Sylvania 7" G Netbook

CNET editors' review

• Reviewed by:
  Dan Ackerman
• Edited by:
  Matthew Elliott
• Reviewed on: 08/04/2008
• Updated on: 11/20/2009

Editors' note: We have revised the rating of this product to reflect the changing competitive Netbook landscape.

You may have seen this Netbook floating around as the Everex Cloudbook, but someone has licensed the name of lightbulb-maker Sylvania and put out a version as the Sylvania G Netbook. While we're all in favor of smaller, cheaper laptops, the Sylvania nonetheless lags behind the current crop of Netbooks. Its 7-inch screen pales in comparison to current 9- and 10-inch models, the VIA C7-M CPU is no match for Intel's Atom (or even Celeron M) chip, and the positively miniscule touch pad is nearly impossible to use. For $399, you can get a much more useful Netbook, such as Acer's 9-inch Aspire One or even an original 7-inch Asus Eee PC.

With only a 7-inch screen, the Sylvania G Netbook has a slightly smaller footprint than the 9-inch Asus Eee PC 901 and the 10-inch MSI Wind. Like the original 7-inch Eee PC, there's an awkward compromise required by having a 7-inch screen atop a chassis that makes room for a keyboard big enough to be even modestly useful--it means lots of dead space on either side of the display. On the Eee 701, speakers fill that space; on the Sylvania, a Webcam sit to the right of the screen with nothing along the left side.

We like the thin, lightweight design--some Netbooks have been getting suspiciously thick lately (we're looking at you, Asus). The system's biggest physical flaw, however, far outweighs any size benefits. The touch pad is by far the smallest we've ever seen, measuring a mere 0.8 inch diagonally, with tiny left and right mouse buttons on either side. With a touch pad this small, the sensitivity has to be jacked all the way up to get the cursor from one side of the screen to the other, and any kind of fine control (especially important on such a small screen) is virtually nonexistent.

Like recent systems from Acer and Asus, the Sylvania G Netbook uses a Linux-based operating system, instead of Windows XP. We generally prefer XP in our Netbooks, partially because it's familiar to most users, and also because it makes it much easier to install software and troubleshoot hardware and networking problems. The gOS version of Linux has a Mac-like dock on the bottom of the screen, with quick-launch icons for Firefox and various OpenOffice apps--the same software loadout we've seen on every Linux-powered Netbook. On its Web site FAQ section, Sylvania says, "We do not currently support installing Windows XP on the G Netbook, however we have tested it and it works."

The 7-inch wide-screen LCD display offers a 800x480 native resolution, which means many Web pages will be cut off and require both horizontal and vertical scrolling to read. The move to slightly larger screens is a big improvement for Netbooks, and we find a big difference in moving up to even a 9-inch model and a 1,024x600 resolution.

Two USB ports and an SD card reader are standard equipment for Netbooks, but we were surprised to see a DVI output on the Sylvania. A DVI-to-VGA dongle is included in the box as well.

In addition to a puny touch pad, the Sylvania G Netbook also has puny processor in the form of the 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU. It's the same one found in HP's 2133 Mini-Note, while every other recent Netbook we've seen uses Intel's Atom processor. The system wasn't able to run our usual suite of benchmark tests (which use Windows and Mac apps such as iTunes, Office, and Photoshop), but we had trouble even scrolling through the Sylvania's PDF user manuals without stuttering, although the light Linux OS itself felt reasonably fast (the HP 2133 had some trouble with Windows XP using the same CPU). For even basic use, the combination of slow performance and the tiny touch pad made the G Netbook a chore to use in general. We hear that VIA's upcoming Netbook CPU, called Nano, is much more promising, and we look forward to trying it out.

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