Well, not quite, but Maplin have started selling a version of the ONEt/MiniBook with 4 gigabytes of flash memory and Windows CE preloaded - see http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=257308 - currently priced at £129.99
The full product specification is on the CnM Lifestyle website at http://194.150.201.35/cnmlifestyle/cnmbook/CnMNB7SE.htm
As far as the original Linux version goes, both Maplin and Elonex currently only have "B grade" (shopsoiled or demo) versions of the machine available - at £99
But, interestingly, Maplin have the Linux version of Elonex's WebBook available at £179.99 - see http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=228797
06 June 2009
02 March 2009
Progress on Alternative Linux versions
Little Linux Laptop have announced a new version of Linux for the Dutch version of the Elonex ONEt - http://www.littlelinuxlaptop.com/software/3MX.htm - at the moment it's only compatible with machines that use the .IMG recovery file type (the Elonex ONEt and the Maplin MiniBook use a .REC file type as discussed on our Google group). But, it's a good sign that ONEt users might get their hands on an improved set of programs in the not too distant future...
30 January 2009
More gradual changes...
This blog is starting to become a record of the changes to www.elonexone.co.uk where the latest changes seem to be a loss of the link to the original Elonex ONE Laptop, the removal of the Linux option from the Elonex Webbook and a price increase for the Webbook XP to £299.
There are some "Clearance" examples of the ONEt available for £99 so Elonex can still boast the availability of laptops at under the magic £100 barrier.
And, the ONEt(+) seems to have become the winning combination in terms of availability and numbers sold?
Will it stay that way, and how much more software will become available for the ONEt? Why not subscribe to our associated Google group and join the discussions...
There are some "Clearance" examples of the ONEt available for £99 so Elonex can still boast the availability of laptops at under the magic £100 barrier.
And, the ONEt(+) seems to have become the winning combination in terms of availability and numbers sold?
Will it stay that way, and how much more software will become available for the ONEt? Why not subscribe to our associated Google group and join the discussions...
03 December 2008
Yet another change to the Elonex ONE website
http://www.elonexone.co.uk has changed completely again!
You can now order the Elonex ONE(+), the Elonex ONEt(+) and the Webbook (Linux or XP).
The ONEt price has gone up to £119 for the 1GB model or £129 for the 2GB Plus - a more sensible price difference - and the Linux Webbook is available for £199 - there's no mention of shipping charges and I haven't got as far as the checkout to see if it's still £10 or it's now free.
The fact that all the models are offered for sale, plus some ex-demo and B-grade stock clearance items, may indicate that the latest shipments have been received (or are about to be received) from China/Taiwan and that Elonex actually think they now have more stock than orders!
Do continue to keep our poll up to date with your orders and receipts...
You can now order the Elonex ONE(+), the Elonex ONEt(+) and the Webbook (Linux or XP).
The ONEt price has gone up to £119 for the 1GB model or £129 for the 2GB Plus - a more sensible price difference - and the Linux Webbook is available for £199 - there's no mention of shipping charges and I haven't got as far as the checkout to see if it's still £10 or it's now free.
The fact that all the models are offered for sale, plus some ex-demo and B-grade stock clearance items, may indicate that the latest shipments have been received (or are about to be received) from China/Taiwan and that Elonex actually think they now have more stock than orders!
Do continue to keep our poll up to date with your orders and receipts...
07 November 2008
Elonex ONE Website changed completely
There's been a sudden and complete change to http://www.elonexone.co.uk - gone is any mention of the original Elonex ONE (with its removable keyboard) - also gone is any mention of the ONE Union website. Instead the ONEt and ONEt+ are available at the original ONE prices of £99 and £119 + £10 postage.
As I've commented before, I don't think the extra 1 GigaByte of Flash memory is worth £20 - I think you would be much better off buying the plain ONEt and spending the £20 on one or more SD cards - if you have problems with the ONEt and need to "recover" the original installation you'll need an SD card as that's the only place you can install a Recovery image from - with a bit of shopping around you can also get a 4 GigaByte SD card for under £20.
There's confirmation on the Maplin website that 4 GigaBytes is the maximum supported SD or USB memory size. Maplin have the ONEt+ equivalent "minibook" available at £139.99 including postage, plus some "B grade stock" at £119.99 - with the advantage that these machines are in stock now rather than having to wait until Christmas.
So, will the original ONE or a variant reappear later at a lower price or from a different supplier? Or are we now limited to the ONEt(+)? I would like to see the ONE back again, for its 486 compatibility, range of available software and 256 MegaByte RAM...
As I've commented before, I don't think the extra 1 GigaByte of Flash memory is worth £20 - I think you would be much better off buying the plain ONEt and spending the £20 on one or more SD cards - if you have problems with the ONEt and need to "recover" the original installation you'll need an SD card as that's the only place you can install a Recovery image from - with a bit of shopping around you can also get a 4 GigaByte SD card for under £20.
There's confirmation on the Maplin website that 4 GigaBytes is the maximum supported SD or USB memory size. Maplin have the ONEt+ equivalent "minibook" available at £139.99 including postage, plus some "B grade stock" at £119.99 - with the advantage that these machines are in stock now rather than having to wait until Christmas.
So, will the original ONE or a variant reappear later at a lower price or from a different supplier? Or are we now limited to the ONEt(+)? I would like to see the ONE back again, for its 486 compatibility, range of available software and 256 MegaByte RAM...
