Handheld Learning Forum

Dear All,

If anyone requires EEE PC's, WildKey currently has access to about 1500 devices @ £199+VAT Each.

For more details drop me a line gowild@wildkey.co.uk

We've got lots of exciting announcements coming up about the next phase of WildKey, so watch this space for our announcements.

In the mean time, you will be able to see as at the following events over the next few months:

Next week Bradford CLC technology Event & The Outdoor Learning Festival nr Leeds with over 4000 children attending.

We have also confirmed our attendance at the SSAT Annual Conference, The Scottish learning Festival, M-Learn2008 and of course Handheld Learning 2008.

We're hoping some of our customers are going to enter the X-Factor competition, and maybe we can persuade a few teachers to go for Dragons Den, and for anyone not booked yet, we've got a code that will get you a discount, so get in touch, and get your Nintendo DS!

Steve

I am delighted to see that supplies of the ASUS eeePC are finally flowing, through Wildkey and others.  That makes it timely to add that SUMS Maths and SUMS Phonics are available in a version for the eeePC, both Linux and Windows versions.

We even have a new USA localised version of the maths (that is counter-clockwise, not anti-clockwise etc if you were wondering why math is different in the US). ???

**** FREE STUFF **** Now for the important bit. If your educational establishment is planning to use the ASUS eeePC then contact me and I'll send you a free SD card containing our software for the ASUS, along with free single user licences so that you can evaluate in your own time. If you are overseas we will provide a download instead.

Best wishes,

David
david@sums.co.uk
http://www.sums.co.uk (http://www.sums.co.uk)

Asus EEE 900 has been relased but there have been some problems, for a summary:
http://www.eeeuser.com/
So be careful wait for the 901 version.
And HP released the first opponent called HP mini 2133:
http://mininoteuser.com/
A benchmark on the EEE 900 battery life performance:
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/05/asus-eee-pc-900-battery-life.html

Theres limited stock in one of the Glasgow computer stores if anyone up here is looking for one...
Jon

Hold on they have the asus eee 901 already? The official release date is 3 June!
But I'll probably buy one in China this august  ;D

sorry its the 900 they have for £335.

Not sure about these bigger devices.

The appeal of the eeePC was its size/price. Get more expensive and you may as well buy an actual laptop.

Jon

Hold on!
So for the same price and size what laptops you suggest me?
 ;D

Indeed Jon, I have been mystified by the sheep-like rush to take a standard Linux-based EEE PC with 4Gb of memory and downgrade it to run Windows XP!

Why???

Carrying all that bloat the device crawls like a trooper with a 100Kg pack up the side of a mountain with nowhere to save anything else aside from an SD card which has as much chance of being lost as socks in a washing machine.

If it's a fully blown laptop for £300 you want then try Dell (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspnnb_1525?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs), PC World (http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/product/seo/273568) or even Tesco's! (http://direct.tesco.com/q/N.1999724$4294955018/Nr.99.aspx?Ns=P_SORT_Price&btnResultSort.x=34&btnResultSort.y=10)  ;D

At least you'll be able to back up your work and have a battery that last's longer than a 5 aside football match  ;)

Yes and also look at the processor used: they suck energy like a baby sucks milk from his mother breasts.  ;)
For Dell
Intel®  CoreTM  2 Duo Processor
For Acer
Intel Celeron 550 Processor
For fujitsu amilo:
   Intel Pentium Dual Core
Plus the irritating installation of a Windows Vista .. (this has no price  :-\)

It was weird at the day job. I bought my own eeePC, persuaded my bosses to buy a couple more for my colleagues... but no interest from my bosses until it was realized they  could run windows on it, then suddenly it was a case of "oh they might be useful then"

::sigh::

The sheep like rush towards a lot of  MS things , like MS Office in schools worries me, along with a lot of disinformation that is flying around about "cant use open source or moodle as it doesn't work with Microsoft"

(I kid not  someone has been heard saying this and they worked for an educational organization that should know better)

I suspect a lot of folk bought PocketPCs as they foolishly thought it ran 'Windows".

MS have a lot to answer for....

regards

Jon

ps We now have more Linux in the house than Windows (and no Vista!) is it coincidental I feel less stressed and more productive?

O my GOD you mean the boss of the IT department. I can't belieeeeeeeeeeeeve!
Let me search his name ... on the department contats.

Asus expect sales of the EEE PC to double to 10 million units worldwide by next year according to a story in ITPRO:

http://www.itpro.co.uk/news/202551/asus-eee-pc-sales-will-double-to-10-million.html

Whilst it's interesting to see the computer industry get all excited about these numbers it's also worth making some comparisons with the consumer electronics industry:

Nintendo figures:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10187&Itemid=2

Sony PlayStation:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10465&Itemid=2

Mobile phone industry
http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2008/press08_31.shtml

 ;)

nah, i have my windows mobile device - it's as good as an eee pc, and better in some aspects.

Ahaha with all the cheap proprietary software that you can install on it ......

Hi zelld78

Windows Mobile as good as good as an eeePC... interesting but thats the great thing about us having choice and being able to pick the solution thats fits our own needs. Some call it market fragmentation, I see it as choice.

I see Windows mobile devices and other PDA sized kit and an ultra-mobiles, such as the eeePC, as being very different devices.

Not least as one will fit in your pocket the other one wont... Unless you have big pockets :-)

Would you like to explain how and why a WinMob device is better for your uses?

This is not meant to start another sort of religious war between PDA users and eeePC users but as an illustration of the differences between apparently similar devices and how an individual users particular requirements are better accommodated by a device or combination of devices.

Out of interest would the eeePC be more useful to you if it had Windows XP on it?

Jon

 
 

Well like Jont's early post on this thread I worry about the Microsoftisation of education, not because they are bad products but increasingly it is not a level playing field for competition. Large organisations are struggling in the Web 2.0 because innovation outpaces their business practices. The Microsoft and Yahoo failed courtship shows it nicely.

There is no doubt that the various OS's have their champions but for me its about finding the right tool for the job. I use mainly an Apple Mac but out and about the Asus eee does what I need relatively cheaply with the tools I need. It's saddening (and as a taxpayer maddening) that when we need an agile workforce so many institutions are throwing away the opportunity to teach learners there is more than one OS and content can work across platforms. Ahh that's my tuppence's worth ;) Good discussion got me thinking!