So one of the outcomes of my study last August is that admittedly.. people don’t want mobile phones for their health records, they want laptops. And these new netbooks – well they cost the same as these smartphones. But last August, the eeepcs had a battery life of 1.5 hours and only about 4MB of storage. So when they died in the middle of the comparative studies, all of the people I talked to changed their minds and said that battery life was a non-starter; they had to have something that would last. I did a little shopping though – and for just about $50 more, you can get a standard hard drive (instead of solid state), and a 6 cell battery, and end up with a 10in eeePC that lasts for 7 hours and has 160GB of hard drive space.
Even without the new configuration, people are raving about these netbooks. They won’t let me take them back to the states, and people keep buying them off me – so I have to replace them when I get back home, using the cash people give me. More stuff to carry when I come back – it’s a wonder I always make it through customs with my 6-8 laptops..
The reaction to my laptops this time is that everyone wants to buy these off of me “when your project ends” – to which I always say that when my project ends, the laptops will still be in use because the project will continue without me – unless they are already certain of my failure (I hope not!).
The proposal for now is twofold: two of the laptops will be used as asynchronous web servers, akin to the design used in the Ghana Consultation Network, allowing the Program Management Office in Mbarara and the Management Agency Head Office in Kampala to access claims information even when their Internet connection is down – basically, since the processor will certainly be slow, it will be a caching agent. (I might try Google Gears as well and see if that works better, but this is something that I can intelligently back up and that they can own locally.) The rest of the laptops will be allocated to two of the private health clinics for use in administering their claims forms. However – a primary distinction from the mobile phone solution is that they don’t include communications technology. I will explore a couple of options – including both a sneakernet style solution of sending the forms by SD card, or the more expensive solution of attaching a falcom modem to the laptop, which essentially doubles the cost of the laptop. A few other clinics will be assigned mobile phones, and the remaining clinics will be controls – I will visit them, continue to run surveys, and observe claims administration, and monitor their transcations, but I won’t deploy services there for at least the first 9 months, although I may encourage my partners to independent conduct their own deployment (i.e. with my supervision but not done by me) towards the end of my study.
This study involves simultaneously understanding both the technical feasibility of these solutions and the financial feasibility of these solutions – it will take time to make the service providers understand the ramifications of the various solutions – and the resultant costs and benefits to them. What are the tradeoffs they will make in the end? I think different providers will choose different means in the end.. and it is entirely possible that they might choose to purchase a laptop but not use it for online claims submission, purely for its other utilities. Or because the service provider is of higher means and higher claim volume, they might choose to do online claims submission and pay the service fees because timely payment is so extremely critical for them. I’m curious to see what happens, and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.
I must be stating the obvious: but what about the XO / OLPC laptop, with much longer battery life and more rugged build?
the number of different models is expanding to fill all possible niches. the original Eee was pre-Atom; by late last year, trade rags were making fun of Asus for having dozens of different Eee netbooks and making the brand meaning completely unclear.
there are now a bunch of netbooks that can be purchased with WWAN modems built in or can be expanded (ie have free mini-pci slots) like the dell mini 9 or the newer msi winds. the modem doesn’t double the cost but the overall cost of the higher-end netbook is still 2x the lowest-end netbook so it’s currently no cheaper than a usb modem. i expect prices will keep falling like a rock though – this is a very bad time to be basing architectural decisions on “X is cheaper than Y” (unless X and Y are network service costs, which i don’t expect to change that much).
btw if you were really rolling out usb solutions and not stuck on linux support, there are cheaper chinese (huawei, option) modems one could use. the falcoms just happen to be convenient for development because they are easy to use on both linux and windows.
The XO Laptop is not available on the normal market (i.e. you can’t buy it on amazon), has only one model, with a 7in screen, and a super tiny keyboard designed for children’s hands. With it’s particular marketing strategy, there’s also no reason for natural market forces to drive prices down and quality (ie. features, processor speeds, included ram, disk space, etc) up. Why spend $400 on an OLPC when I can spend less than that and get a better laptop, with 160GB of hard drive space, and a decent sized keyboard and screen, more suited to adult use?
And umm. Has anyone actually done a study that has actually compared the XO laptop to any of these laptops and found out that these have a more rugged build? Some of the studies I’ve seen have found that the wifi antennas on the XO laptop have broken off within a few weeks of use, that the trackpads have become insensitive, requiring external mice, and a variety of other problems. I think much of this can be chalked up to use by children, but the laptops I’ve been using do feel a lot sturdier than the XO laptops I’ve handled.
By no means i claim to be an expert nor an advocate of XO.
A couple of things strike me as compelling (on paper) are long battery life and the screen well-adapted to bright lights
Nowadays, you can actually get an XO on amazon:
http://amazon.com/xo
I do agree that a lack of ecosystem to drive price / quality is a red flag.
According to the website you can only get laptops for them, you can’t get them for yourself. Anyways, the 7in Asus eeePCs also have the same long battery life. And honestly the bright sunlight probably would actually reduce the battery lifetime over time if you are actually using the laptop outdoors a lot. It is a good thing given that most rooms here are sunlight rather than artificially lit, but I don’t think it’s a reason to choose the laptop – the screen-size and usability of the keyboard and the stability, usability, and utility of the available software all weigh much higher as choice factors. Well, that and availability. The XO laptop simply isn’t available to my target market. I’m not working with children nor in the education sector.
http://amazon.com/xo sez: “Please note: The Give One Get One program ended on Dec 31st. The link on this page is a donation only and provides a laptop to a child in a developing country. You will not receive a laptop.” : – P
sorry that was supposed to be : – P but wordpress turned it into a graphic.
That’s awesome!!! I look for netbook for my boyfriend.And how to choose it.Which brands is the best ?I saw many web about this but your web is the best for me.Thank you.
I think there are new Netbooks coming out faster than I can really keep up with the news about them out here, and in the end it will depend on 1) how much you are willing to spend on extras for nicer features and better quality accessories and 2) How big of a screen you want.
For my uses, I’ve settled on the Asus EeePC 1000HA, which is a 10″ Netbook. The newer version includes bluetooth, wifi, and a 150GB hard drive. For others, the Samsung NC-10 is also popular, but usually runs anywhere from USD50-100 more expensive than the EeePC. However, the trackpad is significantly nicer (I can’t stand the trackpad on the EeePCs). If you get an EeePC, get an external mouse. Which you should probably do for other netbooks too! But.. hmm.. the EeePCs come with a zipcase, and the Samsungs might not.. Another popular model, which these days is the only one I can find in the Dubai airport, is the MSI Wind, which, along with a few other models, is known for being able to support Mac OSX.
I also recommend that you get an external USB-powered DVD burner, since netbooks don’t have one built in – the one that seems to be recommended highly for netbooks is LG’s GSA-E50N, which I just got this past weekend for my slew of netbooks too!
OMG ! Cool Information. Somebody know why people love netbook more than notebook?