The Zeroshock case is a strong rubberised case for an iPad or netbook. One of the main features of the case is its strong construction - it’s designed to be sturdy and shockproof, and also can protect the contents from water splashes. 

As you can see, an iPad 2 can very easily fit inside the case; netbook and even certain drawing tablets (such as those from Wacom) will also fit inside. 

The inside of the case features a very soft and smooth textured surface, which both cushions and protects your device as well as increasing the shockproof value of the case. 

The rubberised exterior is thick and has a few layers, but doesn’t actually make the case any thicker. The case itself is hard and not as flexible as some other cases for these devices, which makes it feel much stronger - you feel that your device is well and truly protected. There is also an exterior zipped pocket to store accessories, which is another nice design feature. 

Overall, this is an excellent case that gives a brilliant level of protection for your iPad or netbook, or in fact any other device that fits into the case. It feels very strong and is also very light - it provides a very high level of protection without adding too much bulk or even weight to the product. 

A big thanks to Mobilefun for sending this case out to me for review, they have an excellent range of iPad covers and accessories in stock at great prices. Check them out. 

So I got bored yesterday and decided to give Ubuntu Linux a try. I first installed it on my main PC’s hard drive, which allowed me to dual-boot Ubuntu 11.04 alongside Windows 7 (I simply choose which OS I want to use at the boot menu stage). I then decided that Ubuntu would be better suited to use on my netbook, so today got it up and running on my Acer Aspire One using the same dual-boot method. Weirdly, my netbook actually has 40GB more hard drive space than my PC, which seems to be a nice size to run a secondary operating system in. 

In the screenshot above you can see my Ubuntu desktop on my netbook; my first impressions of the OS are actually pretty good. At first I thought that it was rather useless, but having investigated further into the operating system and into the Ubuntu/Linux community, I’ve found a lot of cool features of Ubuntu that Windows simply doesn’t do. One of the most powerful features of Ubuntu for me is the fact that you can access pretty much anything within the OS from a simple command line prompt; some of the basic ones I’ve learned, and the ability to install programs with a simple line of command code is fantastic. Ubuntu’s UI was strange at first; it seemed like a strange mix of Android, older versions of Windows, and Mac OSX. However, the UI is so easy to use and more intuitive than I thought it would be. 

Overall, I’m a big fan of Ubuntu. It boots up in seconds (a fantastic feature, especially on a netbook) and actually runs a little faster than Windows 7. It takes up relatively little space on the hard drive, and (for now) will serve as an excellent secondary OS. The majority of the time, I simply browse the web and listen to music on my netbook, and Ubuntu is the perfect OS for such simple usage. Of course, it has much greater potential than this, but I’ve plenty of time to discover some more of Ubuntu Linux’s more powerful and interesting features. 

I was tossing between an iPad and netbook for a long time. While iOS is (arguably) a more refined and slick operating system that Windows, there are a few pretty big features that made me choose a netbook over an iPad. 

The Aspire that I have has a dual-core Atom processor, clocked in at 1.66GHz, which gives the netbook some pretty decent performance. When casually browsing the web or tapping away a document or email, the netbook functions perfectly. However, multitasking is where the netbook really shows its true colours; the 1GB of RAM means that once you have three or more programs running, you’ll notice things slowing down significantly. For example, when I have my browser open and a couple of other programs such as Paint or iTunes, video and music playback gets a little jerky. Despite this, I’ve managed to put this netbook under some pretty punishing demands and it slows down, but has never completely crashed or frozen. 

One of the main things that drew me toward this netbook in particular was its design; it’s super sleek, and when closed is actually pretty thing, meaning it can fit in and out of my bag with ease. It’s also very light. My Aspire also packs a 6-cell battery, which gives me a quoted 8 hours of battery life. In ‘real world tests’, I’ve found that moderate to heavy use will give me an entire day on the battery (with a low screen brightness, might I add). 

So, why did I choose this over an iPad? Firstly, I need a physical keyboard (the keyboard on this netbook is oustanding). I also need a proper computer OS; iOS isn’t a proper OS in my honest opinion. Price was another huge deciding factor; this was over £150 cheaper than an iPad and does a lot more for me. I still don’t believe the iPad is a truly productive device, despite the fact that it will keep my emails flowing, etc, etc. Be sure to stay tuned to the website for a full review, hopefully coming up in the next two weeks. 

Wooo, iPad 2 launch I hear (from the US at least). When the original iPad was released, I became rather (in)famous for bashing the hell out of it. I thought it was overpriced, heavy, and lacked a lot of features that make it a viable alternative to something like a netbook. Now that the second one has been launched, the original iPad now makes perfect sense to me. 

The trouble with the state of the iPad at the original launch, for me, stemmed from two things: 1) Lack of multitasking was a disaster, and 2) It was priced out of the netbook alternative range. Recently, multitasking has been brought to the iPad with various releases of iOS 4.x, and even more recently prices of the original iPad have dropped. Prices of the iPad 2 have not changed (starting at around £430 for the basic, non-3G version), but Apple has dropped prices of the original iPad (which is still on sale) by about £100. Essentially, this means that the original, 16GB wifi-only iPad’s price has dropped right into my netbook budget. 

I’d been looking at various Dell and Sony netbooks to use as a sort of ‘side bitch’ to my main setup, and all of these start at around £350. So you can see what my dilemma is; a netbook for £350 that runs full Windows 7 (albeit, the Starter edition), or for £20 less an iPad that runs iOS 4.3? Before any of the fanboys play the ‘it has better graphics and two cameras’ card, I won’t be using my iPad/netbook for any serious gaming or for video chatting/photography. While I’m on the subject, I think having a camera on the back of a tablet is stupid; but that’s a different blog post. The iPad’s email application looks outstanding, and for casual on-the-go web browsing and multimedia, it’s perfect. I only plan to use my netbook/iPad for writing documents (Pages for iPad supports .docx, a huge win in my books), emailing, web browsing, and video/music playing. 

The main attraction of the original iPad though is its new price. A 16GB wifi-only model is perfect for my needs (I won’t need 3G as my phone has hotspot functionality); it’s also about £30 cheaper than the netbook I’m looking at. I’ll need some time to decide, and I’m going to wait for a friend of mine to pick up an iPad 2 before making any final decision. 

Sidebar: If y’all think think these are the justifications of a fanboy, I wrote this post on a computer running Windows 7 and I have an HTC Android phone sitting on my desk.