made the decision to review low end models, partly to get a feel of the market and partly because people who are not tech orientated may feel comfortable with a basic machine that handles email and browsing.
The Pioneer Dreambook Lite E79 was my choice of a low end netbook. At $149, it presented a compelling price point. At that amount of cash, it opened up a world of opportunities in portable computing.
The Dreambook in real terms is a larger variant of the PDA. With a 7” screen and keyboard, camera, wifi and card reader, it represents a fusion of portability even a 10” netbook can not provide, and the ease of use that a PDA or smartphone can not provide.
The hardware is well presented. It has similar fit and polish that the Dreambook M81, including the piano black top. Internally it uses a Samsung 533MHZ processor, 128mb memory and a 2gb Flash memory storage device. With SD card, storage could be extended to 32gb.
One thing I noticed when I hit the power button was the touchpad was stiff and sticky. This is not a real problem, as we are talking about a low end device, but I would have liked a more responsive input device.
And then the boot finished. And I saw the Windows CE (Compact Edition). And suddenly the bottom fell out of my stomach and my brain was telling me I have travelled back to 2003.
The screen looked like Windows XP but uglier. Now WinCE is not a bad operating system, just woefully obsolete in this day and age. Comparing WinCE to the current crop of embedded OS like iOS4, Android and even Linux is difficult as the embedded operating system has progressed massively since the days of Palm and HP iPaqs. A classic example is the way to get applications. Yes you can get apps for WinCE devices, however the application world has evolved from a wide selection of sites selling applications to centralised one stop app marketplaces. Even installing an e-book reader program like MS reader requires a google search to find, then a separate download and install, rather the integrated experience that Android and Apple provide.
This is not to say that the Dreambook is not bad per se, the browser is a reasonable Internet Explorer, and with its good wireless networking it joined my wifi network easily enough. The response time was good, if slowed by the poor touchpad, but I was able to navigate the pseudo WinXP enviroment. Using the inbuilt IE browser, browsing was acceptable. If you are using a cloud based work-flow, for example using Google Docs or Office Live, you could easily work within the confines inherent in WinCE.
For me, the Dreambook E79 would have been an easy slam dunk if Pioneer used a Netbook variant of Linux, like Jolicloud, Ubuntu Netbook Edition or gOS. Using a modern, optimised OS would have made this device very easy recommend.
In abstract, the Dreambook E79 would have been a great device for students of all ages or people who can put most of their work-flow onto cloud based computing. As it stands now it is a good low end, low spec netbook held back by a sub standard, aging operating system.