The Ubuntu-powered Vodafone Webbook has been out in South Africa for a few months, but little in the way of opinion on the device has appeared online.
—Or so I thought.
Having exhausted my own avenues trying to get hold of a Webbook to review for this site, I was pointed in the direction of a write-up by ‘GearBurn‘, a South-African Technology blog.
And their verdict on the low-powered and low-cost machine?
Well, it’s pretty damning: “Cheap, Plastic, Nasty.”
‘Cheap, Plastic and Nasty’
The reviewer, Stuart Thomas, doesn’t pull his punches, criticising the ‘plastic’ feel of the device, the ‘frustrating’ mouse buttons, and the ‘ridiculous’ slow boot time.
Kinder words are reserved for Ubuntu itself, which is nice. He describe the Linux distribution has ‘easy to use’, and praises the ‘super long battery life’ it eeks out on the Webbook (around 5 hours of 720p video playback, which is pretty great).
But in performances, the way the device is described makes it sounds woefully underpowered.
Did anyone expect differently? Netbooks aren’t notebooks, and lower performance comes as a tradeoff in price – the cheaper a computer is, the slower it usually is.
For reference, the Vodaphone Webbook specs are as follows:
- 10-inch LCD display (1024×600)
- Freescale i.Mx515 ARM Cortex A8 CPU @ 800MHz
- 512 MB RAM
- 4 GB SSD (2.6 GB of which is taken up by Ubuntu OS)
- 2x USB ports
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Built-in webcam and mic
- Speakers
The provision of such measly physical storage doesn’t compliment the insanely rationed amount of mobile data bundled with the device – 100MB.
In the video review, embedded below, you’ll see just how ‘laggy’ the interface is. I can’t but imagine that the more recent builds of Ubuntu Unity 2D would fare on the same hardware – something that, should I ever lay hands upon a Webbook, I will be putting to the test.
But, and it’s an important ‘but’, it’s vital to remember that the Webbook – and its data plan – is not aimed at a web-savvy user into heavy downloading and endless Skype calls. No, it’s purpose is simple: to give internet access to as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible.
And slow boot time or not it succeeds in doing just that.