Tony Blews

I’m trying to get to grips with my impulse purchase of the week. For reasons best left unexplored I’ve parted with about 120 quid for a Datawind UbiSurfer from Maplin. Its a ex-display model, hence the slight price reduction over the RRP of £149.99.

So, what is the UbiSurfer? In short, its a cheap netbook running an implementation of Linux. Oh, with a years free internet access thrown in.

More about that later, but first the specs:

• 7 inch 800×400 TFT screen
• 128MB RAM, 1GB Solid State disk
• Full QWERTY keyboard and Touchpad mouse
• Push-Push SD card socket and 2 USB ports (the box says 3, but I have 2 and a connector I’ve never seen before)
• Measures 222x165x29.5mm, weighs 700g
• Battery life provides 4 hours active use and 4 hours

Note the lack of a spec concerning the processor. Apparently it is some form of ARM 500Mhz job.

Applications wise you get the usual word processing and spreadsheet offerings, and a collections of email clients, PDF readers and the like, all GPLed programs.

For web browsing you have Mozilla IceWeasel (Firefox), which only works when connected via a Wifi hotspot, and the UbiSurfer browser itself.
And now we get to the main (only) reason that I bought this thing: free internet access. Included in the price of the device is 30 hours access per month (for a year) to Vodaphone’s GPRS network, via an onboard modem. As we all know, GPRS isn’t exactly lightening fast, but Datawind claim that any web page can be loaded in 7 seconds.

This is supposed to be achieved by Datawind pre-rendering the web pages on their servers (in Canada) and sending them on in a compressed form to the UbiSurfer browser, which then decodes and displays them.
Ok, that sounds fine in theory, but in practice its not so good.
Datawind’s own site (www.datawind.com) takes about fifteen seconds to load, and more complex site such a Google Mail can take up to a minute to fully render.
This pre-rendering process also throws up problems when entering data onto a web page. Tabbing between fields can take up to ten seconds.
Obviously these problems don’t occur when using IceWeasel and connecting via a Wifi hotspot.

But, oddly, my biggest complaint about the UbiSurfer browser is about the hideous splash screen which also comes up when you disconnect, thus preventing you from viewing pages offline. Here it is in all its glory.

Just look at the smug pissweasel. Those grass stains are going to raise questions in the office after lunch. Luckily you can overwrite the this image with something less irritating.

I shall continue to persevere with this thing, in the hope that I can find a use for it.

Its a few days early, but here is the promised Half Man Half Biscuit Epiphany Crossword:

(click on the thumbnail to get the full size crossword file)

Across

4. King of the Zulu nation 1872-79
5. Kiddies 1/32 scale slot car racing system
6. Popular variety of food poisoning
9. North Wales town where people go to die
10. River in Norfolk
12. One of those clunky metal horrors that you secure to your steering wheel to deter casual car theft
16. The Blue Island
17. Goth band from Northampton
18. A religious/spiritual retreat
21. Chief fireman of Trumptonshire
22. Nasty golfing problem
24. Town in the Netherlands
27. Former “Brain of Britain” (3,5)
28. Originally the term for a novice seaman
29. An excuse for people to wave their arms about in the name of art/music
30. Soap made by Lever Bros in Port Sunlight
31. Firestation forecourt feeling felt
35. Organisers of the UK National Lottery
36. Jamaican bay
37. Shropshire hill
38. Barbican roof singer
41. Horse racing track in Staffordshire
43. Plastic tunnel sold in garden centres
44. Mag for teeny girlies
45. Shoe polish brand
48. Scouse term for either trousers or underpants or both
49. Well known for having an appallingly large ringlet-type hairstyle (5,3)

Down

1. Spanish keeper in the 80′s and 90′s
2. A god squad rock band
3. 750cc Triumph motorbike
7. Venue in Japan, popular for recording live albums
8. Gene Simmons and his motley crew of rockers with the over-the-top make-up
11. Greyhound track near Wolverhampton
13. A Lake District mountain
14. Sheffield theatre
15. Italian bicycle components
19. Decongestant medicine for catarrh and sinus congestion
20. Expensive and once trendy brand of Italian clothing
23. Unilever’s idea of a replacement for butter and margarine
25. Fish oil and orange vitamin pills
26. Irish folksie singer, used to be with Clannad
32. Christmas day lake swimming in Hyde Park
33. Ostentatious fish (3,4)
34. Fabric conditioner
39. High security mental hospital
40. Hills in Somerset, not too far from Bridgwater
42. Tricycle taxi in India
45. Wealth regarded as a God or an evil influence
46. State benefit cheque
47. A high profile stair lift