It’s official. ZaReason is launching an Ubuntu Linux netbook called the Terra A20, confirms CTO Earl Malmrose. The netbook has loads of options, including several solid state drive (SSD) configurations. Here are specifics about ZaReason’s Ubuntu netbook, plus some observations from WorksWithU.
According to the email from Malmrose:
“Since ZaReason isn’t beholden to operating system vendors that place artificial restrictions on system specs, we’ve loaded the Terra up with lots of great features.”
In his email to me, Malmrose says ZaReason’s Ubuntu netbook supports:
- Draft-N Wi-Fi as a standard feature. “This excellent card has open source drivers and provides excellent signal strength,” he says.
- Internal mobile broadband option. “We’ve seen actual download rates at over 2 mbps. That’s faster than many wired broadband speeds,” he adds.
- Many storage options, including large capacity 5400 rpm drives, high speed 7200 rpm drives, and ultimate performance Intel SSDs.
- Several OS options, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and more.
- Every pixel matters in a small screen. Full 1024×600 display with a matte finish for reduced glare in a variety of viewing locations.
- Color options for the lid. “The mocha-colored netbook complements Ubuntu colors quite nicely,” he says.
- Ubuntu branding. “We pioneered the Ubuntu-key, so of course it’s got a nice big Ubuntu logo on the keyboard,” says Malmrose.
Market Snapshot
ZaReason isn’t alone in the Ubuntu netbook market. System76 recently upgraded its Ubuntu-based Starling Netbook to 2GB of RAM. And Dell continues to push ahead with its Ubuntu Mini netbook offering (www.dell.com/ubuntu). Hint: Watch for Dell to potentially make more mobile strategy announcements as Ubuntu 9.10 nears release.
Although Linux netbooks have been difficult to find on U.S. retail shelves, Ubuntu netbooks seem to be attracting an intense niche audience online. System76 had trouble keeping up with Ubuntu netbook demand in July, but company President Carl Richell tells me System76 has since addressed the supply-demand issue.
Similarly, ZaReason expects to see strong demand for its own Terra A20 netbook. Says CTO Malmrose: “Recent market indicators have taught us to expect significant demand, so we have planned ahead and have plenty of stock on hand and more in production.”
Back in June, both System76 and ZaReason hinted to me that August would be a key month for the Ubuntu netbook market. I’m pleased to see both companies moving forward with those efforts. The ball is now in Dell’s court. I suspect some Dell surprises are in store for later this year.
In the meantime, I’m inclined to buy either the System76 or ZaReason netbook since Ubuntu 9.04 comes preloaded — a key base requirement for me to also test the Ubuntu One shared storage system. As of this writing, Dell continues to offer Ubuntu 8.x on its netbooks.
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My Dell Latitude 2100, Dell’s first Ubuntu machine released in Australia, arrived a few days ago, with Ubuntu 9.04 installed. I quite happy with it, the screen, keyboard, case etc are all good. Soft keys, webcam, wifi, etc all works great. Battery lasts over 2hrs with wifi ans surfing. Downloaded all the updates, including kernel update, in one go, no problem.
The Zareason Netbook seems a very nice unit. I like the Ubuntu logo and the brown colour! Dell has a Windows logo
Zareason does ship to Australia, so my next machine could be from them.
I think these Ubuntu netbooks are great, small light, robust etc. Oh, Nokia N96 3G tethering works out of the box in 9.04.
WOW, this is it! 1024×600, which was my only gripe with System76′s. Option for high performance SSD’s, faster HD, larger, you name it. AMAZING job. Ah, and inexpensive spare battery!. Anyone knows if they sell parts in case, dunno, you drop orange juice on your keyboard? (I never did, and I’ll never do it again
)
BTW, look at my post from yesterday, I was thinking Zareason would be out with a netbook anytime!
http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/11/system76-refreshes-expands-ubuntu-netbook-and-desktop-lineup/
The only missing option is a high capacity battery, although one could pick up a spare one for a long trip … otherwise, this baby scales from a decently priced 10 incher into a road warrior for professionals, for about 100 more.
It would be nice if anyone who buy is could post a review. Typical things that can go wrong on a netbook are speaker quality (my eeepc 701 lives connected to small external speakers, which kills the beauty of its mobility), keyboard quality/ruggedness (sucks in the 701), trackpad build, camera/mic quality, screen crispness/viewing angles. These are hard to figure out from the specs. Laptomag does a great job at that, but of cpurse they won’t look at Zareason’s stuff …
Starting with the Karmic release in October, Kubuntu will have specialized Netbook Edition (it’s not a remix, it’s all from the official archives) that would likely do well on these machines.
Something else that sets them apart from Dell or System76 is you can choose to have Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu or no operating system installed.
So if you want the (k)(ed)ubuntu installed great, and if you want a different linux distribution you can choose none and install what you want (even Windows I suppose, but who would want to do THAT?!)
Anyone know what wireless providers the CDMA modem will work with? Sprint, Verizon, Cricket…?
