For many years, I had a DD-WRT Linux router as sole "server" in my LAN. Sometimes I lacked a "true" server, sometimes because I needed to run more complex services, and sometimes just because I'd like to have a Linux server to administrate.
Being fed up of OpenWRT, and at the same time finding that WRT-610n was so expensive (around R$ 600 [1]), and having discovered that people ask too much money for old G4 Mac Minis, the best buy for my needs was a new netbook, a Lenovo S10-2, which cost R$ 999 at Wal-Mart.
It runs standard Ubuntu distribution, has plenty of RAM and disk, keyboard, LED-backlit display, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1, and it is even dual-core (Atom). It has a SD card slot, so I could have made it hard disk-less. Some people said to me that netbook hard disk would fail soon if used 24x7, so I will wait for this to happen, and then I buy a big SD card.
But, after so many years using only Macbooks, it was very funny to handle a new, non-Apple notebook. When I first bought an iBook, back in 2004, it was a cultural shock. Now, the Lenovo caused the same shock, in reverse.
There is nothing wrong with the machine itself; it is humming nicely as my server/router for quite some time. It is even kind of pretty. It just felt strange in some details; that things that Apple takes care of so well, and this Lenovo looked so rough in the edges:
* The power brick is full of written technical data which nobody neither reads nor needs to read because it is bivolt anyway.
* The power cable was stiff and looked cheap like a cheap kitchen appliance's.
* On top of that, it came with new Brazilian 3-pin plug standard, for which almost nobody has a socket. Not sure why this particular brick needs ground while all other netbook/modem/router/charger bricks I've seen don't need ground. I had to wait until the other day to buy an adapter and use the machine.
* The instruction manual was awful. (Yes, I actually read manuals when something new arrives.) The manual is so full of "don't do this, don't do that", that I felt genuinely scared for a milisecond. Woudn't it explode if I installed Linux over the factory-installed Windows XP?
* So many labels sticked to the computer body, and not only underneath. Why that Windows XP label near the trackpad?
* Almost every key in keyboard has "additional functions" which are painted RED (which makes them more eye-popping than the "normal" key functions). The blue labels seem to be slightly off, or skewed, like a silk-screen that was not centered very carefully.
* Keyboard layout is awful. I must be fair and state that ABNT-2 Brazilian layout is the main culprit. But it was strange not having a dedicated key for "/", while there is a key for "\". Full-sized ABNT keyboards have a "/" key.
* Dedicated keys for things like PrtSc/SysRq, that are demoded even in Windows world.
* Several LEDs indicating status, in different places.
* Battery came uninstalled, not sure why.
* Loud beep when turned on. (Not sure in which circunstances it beeps. I don't reboot it for almost a month, so I might be mistaken about this one.)
* Funny texture or pattern in the shell. A plain white would be better [2]
All these issues have one thing in common: they are very easy to fix. As I said, the product itself is good and even pretty (if you disregard the LEDs) but those small issues make it look cheaper than it deserves.
[1] R$ 600 ~= US$ 330. Electronics are more considerably more expensive in Brazil due to taxes. EBay price for the same router was around US$ 170 (half of Brazil's price).
[2] Perhaps the texture is to hide scratches, actually my 3-month-old white MacBook is so scratched that even the Customs said it didn't need to be registered in international travel, because "it is clearly worn". Less bureaucracy, but my ego was hurt :P