25 October 2008
Firefox addons for the Elonex ONEt
I've been checking out the recommendation from Leven2e in our email group that Firefox addons can be installed in the Bon Echo browser on the Elonex ONEt - despite the unusual processor in the ONEt.
The first recommendation is MediaPlayerConnectivity - this creates a connection between sound and video links on a web page and the Xine media player on the ONEt - so you can click on a web link and result in Xine being launched to play the music or video - I'm listening to the radio over the web courtesy of this addon at the moment.
The best way to load an addon into the ONEt is to browse to the appropriate Firefox addons page, for example by clicking on the appropriate link in this blog then click on the link to Download the addon - after a while Bon Echo will bring up another window where you click on Install, watch the progress bar as the file is downloaded and installed, then click on Restart Bon Echo - then typically the addon will lauch a preferences window where you can make any settings changes that you need.
MediaPlayerConnectivity automatically detects and sets up the links to Xine. Leven2e recommends a couple of web pages listing suitable radio stations: http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/mp3.asp and http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/wmp.asp - I certainly found that a lot of general web pages were "too clever" - telling me that the browser was incompatible without giving me chance to see the links to the appropriate media...
Another useful addon (for me at least) is the British English Dictionary - through it I discovered that the ONEt already had an American English dictionary installed - when you are typing words into a web page (e.g. composing an email on webmail) any mis-spelled words will be underlined in red, right clicking on them gives a choice of words you might have meant and the chance under a Languages sub-menu to change your language to "English/United Kingdom".
Adblock Plus is very good at stripping distracting ads from web pages, you can subscribe to a list of known advertising sites which means that most adverts are removed automatically and if any slip through you can right-click on the image and add that site to your blocked list too.
Leven2e suggests a few other addons which I haven't quite got into yet:
Video DownloadHelper promises much, but the video conversion program it offers couldn't be enabled on my ONEt.
Locator launches Google Maps for an address you have selected on the screen - but I find Google Maps very hard to use on the ONEt because it is obviously designed for a much bigger computer screen.
Firefly offers to turn Bon Echo into a file browser - but it already is in that you can type "file:///" into the standard Bon Echo address bar and look round all the system files on the computer without needing any other browser - the Firefly file copy and rename functions may be useful, I'll see.
Facebook Toolbar is one I haven't investigated.
But, all-in-all, it's good news that the ONEt runs much more software than I ever expected when I learned that the processor was not Intel X86 compatible.
The first recommendation is MediaPlayerConnectivity - this creates a connection between sound and video links on a web page and the Xine media player on the ONEt - so you can click on a web link and result in Xine being launched to play the music or video - I'm listening to the radio over the web courtesy of this addon at the moment.
The best way to load an addon into the ONEt is to browse to the appropriate Firefox addons page, for example by clicking on the appropriate link in this blog then click on the link to Download the addon - after a while Bon Echo will bring up another window where you click on Install, watch the progress bar as the file is downloaded and installed, then click on Restart Bon Echo - then typically the addon will lauch a preferences window where you can make any settings changes that you need.
MediaPlayerConnectivity automatically detects and sets up the links to Xine. Leven2e recommends a couple of web pages listing suitable radio stations: http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/mp3.asp and http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/wmp.asp - I certainly found that a lot of general web pages were "too clever" - telling me that the browser was incompatible without giving me chance to see the links to the appropriate media...
Another useful addon (for me at least) is the British English Dictionary - through it I discovered that the ONEt already had an American English dictionary installed - when you are typing words into a web page (e.g. composing an email on webmail) any mis-spelled words will be underlined in red, right clicking on them gives a choice of words you might have meant and the chance under a Languages sub-menu to change your language to "English/United Kingdom".
Adblock Plus is very good at stripping distracting ads from web pages, you can subscribe to a list of known advertising sites which means that most adverts are removed automatically and if any slip through you can right-click on the image and add that site to your blocked list too.
Leven2e suggests a few other addons which I haven't quite got into yet:
Video DownloadHelper promises much, but the video conversion program it offers couldn't be enabled on my ONEt.
Locator launches Google Maps for an address you have selected on the screen - but I find Google Maps very hard to use on the ONEt because it is obviously designed for a much bigger computer screen.
Firefly offers to turn Bon Echo into a file browser - but it already is in that you can type "file:///" into the standard Bon Echo address bar and look round all the system files on the computer without needing any other browser - the Firefly file copy and rename functions may be useful, I'll see.
Facebook Toolbar is one I haven't investigated.
But, all-in-all, it's good news that the ONEt runs much more software than I ever expected when I learned that the processor was not Intel X86 compatible.
02 October 2008
New Elonex ONEt kernel released...
Elonex are now offering a separate download for the ONEt kernel file "uImage" if you follow the links on: http://www.elonex.com/support/products/lnxonet.shtm - and the instructions there indicate that Fn+Shift+F1 are used to update what they are calling the "Master Boot Record" but elsewhere is called the kernel.
For example: http://194.150.201.35/cnmlifestyle/downloads.htm indicates that the V66 version of the kernel includes support for a 3G modem driver and improved USB printer handling... there are also files to download for gFTP (if you ever need to use File Transfer Protocol to load or save files) plus some of the usual games and programs found elsewhere.
Elonex also now have a ONEt home page at: http://www.elonex.com/landingonet.html
It looks there's more things to play with...
Meanwhile for Elonex ONE(+) owners things seem to have gone quiet - maybe interest or news will pick up once the next batch of ONE(+)s start being delivered?
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