@ScottK: that would be lovely, but I think we’ll need to wait until 10.04. The Netbook Plasma Shell is targeted for Q1 2010:
http://dot.kde.org/2009/07/14/vibrant-community-propels-kde-forward-akademy-2009
We’ll have to wait for Kubuntu 10.04
Which I think will be amazing. With (hopefully) ATI opensource support in the newer chipsets, the Plasma Netbook shell, and a mature KDE 4. Me drools 
I am using Kubuntu 9.04 + KDE 4.3 on my eeepc, and I love it!
Ari@7: I will check with ZaReason regarding your CDMA modem question.
@Ari: Good question.
The Terra 3G modem is WCDMA, which despite the naming convention is incompatible with CDMA. WCDMA carriers use sim cards, such as AT&T and TMobile. So virtually any sim card (with a data plan) will work.
We’ll be adding more technical details to the Terra’s product page shortly.
All: Earl@10 is Earl Malmrose, CTO of ZaReason.
Earl: Thanks for helping to clarify things for our readers.
One nice thing about the Zreason compared to the System 76 is also the matte screen.
Regarding the WCDMA card, what frequencies does it use? I know that many providers use the 1900MHz and 2100MHz band but some also use the lesser-known 850MHz band. I, for example, would need the card to support the 850MHz band for our local provider…
The problem with these “linux hardware vendors” is they’re not. They are ubuntu vendors. So Linux users still don’t get a choice. They get the distro that someone thinks they should run, not what they want. Just as bad as Microsoft, forcing software down peoples throat. At least zareason gives the option of no os. What we need is a real linux hardware vendor.
@Socceroos: The ZaReason website has been updated with more details on the frequencies. For HSDPA/UMTS it is 850/1900/2100 MHz
@required: While it’s not on the options dropdown list, ZaReason does a variety of Linux distros per request. We’ve done Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Mint, Debian, CentOS, and even FreeNAS. Just drop us a note.
@required: where, where in the world will you get that level of support for a $350 laptop?
Even if other distributions were not available, I wouldn’t blame them. Support takes time, and time is costly. If they did have to charge you for getting you a custom install, it would cost a lot more than $350. My guess is that they mostly sell Ubuntu hardware anyway, and they do the rest out of their good hearts (meaning, not really at a profit).
Comparing their open business model with Microsoft is an uncalled for, and largely inaccurate insult.
@Earl:
Here’s a question for you. Are you willing to publish enough hardware specification details about all available systems for purchase so conscientious buyers can verify what hardware will work with mainline linux kernel drivers (versus staging-tree drivers or out-of-tree drivers).
Right now for example you laptop specifications aren’t detailed enough for me to verify that on my own before purchase. Even a published listing of the kernel modules you install by default in your Ubuntu pre-installs would go a long way here.
-jef
As much as I love Ubuntu, people are going to be disappointed when their printer doesn’t work.
@ Anon #18
That’s exactly the line one would expect from a Microsoft shill. Out of curiosity, are you one of those people paid by Microsoft to post around the net?
@Jef: You can always email me for details we don’t already have published. We’ll be adding more details to the web site as time goes by. But the general answer is this: We use stock Ubuntu, period. We don’t have any additional drivers, etc.
Next up for the web site, we’ll be adding lsusb and lspci info for all systems. Here they are for the Terra:
http://www.zareason.com/shop/data/terra_a20_lsusb.txt
http://www.zareason.com/shop/data/terra_a20_lspci.txt
Very nice unit indeed. However, it seems to be shipping with an Intel GMA950. How did the ZaReason guys tackle the major performance regressions in 9.04?
@ Anon #18:
Hate to feed the troll, but thought others might like to know the truth. I bought my wife a Linux-powered netbook earlier this year (an EeePC, before ASUS sold out to MS). A few weeks later, she mentioned that she really needed to use the printer (an Epson cx6600 MFP), and could I please do that CD thingy to make it work?
I smiled and said, “Just plug it in!” Worked like a champ, of course, with no CDs or reboots as with XP. And another Linux fan joins the Penguin herd…
She’s switched to Eeebuntu NBR now, of course, which also “just works”. And I LOVE the new System76 Starling that she bought me for Father’s Day.
I think that one of the biggest drawback of the todays netbook is lack of GPS. It could change this devices in the Personal Navigation System (PNS), understood as Internet geo-profiled crawler. The natural complementary evolution from this, that I am waiting is Netablet (the Networked Tablet), finalized actually by Nicholas Negroponte as OLPC XO-2 (link [[http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-2]]), and probably by Apple in its widely rumored Tablet.
I decided to purchase the Terra A20. So, I e-mailed ZaReason to ask some basic questions about the HSDPA, SSD, and even the physical dimensions ( when talking about netbooks — every inch counts ). They ignored me.
So, about an hour ago, I ordered an Asus Eee for $667 instead. Outrageous price, I know. And inferior to the claimed specs of the Terra A20. But at least I knew I could install Ubuntu on it myself.
If these Linux integration shops want to get my business, they’re going to have to put forth more effort than a press release.
Looks nice. Definitely considering buying this since System 76 has smaller screen resolution and doesn’t offer an SSD option. I’m undecided about how much I’d like this product and how well it would work out. But I think I’m going to give it a try since they have a reasonable return policy, especially for a small company: 30 days, 15% restocking fee.
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