Cheap Notebooks, DIY Linux, Google’s Chrome OS and More…

I’m going to feel like a broken record when I say this, but I’m still working on revising our various methodologies, and thanks to other work creeping up on me, things have slowed down just a tad. The goal at the moment is to wrap up our GPU testing by the middle of next week, then jump right on wrapping up our CPU testing suite. As a reminder, I’m actively looking for ideas in that regard, so please check out our thread and comment if you have a great idea!

It pains me to have not delivered a piece of performance content in a while, given it’s what we thrive on, but we haven’t skipped a beat on other content, so there’s still lots to check out. In case you missed it, Brett took a hard look at what Google’s Chrome OS may become, and I agree with a lot of his thoughts. It’s really hard at this point in the game to know exactly what Google has in store, but it’s sure fun to speculate!

Just earlier this week, Bill took one of the wildest chassis’ I’ve ever seen for a spin, and his end thoughts are mixed. On one hand, it’s a neat-looking case, and it also has some unique cooling-abilities. On the other though, my idea of building up a PC never involves cutting myself on the case’s rough edges. Who’s with me?

If you want what I consider to be quite the deal, I posted a review of Gateway’s UC7807u notebook earlier this week. What makes it quite the deal is that it’s been discontinued, and as a result, what had a price tag of $800 two months ago now has a price tag of $600, and that, to me, is well worth it. The notebook has sweet styling, solid performance and other perks. For $600, it’s hard to go wrong.

Posted just today is a look at SUSE Studio, a service that allows you to build a distro your way. This article also happens to be our first in-depth Linux article in quite a while, but we plan to keep things going and conjuring up some cool content for anyone out there intrigued with Linux (and according to our site stats, about 8% of our readers already use some form of Linux). But that all aside, this is a cool service, and though it’s not live, it’s open for beta testers, so check it out!