Eee PC rivals: Blue H1 and RedFox Wizbook

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Laptop manufacturing firms from Taiwan are trying to outdo Asustek in the sub-notebook category. Some of them are trying to steer clear from being labeled “Eee PC wannabes” but far from being successful and that’s what they really are.

On the one hand, the Eee PC isn’t the first in the market but it was the one that truly set the standards with the sub-notebook genre with PC-like capabilities packed in a small frame. These features include wireless fidelity (wifi) support, Bluetooth, and the ability to run a power-hungry operating system with an underpowered processor. It also uses a solid state drive – a thumb drive chip, if you will, that is embedded inside a device no bigger than a school notebook.

A relatively obscure brand Blue and another color-competing brand RedFox are trying to seduce the Eee PC buyer with their own sub-notebook models. Both are known for making inexpensive laptops (RedFox also makes gaming desktop PCs) and are more likely to have an edge in the same market as the Eee PC.

The Blue H1 and the RedFox Wizbook have been somewhat “upgraded” to run better and faster than the previous Eee PC 701 model. However, given the release of the relatively newer Eee PC 900, it seems that the H1 and the Wizbook might find it somewhat more difficult to compete with Asustek’s baby.

Design

The Blue H1 has good design features. The upper shell is a smooth, shiny plastic cover with a silver plastic bezel. Its battery sticks out a bit from below but only because it uses an extended battery. The extra bulk in the battery actually serves as a lateral foot that keeps the laptop’s bottom raised. While some users might scoff at this awkward position, it serves a more utilitarian purpose since it is meant for air to flow smoothly out of the bottom.

On the right side (facing the laptop) are two USB ports placed slightly apart to ensure that thick USB plugs would fit snugly, as well as the LAN port and modem. The power button is also on the right side.

Meanwhile, located on the left side of the Blue H1 are the VGA port power plug and the microphone and headset ports. A multi-card reader is somewhat hidden underneath the lower part of the device, just below and slightly to the left of the track pad.

The RedFox Wizbook 800 looks bulkier even if this sub-notebook is supposed to be in the same size category (the Wizbook also comes with a 10-inch model). But just like the Blue H1, the Wizbook also uses a smooth and shiny plastic shell that completely overlaps the inner part of the screen. The left side houses the VGA port, two USB ports, the multi-card reader, and headset plugs. The LAN port is at the back of the device, along with an extended battery, which is awkwardly sticking out of the back like a tongue. The right side only has a PCMCIA card slot, which gives the Wizbook an edge over the H1. While the PCMCIA card is old, it still allows for expansion devices, such as extra four-port USB and even a 3G antenna card.

Powering up the Wizbook also means pressing a tiny quarter-inch button on the upper right side above the keyboard.

Screen and keyboard

If there are any specific design areas that one should consider about sub-notebooks, these are the keyboard and the screen.

The Blue H1 has a 7-inch screen while the Wizbook sports a bigger 8-inch screen. Both can only provide up to 800 by 600 pixels, which is good enough if you like looking into small screens. At higher resolutions and the texts or images in the screen gets smaller, thus adding to the strain of looking at small screens. But the H1’s 7-inch screen wastes a lot of space as it leaves nearly two inches of nothing but plastic on either side of the screen, while the lower portion has two speakers that sound more mono than stereo. If only the Blue added an extra inch to their screen, it would have made the H1 look better.

Nonetheless, both the Blue and the Wizbook share equally good backlighting for screens of their size and the backlighting strength can be adjusted through the operating system.

The keyboard on both the H1 and Wizbook are small, almost the size of the one used by the Eee PC. They both share almost the same layout except for the “Enter” button – the one on the H1 takes up only two standard key spaces, while the Wizbook eats up three.

Although space is constrained in these sub-notebooks, having a bigger “Enter” button has its advantages, especially when trying to enter URLs (web addresses) in Internet browsers.

