Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
$30 Win CE Netbook — Parallax Forums

$30 Win CE Netbook

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
edited 2013-05-19 02:12 in General Discussion
Refurbs of those cheap VIA netbooks running WinCE (and will make some people WINCE) which used to be $100 on Ebay and CVS are selling for $30 at Newegg (a 1-year warranty is $45!):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834684003&Tpk=sylvania%20netbook&IsVirtualParent=1

Not a stunning review following, but these must be good for something; the display, battery & charger, or a cheap Wifi connection at least! Mobile robot possibilities?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l_79tXqhac
«13

Comments

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-03-31 17:48
    Some useful reviews at http://www.amazon.com/SYNET7WID-7-Inch-Wireless-Mobile/product-reviews/B003ZYUCDS/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 including one very long review with user mods.

    Somebody better buy one of these, or so help me... :)
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-03-31 19:22
    OK you got me order placed. Although there's some weirdness with PayPal and the shipping addresses now (I always ship to my work address because they have a receiving department). If it doesn't go through I might have to re-order with a credit card or have it shipped to the house where my bill goes.

    Edit: The charge went through, apparently I've given PayPal this version of my work address before. So soon I will have another device of questionable provenance and usefulness to keep my Chinese Android tablet and iTomic e-Readers company!
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-03-31 19:28
    You talked me into it. I'm afraid I'm going to live to regret it but for now it's been ordered and I should be getting it in a week or so.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-03-31 19:33
    XLNT. What was your final tally with tax & shipping?

    I think they have plenty in stock, so others on the fence will eagerly await the reviews from you two fine gentlemen.
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2013-03-31 19:39
    Do you think it will run the Prop Tool?

    If it can, I can see myself getting half a dozen or so to use in a robotics class.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-03-31 19:45
    Final tally was $29.95. Both tax and shipping free if you take the el cheap week or so shipping option.
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2013-03-31 19:46
    Duane Degn wrote: »
    Do you think it will run the Prop Tool?

    If it can, I can see myself getting half a dozen or so to use in a robotics class.

    I'm about 80 percent confident that the VIA 8505 processor it uses is ARM based and won't run Windows binaries for x86 machines.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-03-31 19:47
    BTW Erco have you got your EGoldimine TV light engine yet? That thing has some wicked beautiful optics, including a 4 inch diameter projection lens I think will make a totally wicked HAL 9000 eye. I'm pretty sure that with a red LED positioned right it will look like it's following you around the room. Oh, and $2.95 lasers...
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-03-31 19:51
    erco wrote: »
    XLNT. What was your final tally with tax & shipping?

    I think they have plenty in stock, so others on the fence will eagerly await the reviews from you two fine gentlemen.

    Not being in a hurry I decided to go with the free shipping so it cost me me a total of $29.99! I'll be sure to let everyone know what I think. Although for the price I think that getting one is a no brainer. If it'll run the prop tool or I can use it to program the prop1 or prop2 with it'll be worth ten times that.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-03-31 20:02
    Sorry Duane, you'll have to think up a different reason to buy one or more. Note that there's a strictly-enforced limit of 99,995 per customer. :)

    I (as a CA resident) would get zapped with sales tax and EWRA fees of ~ 6 bucks. Hmmm...

    ... being assessed an additional Electronic Waste Recycling Fee by the state of California (EWRA eWaste)

    If someone could hack these just to use as programmers, they would be worth it. Or Parallax, crank out a WinCE version of your Stamp & Prop editors.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-03-31 20:08
    I just noticed another (better) unit at the bottom for $40: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834760001

    Android 2.2, twice the proc speed, twice the memory, etc.
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-03-31 20:46
    erco wrote: »
    I just noticed another (better) unit at the bottom for $40: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834760001

    Android 2.2, twice the proc speed, twice the memory, etc.

