Blog

Xtra-PC Review

I’ve been killing my old computers lately.

I have my primary laptop set up as a desktop in my office, with terabytes of solid state storage, maxed-out memory, extra monitors, external keyboards, wireless mouse, and hardwired broadband business internet service.  Lots of wires, cables, external USB drives.  Needless to say, it is simply not convenient to unhook all this junk to make this laptop portable.

My wife is always complaining that I spend so much time at my desk.  So I can actually get away from my desk, and casually “work” from my recliner while we watch TV together, I have had a parade of “old” laptops strapped to a tilt-top hospital table (I think I paid $20 for it) with bungee cords.  Add an external keyboard on my lap and a mouse on the TV tray next to my recliner, I have a pretty sweet setup that allows me to still do my ad approvals and post some ads while keeping my wife happy that I’m spending time with her.  Hey, it works.

Back to killing my old laptops.  I had an old but great-running Dell E6520.  One problem:  the power button broke.  I sometimes had to fiddle with it for 15 minutes or more to get it to power up.  My son-in-law is an EE (Electrical Engineer).  He fixed it once with some Gorilla Glue but that only lasted a couple weeks.  His latest prognosis was not promising.

I looked in my pile of e-trash waiting for the next electronics and hazmat recycling event and found an old Dell Inspiron 1720 running Vista.  It boots, but is painfully slow.  I get warning messages every time I open Google Chrome that Windows Vista is no longer supported,  the version of Chrome is not supported, and it no longer runs some of my essential programs like Roboform, Evernote, and Jitbit Autotext.  It is simply painful to do anything without these tools I absolutely cannot function without.

I viewed a pop-up ad with Click & Clean (another essential tool) for Xtra-PC.  They claim, “Speed Up Your Old Computer”.

Xtra-PC is a USB stick that , in my words, turns your old slow PC into a Netbook-like machine running Ubuntu Linux.  You boot from the USB drive, and it loads the Xtra-PC desktop.  Unlike many other Linux implementations, it is so easy to install and use, PLUS, you have access to the files on your hard drive.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a compromise.  Just about anything you can do with your Firefox or Chrome browser is likely to work,  but you cannot run Windows applications.  I use Chrome as my primary browser on all my machines.  My favorite Chrome extensions like Click & Clean, and Roboform Everywhere work fine.  Google applications like Sheets, Drive, and Docs work great, but I cannot run several of MY essential apps.

The two biggest issues I have found are Evernote and JitBit Autotext.  I absolutely cannot live without these two tools.

There is a web-based version of Evernote, but the interface is limited, and it is extremely slow when used on the cloud.  Evernote will synch with all other installations on my account automatically:  my PC’s, my Android tablet and smartphone.   I use Evernote to store ALL my ad copy.  I have literally THOUSANDS of “notes”.

I tried to use the Xtra-PC software installation utility, but it requires a SuperUser password.  I will be asking tech support if they can provide the password or suggest a work-around.

Drop-box also requires SuperUser to install.

The biggest disappointment is Jitbit Autotext.  There is no Linux version.  I found a similar tool that is installed as a Chrome Extension.  It is  supposed to provide somewhat the same functionality,  but it does not work.

My rating of Xtra-PC Pro Turbo 64 is about 3.5 of 5.

  • + It does turn your out-of-date PC that has unsupported Windows levels and software compatibility into a useful device to do web browsing and use strictly cloud-based apps.
  • + Set-up was quick and easy
  • + It is clearly faster than my old Windows Vista OS on the same machine.
  • + I can boot from the USB drive and still access my hard drives with File Manager
  • + I can use Google Sheets, Docs, and Drive (probably also the other Google productivity apps too)
  • – Linux apps are similar in functionality but may not be 100% compatible.
  • – You cannot use Windows applications
  • – No Linux versions of some software I used with Windows
  • + Price $79.95 for Xtra-PC Turbo 64 is still cheaper than upgrading to Windows 10.

Related Posts

Sovrn