Ranking in at 2 pounds and having a 7-inch screen, this Everex Cloudbook is definitely an ultra-portable laptop.  The first thing you’ll notice is the matte black cover, which is standard for most laptops.  It has a dual hinge, which I prefer due to its added durability.  Underneath, you will find a respectably bright screen, 7 inches, with an 800×480 resolution.  It has its speakers set above the keyboard, and as expected from this kind of laptop the bass is lacking.  That said, the volume was actually pretty good.

The keyboard itself is obviously very small, which can make it very hard to use.  Since I have fairly large fingers and hands, it can be fairly difficult to use this keyboard.  I think though that it just takes some time to get used to this kind of keyboard – once you’re used to it, using it won’t be an issue.  The touchpad’s design however, is somewhat less than optimal.  It’s located above the keyboard to the right – which can make it very awkward to use.  This laptop comes with a 4 in 1 card slot, two USB ports, and two audio jacks, which is definitely adequate in my opinion.  Having two audio jacks is great too – if you want to share your movie with someone else, it’s much easier than sharing earphones.

Some of you might take issue with the operating system though.  It comes with Linux gOS V2 Rocket OS – thankfully it’s straightforward and easy to use, albeit a different experience from XP or Vista.  It comes bundled with several open-source applications, including Firefox, OpenOffice, and RhythmBox, plus built in links to services like Google Calendar.  Unfortunately due to the small size of the screen, some applications have portions cut off, which can impair usability.  In addition, getting the camera to function correctly is nothing short of a hassle.

Performance isn’t horrible, but can be considered a little lacking.  Startup is extremely long, and loading some applications can take a while (probably caused by the slow hard disc and 512 MB of memory).  It does offer 30 GB of storage space, which is great considering how it’s an ultra-portable.  The wireless is a little disappointing – you essentially have to be within 30 feet of a wireless node to reliably connect.  The battery life is disappointing though – it’s supposed to last 5 hours, but it barely lasted 4 for me out of the box.
Overall, this isn’t that bad of an ultra-portable laptop.  I wouldn’t recommend it for the standard Windows user though – it requires a respectable amount of time on setup, and since it is a Linux machine, tweaking the applications is almost required.  So if you’re willing to play around with a machine a lot, this is a great choice for you.  But if you’re a beginner with computers, I’d suggest you look elsewhere.

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