Personally, I’m sensitive with using touchpads and almost never use them largely because they lack the tactile feel of a two-button mouse. But because these sub-notebooks are designed for quick work, users are forced to make use of the touchpad. Not surprisingly, both the Wizbook 800 and the H1’s touchpad work below par. The H1’s keypad is the tiniest I’ve found in the sub-notebook space, barely two inches in width. The left-and-right buttons are also far off below them and can barely be pressed. Thank goodness the double-tap feature of the H1’s touchpad works efficiently.

On the other hand, the Wizbook’s touchpad is bigger and the left-and-right button layout fits the width of the touchpad. The double tap feature works well but there is a mild sensitivity issue even at normal settings. Nevertheless, the small touchpad still does its job well.

Connectivity

Apart from the modem and LAN ports of the Wizbook 800 and the H1 (the Wizbook has no modem, by the way) both devices also come with standard wireless connectivity using WiFi. The factory settings have these wireless connectivity settings activated but they can be turned off through the operating system. While active, both devices serve their purpose well by finding available public WiFi hotspots to connect.

Connection is a breeze, thanks to wireless connectivity applications that come with them. If these are not available, WiFi accessibility can still be set using the operating system, preferably Windows XP.

Connecting to WiFi through the H1’s Windows XP is easy but isn’t as much as I could say for the Wizbook. It takes a bit of learning and doesn’t always connect as it requires some manual inputting of proxy codes. However, when this is set up, the Wizbook could match the H1 in speed and distance.

The biggest surprise for both the Wizbook 800 and the H1 are their lack of Bluetooth wireless connectivity. Sure, few people actually use the Bluetooth functions of their laptops but because the H1 and the Wizbook only have two USB ports each, a wireless connection for other devices could be very useful (the two USB ports can be for an external mouse and hard disk).

But the H1 has as edge over the Wizbook: the Blue has a web camera while the Wizbook doesn’t. It’s another surprise because users of these devices almost always use their webcam for chat. As explained by the product manager of Wizbook during one conversation, their product is targeted at a different market. Still, it would have helped if the Wizbook had a webcam.

Performance testing

Both the H1 and the Wizbook 800 can be installed with just about every kind of operating system that would run normally on a notebook computer. The Wizbook had a pre-installed Linux operating system while the H1 had Windows XP. Their startup is just about 15 seconds though this could considerably get longer as more applications are installed.

Of course, Windows XP is more familiar to most users so it’s just logical to focus a bit more on the Linux-powered Wizbook 800.

While software availability can be a problem, the Wizbook and other similar devices are built to be used for quick and easy document editing, browsing and chat. Luckily, the Linux operating system in the Wizbook has pre-installed Firefox web browser and NeoShine Office (an open source alternative to Microsoft Office), which are more than enough to justify the use of a small notebook. The H1 only uses Windows XP Home, which means users have to install other applications to fully utilize its features.

All other applications ran smooth on both the H1 and the Wizbook. However, because Windows has a lot more support, it can accommodate other file types for playing videos and audio. It was harder for the Wizbook to find applications that could run file types that is not familiar with in default settings.

Incidentally, the battery life for both the H1 and the Wizbook is almost true to what its packaging says. The Blue H1 could run for four hours at standard mode (no peripherals attached, Wifi disabled), while the Wizbook could last three hours. But when both are attached with USB peripherals and WiFi is activated, the battery is drained at half the time. However, both still last longer than one hour (or at least two hours when other peripherals are removed and only the WiFi antenna is active) compared with other laptops.

Blue H1
Via Esther 1.0 Gigahertz processor
1 Gigabyte DDR
7-inch WXGA LCD monitor (800×480 pixels)
40 Gb hard disk
Built-in speakers
2 USB ports
10/100Mbps LAN
802.11 b/g wireless LAN
Multicard reader, web camera
Price: 16,995 pesos (Linux operating system), 21,995 pesos (Microsoft
Windows XP Home)

Red Fox Wizbook 800
AMD LX700, 400MHz
512 megabytes DDR
8-inch WXGA LCD (800×480)
20 Gb hard disk.
Built-in speakers (downward firing)
2 USB ports
10/10Mbps LAN
802.11 b/g wireless LAN
PCMCIA slot
Multicard reader
Price: 16,000 pesos

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