    I have some things I need to save my pennies for but if it's still available at the end of the week I expect I'll be getting one of these as well. :-)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-01 11:24
    @4x5n: I have a very nice, one-owner Brooklyn Bridge that you might also be interested in... :)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-01 12:26
    Or for $70, a new Chinese touchscreen. 1.2 GHz, 4 GB, Android 4.0, camera... "good for our life"! :)

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Unbranded-4GB-7-Android-2-3-Tablet-PC-Laptop-Netbook-MID-Wifi-1GHz-Camera-/130698762355?pt=US_Tablets&hash=item1e6e40d873

    Anybody try these out yet?
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-04-01 15:15
    erco wrote: »
    @4x5n: I have a very nice, one-owner Brooklyn Bridge that you might also be interested in... :)

    Tempting offer but I already have a Brooklyn Bridge!!
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-04-05 16:51
    Got mine today!

    This is a better box than either the Chinese Android tablets (totally useless) or the iTomic e-readers (useful for just a few things). It's solidly made, the keyboard and screen are good quality, and it acts mostly like any other Windows PC with regard to wireless and ethernet. It can render websites that choke both the Android tablet and the iTomic, though it still gets choked itself by quite a few normal sites. It works with normal USB thumb drives and SD cards, including SDHC. It also works without fuss with normal USB mice and keyboards, which is nice because while it's good quality the built in keyboard really is a bit small for typing. It comes with WordPad but, bizarrely, no plain text editor like NotePad.

    Of course, the trick is finding other software for it; it's hard to get the search engines to stop serving up stuff for normal windows no matter how firmly you try to link the "CE" to "Windows" in the search term. I did find a promising alarm clock app but it blinks like mad. There is a Linux distro available for it and supposedly an upgrade for WinCE, but I've mostly found dead links. Still, for thirty bucks it's worth a shot, certainly better than the $70 Sony Dash I had to send back because it needs a firmware update to find the new servers that were installed after Chumby went out of business, but it can only load the firmware update from the online servers...
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-05 18:27
    @LR: Good to hear some positive feedback from a power user like yourself. It will be interesting to hear more impressions from you (and 4x5n) after you live with the unit for a week. For me, I guess a valid test is "would you buy more than one, as a backup"?

    Does it play videos well, from an SD card? Which formats? And please comment on the battery life & screen (IIRC you raved about the iTomic's screen). If it did nothing else well, the twins could still watch their Disney princess videos. :)
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-04-05 19:45
    erco wrote: »
    @LR: Good to hear some positive feedback from a power user like yourself. It will be interesting to hear more impressions from you (and 4x5n) after you live with the unit for a week. For me, I guess a valid test is "would you buy more than one, as a backup"?

    Does it play videos well, from an SD card? Which formats? And please comment on the battery life & screen (IIRC you raved about the iTomic's screen). If it did nothing else well, the twins could still watch their Disney princess videos. :)

    Haven't gotten mine yet so I can't comment on it. I'll let you know what I think of it after I've had it for a week or two.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-05 20:21
    BTW, I noticed that the price of the "better" Craig netbook jumped from $40 to $47 since I posted on 3/31.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834760001
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-04-06 13:46
    Chokes on uncompressed AVI off of the USB disk, not too surprisingly. Not going to do much more testing on movies because that's not my thing.

    Has a pretty familiar version of Windows Media Player and does fine with music.

    I think the killer app for this thing is going to turn out to be Internet Explorer, not because of the internet but because it supports Javascript and has a normal file system from which IE will load pages. Get a freeware WinCE Notepad equivalent and it will be an incredibly cheap programmable system with some decent graphic capabilities. I will probably use this to implement myself a new alarm clock, assuming CE can be trusted to self-adjust for DST at the right dates now.
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-04-07 10:50
    Got mine and have to say I'm not happy with it! When I first powered it up all seemed well and I was able to connect via wifi. I did notice that when I fired up ie that it couldn't load google and when I tried a number of other pages ie would crash and burn.

