Walt's Basement

This was talked about on episode 114 of Linuxinstall.net podcast.

I use my iPad Mini Retina daily, its the perfect “always with me” companion device. One issue I run into is the on screen keyboard takes so much room when working on anything more than typing out a URL. I wasn’t about to carry around a huge bluetooth keyboard/case, let alone pay what most cost.

Last week Amazon had a sale on the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover at 75% off, which was in my impulse purchase range. I am very pleased. The keyboard is almost the same size as the iPad Mini, and just a tad lighter. Logitech claims 3 weeks at 2 hours a day battery life, with USB charging. The iPad Mini docked angle works great on a table but is a little too vertical for other positions.

I have been using Server Auditor as my SSH client. It has a ‘pro’ version, but the free app works very well, displaying even my fancy prompt with ease. Terminal work is so much easier now without the on screen keyboard taking up half the display. I hope note taking at meetings will benefit as well.

Chrome OS has been something I wanted to play with, so I totally impulse purchased this 2gb/16gb C720 Refurbished unit to give it a try.

Initial impressions are good.

Overall build feels a little cheap, but it was only $150. Screen looks great when directly in front, but starts to wash out if viewed from an angle. Keyboard isn’t the best feel, but I was able to type comfortably after a half hour of use. Multi-gesture touch pad works pretty well. Unit connected to my wi-fi without issue, and took just over an hour to fully charge the battery.

One thing I somehow didn’t realize was the Intel Haswell Processor needs a cooling fan. Mine rattles, and is louder than I would like (but not as loud as say the jet inside of the X100E Thinkpad). Chances are that is why it was returned in the first place, and it didn’t get fixed. I HATE cooling fans.

The unit auto-updated after I logged in with my Gmail account. From what I read, each boot it will check and install updates as needed. All my bookmarks and settings were ready for use since I use Chrome as my desktop browser. The nicest thing so far is your basically instant on, just like a tablet.

I have been trying to use it to test limitations of the OS. Hopefully in a week or so I will report my findings.