Datawind UbiSurfer

[Toble]

Have you been tempted to buy the Datawind Ubisurfer from Maplin?
A years worth of GPRS access (ok, 30 hours a month) plus a netbook for only £150!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=261613

I've just bought one and i'm a bit underimpressed.

Its good enough to act as an emergency backup device, but i'd probably end up throwing it at someone if I had to use it as my only connection.

I hate to do this, but see my mini-review.... http://www.tonyblews.co.uk/2010/01/datawind-ubisurfer-first-impressions/


And yes, you can access the forum on it. Its just very slow.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Have you been tempted to buy the Datawind Ubisurfer from Maplin?
A years worth of GPRS access (ok, 30 hours a month) plus a netbook for only £150!

I've just bought one and i'm a bit underwhelmed.

It's only got a 1 gig (flash) hard drive and 128Mb of RAM. I'm not surprised!! You should have asked advice here first Toble.

For ANYONE thinking of buying a netbook, my personal advice is not to touch the ones with flash hard drives at all (make sure it's got an 80Gb or bigger hard drive), at least 512Mb of RAM, and the Intel ATOM processor... anything on these specs will be OK.

Trying for a refund on that one my friend? I would. Just claim that it doesn't meet your expectations for the money.

 

[Toble]

I knew the spec when i bought it. I'm hoping to be able to install some better software on it, once i get a cross-compiler for the ARM chip it uses.
For the moment it will suffice to keep me entertained on the numerous long train journey i'll be making over the next couple of weeks.

(oh, and it works fine on the Wifi in the pub!)

 

[wmrcomputers]

(oh, and it works fine on the Wifi in the pub!)

Yeah, don't get me wrong if connected to a wifi network they make fine little web browsers, but personally I don't recommend them for anything else.

Is there much you'll be able to install with it only having a 1gb flash drive? I'm very anti-linux so please ignore my ignorance.

 

[Toble]

Is there much you'll be able to install with it only having a 1gb flash drive? I'm very anti-linux so please ignore my ignorance.

I'll let you know. I'm currently trying to patch Iceweasel (Firefox) to use the GPRS link.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Is there much you'll be able to install with it only having a 1gb flash drive? I'm very anti-linux so please ignore my ignorance.

I'll let you know. I'm currently trying to patch Iceweasel (Firefox) to use the GPRS link.

The best of luck with it mate

 

[My Name is URL]

Wow, £150 is a lot of money for a very poor looking / sounding netbook.... I got my brother-in-law a MSI Wind 6-cell for £180 at Christmas... 10" screen, 160GB HDD, 6-hour battery life, Win XP......

Ok I suppose the draw with this is that it comes with the free internet for the year but GPRS is slow for my mobile phone on mobile sites, even HSDPA isn't amazing for mobile sites so i'm honestly not surprised.

 

[gdavies]

i am not a fan of the ubisurfer personally but the firefox does respond to the about:config in the address bar so you can edit the settings you may have better luck making it connect via gprs that way, I know how to enhance firefox so that it is much quicker but not too sure if it would be wise on a gprs setting to go down that route but if you require which settings to change i will post in here for you

 

[Toble]

if you require which settings to change i will post in here for you

Go on, i'll have a try

 

[dylanf]

I'm very anti-linux so please ignore my ignorance.

Linux is the best thing since sliced bread. Its quite easy to use if you sit down and take a look at it.

But with only 128mb ram, you're loved really. Firefox needs that much at least on its own.

 

[wmrcomputers]

I'm very anti-linux so please ignore my ignorance.

Linux is the best thing since sliced bread. Its quite easy to use if you sit down and take a look at it.

But with only 128mb ram, you're loved really. Firefox needs that much at least on its own.

I realise it's quite easy, but the whole "skin" if you like, looks really basic, most of the programs online are for windows operating systems, every piece of hardware sold works on windows, schools teach on windows, workplaces majoritively use windows etc etc. I've never bothered to play with linux because I personally don't ever see it taking over (regardless of the f-ups that microsoft make and their rip off prices, but that's another subject altogether)

Ok we're starting to see a few PC's on sale now with Linux / Ubuntu etc. installed - but that's to reduce the RRP on them especially while there's a credit crunch going on. I've lost count of the number of people who have brought laptops to me with Linux on and said "This is crap, can you make it Windows for me please?". It's what people know.

Of course, there are some people like yourself who evidentally love Linux, and fair play if it works good for you.

 

[db]

linux is for hippies.. as wmr says, despite it being cool to slag off microsoft, their shit Just Works™ and is compatible with pretty much everything you can throw at it..

i can't imagine for the life of me why you bought one of these, toble.. i'm all for buying obscure, esoteric hardware for pet projects, but it's not like this hideous looking brick can ever be used for anything clever, no matter how much you hack away at it!

 

[shoes]

Linux is the best thing since sliced bread. .

I disagree, try snow leopard

 

[Wookie]

linux is for hippies.. as wmr says, despite it being cool to slag off microsoft, their shit Just Works™

*cough* IE6 *cough*...
Although I agree; as much as I dislike MS on a personal and philosophical level, they seem to get everything working with everything. Providing you stay away from ACME brands, obv.

 

[Toble]

But with only 128mb ram, you're loved really. Firefox needs that much at least on its own.

Back in the day (circa 1995) we were using a pair of 486dx2/66 boxes with 8mb of memory and 400mb of disk space to fileserve to about 100 Pentium Win3.1 boxes. I don't think either of them got rebooted for about 2 years, apart from power-cuts. The OS? Slackware Linux.

If you were in the School of Computing at Staffs Uni at the time you may remember Dastardly and Muttley.

 

[Gramaisc]

But with only 128mb ram, you're loved really. Firefox needs that much at least on its own.

Back in the day (circa 1995) we were using a pair of 486dx2/66 boxes with 8mb of memory and 400mb of disk space to fileserve to about 100 Pentium Win3.1 boxes. I don't think either of them got rebooted for about 2 years, apart from power-cuts. The OS? Slackware Linux.

If you were in the School of Computing at Staffs Uni at the time you may remember Dastardly and Muttley.

Teletypes and paper tape in my time at the Poly. I've still got a manual tape editor, should you ever need one.

 

[gdavies]

well here goes if you open firefox and then in the address bar type in

about:config

after “about:config” screen you will notice a search screen below as sown put in the text i have shown and you will see three things as shown

network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

you will notice these values have changed just double click on each on the right side for example where it say's false all of a sudden it will show true the middle one which states max requests put what you like 30 works well for me but at least copy what i have

then you need to add a new integar so just type in about:config again in the address bar and right click some where blank and follow what i have done in the image

in the new window that appears you will need to enter an integar name just copy as i have done in the image

after that stage you will be asked for a value again just copy what i have put

 

[gdavies]

any luck toble not had chance to look at making firefox work with gprs but with access to the setting you have access to know it should help a ton

 

[Toble]

Using the GPRS browser you go through their bizarre-arse proxy which IceWeasel/FireFox can't handle. Well to be more accurate the proxy rejects requests which aren't formatted correctly.

I'm playing with cross-compiling stuff now.

 

[Alan B'Stard]

I'm playing with cross-compiling stuff now.

That does sound like fun, tried a toolkit chain some years ago and gave up miserably.

Good luck with it.