Neither machine has a screen you could honestly describe as good. Colours are none too vivid and the viewing angles mediocre. There’s not a lot of brightness about either. But the Acer’s glossy screen - the Samsung’s panel is matte - is the least worst of the two in all ways, unless you plan on being outdoors a lot, when reflection becomes an issue, as it does with all shiny panels.The Acer is also the better connected, with three USB 2.0 ports, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, HDMI and VGA connectors against the Samsung’s single USB 2.0, one USB 3.0 and HDMI. Both machines come with single-band 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi but without optical drives. Samsung gives you Bluetooth but Acer doesn’t.I’m not a fan of Samsung's positioning the USB and HDMI ports at the back. I prefer my ports, sockets and power jacks on the side where I can see the little buggers. Twice I folded the Samsung shut only to notice something I’d forgotten about sticking out the back as I made to shove it into my backpack.
ticking out, both machines have SD card slots. But when stuffed into the Samsung, a card sticks out to the tune of half its length, which is a truly catastrophic design failure.I reckon nine out of ten punters will want to stick a 16GB or 32GB SD card into their S3 as the first order of business and leave it in there. After system requirements, you are left with less than 11GB of SSD space for files. Good luck with that.Accessing the oily parts of the Acer is very straightforward: just remove one screw and the cover panel unclips. Prising the back of the Samsung off would have required more screwdriver-induced damage to the plastic case than I was prepared to inflict on a machine not mine to abuse. Even if it had been my machine I still might not have risked it.Both Chromebooks run Linux, but the Acer does so more stably - and with better support for the built-in devicesIf the limitations inherent in Chrome as an operating system are just too much for you then you can jump ship to Linux. Installing on the Acer was by far the easier job and I had Ubuntu up and running in dual-boot in about an hour with everything working tickety-boo.
The Samsung was more of a problem. After several hours, much ranting, some raving, and even a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth, I finally got it running but the trackpad and SD card reader refused to work, and the entire machine froze up on me several times. Not, on balance, a good use of time.Google’s own wording gives you some idea what to expect when it comes to battery life. The C7’s removable 2500mAh battery is good for “up to four hours”. The S3’s unrated and fixed battery will keep you working for “over 6.5 hours”. Looping a 720p video turned in times of 3 hours 10 minutes and 4 hours 35 minutes, respectively. So in general use, you can expect a solid six hours from the Samsung and around four from the Acer.Has Google cracked the Chromebook second time around? Just about. Clearly you need to be in the market specifically for a cheap and smallish machine for day-to-day web surfing and some light media consumption, but assuming you are then both of these machines do a good job and the price is certainly right.
If I was buying one it would the Samsung because it’s lighter, has the superior keyboard, is more resilient to knocks and drops, and has the longer battery life. That is what I want from a Chromebook, though the sticky-out SD card is a very big drawback.The Acer counters with a better screen, an extra USB port, Ethernet and a proper hard drive plus a price tag that’s £30 lower. Which is what my someone like my mum wants from a Chromebook. And it has much better (unofficial) Linux support.Proving that last year's skunkworks Project Sputnik effort wasn't a one-off experiment, Dell has upgraded its Ubuntu Linux–powered XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop to include a new, higher-resolution screen.When the Developer Edition XPS 13 first shipped in November 2012, it came with a 13.3-inch panel with a 1366-by-768 pixel resolution. The new version that was announced on Monday packs a new, full-HD display that not only runs at 1920-by-1080, but is also brighter and offers wider viewing angles.
Everything else about the laptop remains the same. It still has a third-generation Intel Core i7 processor with Intel HD 4000 graphics, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD; it weighs just 1.36kg (2.99 lbs).Like the original version, the new XPS 13 Developer Edition is a collaboration between Dell and Canonical, makers of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, which built a custom OS image complete with high-quality drivers for the bundled hardware.The project began as a public beta program, in which Dell solicited feedback from developers about what they would like to see in their ideal notebooks. The effort garnered enough interest and support that Dell was eventually convinced to bring the resulting concept laptop to market.At the time, a top gripe among Reg readers was the XPS 13's low screen resolution – and, given that most developers we know prefer extremely high-resolution monitors, if not multiple screens, the increased screen resolution on the new version of the Developer Edition might be just what's needed to win over more buyers.
According to Canonical, the new model is available for sale now in the US and Canada for $1,549, the same list price as the previous version.Canonical says the updated XPS 13 is "also available across Europe, parts of the Middle East and Africa," though it didn't offer direct purchase links for countries outside North America.Also, some international versions of the earlier Sputnik laptop showed up bearing slightly different specs than the American model, such as a lower-powered Core i5 processor. The announcement gave no word on whether that would continue to be the case, and Dell did not immediately respond to The Reg's request for clarification. Acer's boss expects the vendor's PC shipments to slump up to 15 per cent sequentially in the first quarter, but insists the firm has a "good chance" of scraping back to black this year.The prediction illustrates the massive challenges faced by Acer, given the massive year-on-year slump in shipments it showed for the fourth quarter.JT Wang told a media briefing that its business would bottom out in the January to March quarter, Focus Taiwan reported today. But the massive slip did not mean a profit for the year overall was not possible, Wang continued.
The expected 10 to 15 per cent drop in shipments in the quarter was down to seasonal factors and the transition to new products, Focus Taiwan said.The site did not specify what those new products were. Perhaps the Acer chairman and CEO was referring to sizzling new PC and laptop designs, in which case the vendor would need something amazing up its sleeve, given consumers' current "whatever" attitude to traditional formats.Focus Taiwan also reported that corporate president Jim Wong predicted Acer would ship 5 million tablets this year, up on the 1.8 million it shipped last year.Wong reportedly said: "We have a full spectrum, including low-cost, mid-range and high-end products." This will include 8-inch and 10-inch tablets, flagged up last month but only set to appear around the middle of the year at the earliest.However, while Acer has previously grappled for the top spot in the PC market, its tablet ambitions represent a drop in the global ocean.
IDC reported last month that total worldwide tablet shipments were 52.5 million in the fourth quarter up 75.3 per cent on the year. Apple shipped 22.9 million of those units, Samsung accounted for 7.9 million and Amazon 6 million.By comparison, worldwide PC shipments were down 6.4 per cent to 89.8 million in the fourth quarter, with Acer taking 7.8 per cent of that, as its unit shipments tumbled 28.2 per cent year on year to 6.9 million units.Distro guide Linux, it is said, is all about choice. Indeed, the ability to choose, well, pretty much everything, is probably the best thing about Linux. But the huge variety from which you can choose - ranging from distro and desktop to window manager - can also be overwhelming for newcomers.If you've ever thought about abandoning Windows or Mac OS X for Linux, but stopped short because you weren't sure which variety of Linux to choose, this guide is for you.It would be impossible to filter through every single Linux distribution and attempt to find the definitive one for every situation. There are simply too many distros out there - DistroWatch, a site devoted to tracking such things, lists hundreds of distros you can choose from.