    This morning I fired the machine back up and discovered the touch pad didn't work anymore. I'll putter with it for a little while and hope that patches come through and "fixes" things. If not I'm writing it off as bad hardware and sending it back for an exchange.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-04-07 14:34
    4x5n, you need to follow the directions that came with it to change the user agent from "mobile" to "like XP." I don't know what Google is trying to serve it when in mobile mode but it loads Google's normal non-mobile page just fine. I was also able to read my webmail fine in that mode by specifying m.yahoo.com to force it to give me its mobile site anyway. In any case, I think the real win here is programming in Javascript. IE does a much better job on scripted pages than the iTomic browser, and has normal file system controls so that you can tell it to load a page hosted on the local flash drive. It's no Sony Dash but for thirty bucks it could be an alarm clock that can play a song or video to wake you up.
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-04-07 15:11
    localroger wrote: »
    4x5n, you need to follow the directions that came with it to change the user agent from "mobile" to "like XP." I don't know what Google is trying to serve it when in mobile mode but it loads Google's normal non-mobile page just fine. I was also able to read my webmail fine in that mode by specifying m.yahoo.com to force it to give me its mobile site anyway. In any case, I think the real win here is programming in Javascript. IE does a much better job on scripted pages than the iTomic browser, and has normal file system controls so that you can tell it to load a page hosted on the local flash drive. It's no Sony Dash but for thirty bucks it could be an alarm clock that can play a song or video to wake you up.

    Changing the browser option to "like XP" fixed a lot of the problem I was having with the browser. Thanks. Now all I need to do is figure out how to get the touch pad working again. :-)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-07 16:38
    Touch pad? That's so 2012.

    Surely at $30 that thing has eye tracking, like the Galaxy S4? Plus an AMOLED HD display, a 13 MP camera and Jelly Bean (preferably Key Lime Pie) OS, etc... :)

    http://bgr.com/2013/03/19/galaxy-s-4-iphone-5-comparison-performance-385274
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-04-07 17:57
    It actually mostly works with Google Maps, which is just amazing for such an underpowered device. (It did crash on a close zoom-in in photo mode, but I was impressed that it even tried.) I am seriously thinking of getting a couple more of these just on principle now. While the iTomic was nice from a battery life perspective the Sylvania actually supports self-supporting programming. This is actually kind of a big deal. If I had kids I'd be buying six of them. Yes, it's limited, and the fun part is making it do something useful. With Javascript under IE, you have powerful tools to do that and the only development tool you need that isn't on the platform as you get it is a Notepad clone. I'm getting ready to transfer my downloaded Notepad clone now.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-07 18:27
    localroger wrote: »
    I am seriously thinking of getting a couple more of these just on principle now.

    Another hoarder! God bless you, LR. There's strength in numbers. If the price on this unit jumps up anytime soon, it's cuz localroger is manipulating the market.
    localroger wrote: »
    Yes, it's limited, and the fun part is making it do something useful.

    Ain't it funny how one man's frustration is another man's fun? Great to hear that you're celebrating its strengths. In these low-buck gambles, a sense of discovery & experimentation goes a long way. Keep the updates coming.
  • nightwingnightwing Posts: 56
    edited 2013-04-07 20:07
    Have had one of the Sylvania for a while... Got it when first released. Think I tried Linux on the first one. The current is the 2nd one since the first died in about a week.

    One problem is even if you wanted to gen software for it. MS wants a ton of money for the addon's.

    Been playing with the mK808 sticks... May break out Sylvania again.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-07 20:12
    A Linux experiment?

    You reading this, doggiedoc?
  • 4x5n4x5n Posts: 745
    edited 2013-04-09 08:32
    Just got off the phone with Newegg to get an RMA for the netbook I got Saturday. They were supposed to email me shipping info but that hasn't arrived. (person on the phone blamed the spam filter and insisted I look for it in my spam folder but I don't have a spam folder so that's going to be hard to do.) I never got past the fact that it doesn't work right.

    The touchpad and "buttons" don't work at all and when I try to enter text in a text box in exploder, exploder crashes. The theory with the windows people at work is that it's bad drivers but I don't know how to get a replacement so it goes back. It's a cute thing and if it worked I'm sure I could find something to do with it. Maybe in the 4-5 weeks it's going to take to get it replaced I'll have a working netbook I can use.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-04-09 08:52
    erco wrote: »
    Ain't it funny how one man's frustration is another man's fun?

    Opposite experiences in our sample size of two. 4x5, hope you get your issues resolved quickly. Whether hardware of firmware, we may never know. I guess that "refurb" factor can introduce potential problems. Hopefully the low price justifies a headache or two, but returning things and RMAs are always a hassle.
Sign In or Register to comment.