MV Mobeus Laptop
Review / Personal Opinion

The MV Mobeus laptop is a relatively new brand but is now supplied in the UK by RockDirect who are well-established (and their customers seem to like them). Click on the photo to see more pictures.

What the specifications don't tell you:

• The MV Mobeus seems to be a rebadged Uniwill 223ii0
• The hard disk is a Fujitsu MHT2060AH or similar
• The DVD writer is a NEC ND-6500A (DVD+/-RW, dual layer)
• Battery is Panasonic 10.8V 4000mAh, PSU is 20V 3.25A
• Supplied CDs: XP-Home-SP2 recovery CD, MS Works 8, Roxio 7 (Basic VCD), PowerCinema, Driver Disk

Pros:

• Small yet high-resolution screen: 12 inches widescreen 1280x800 (Superbright, X-Black, or similar name)
• Long-life battery for such a small case, and you can extend the battery life by pressing the special power button - this slows down the CPU (in Windows and in Linux). It also makes the computer cooler and so the fan rarely used or quieter.
• 3 year warranty, although the last 2 are labour only not parts
• Special power button to boot a minimal Linux partition containing PowerCinema - ideal for watching DVDs whilst preserving battery life
• Ports include firewire, S-video, monitor, ethernet, modem, memory-card, PC-card, which is pretty good for such a small case
• The support helpline is very response and helpful

Cons:

• No infra-red or bluetooth built-in (connecting a mobile phone must be a common requirement, surely?) although there's a slot underneath where a USB bluetooth adaptor could be attached.
• No serial or parallel ports (yes, some people still have GPS units with serial ports, or printers with parallel ports)
• No PS/2 port for external keyboard (handy when laptop is in office)
• Only two USB ports (although there's a third one hidden beneath a cover!)

Other observations:

• The screen is reflective and a nice dark black. Decent high resolution and very sharp. Not too fast, but you won't be playing very demanding games on this laptop anyway.
• The keyboard as a whole seems to flex when pressed but this might actually make it more comfortable to use.
• It's not a Rock Hardbook, ie. you can't stand on the lid!!

Replacing the battery

If you need a new battery try searching for batteries which fit a Uniwill 223ii0 (battery suppliers do not know the names MV or Mobeus). For example battery4laptop sell them cheaper than MV/Rock.

Linux on the MV Mobeus

How do you get Linux onto the Mobeus and will it work?

Mandrake 10.2 (2005) works out of the box - it's very easy to install and has drivers for everything. The screen size 1280 x 800 is supported, the wireless simply works with no fiddling, memory card reader, audio, even scrolling using edges of the trackpad... although some things I probably haven't tried yet.

The Mobeus came with these partitions:

1. Rescue partition (FAT)
2. Windows partition (NTFS, most of the hard disk)
3. Filler partition (NTFS, 8MB)
4. PowerCinema partition (Linux, 500 MB)

I resized the Windows partition smaller and added the space to the filler partition, formatted that as ext3 and installed Linux to it. Then I installed the boot loader Lilo into the same partition.

You can resize partitions using Partition Magic but I used the free Paragon Partition Manager which came on a magazine CD. On Linux you can use parted or QtPartEd.

Here's a tip: find the HP Utility for formatting USB flash memory sticks, use it to format an SD card, grab the free fdisk program, and you can boot off your SD card to fiddle with partitions. Handy for saving MBRs, or setting partitions active.

Dual-booting:

I haven't yet found out how to dual-boot from the hard disk, the best solution I can achieve is booting Windows/Powercinema as normal from the hard disk and booting Linux (also on the hard disk) from an SD card.

1. Resize the partitions to give more space to the third
2. Install linux to the third partition (Mandrake 10.2 works fine)
3. Install the grub boot loader into that partition (not to the MBR)
4. Insert a small SD card and install grub onto it (details below)
5. When you want to use Linux insert the SD card and reboot.
6. Unfortunately the SD-based grub loader still fails to boot Windows (not a problem, but curious anyway).

Details below:

1. By default the computer seems to boot the rescue partition, it gives you 1 second to press F10 and then boots Windows. This behaviour is built into the MBR (Master Boot Record) - the first thing on the hard disk.
2. Since my boot loader is in the Linux partition I set that one active, set Windows inactive and rebooted. But it booted as normal: rescue/Windows. What's more, the Windows partition had now been set active.
3. I copied the MBR for safety and replaced it with the standard MBR, set Linux active again, rebooted and got Lilo this time, hooray. But using Lilo to boot Windows failed (the computer hung part-way through starting Windows).
4. Another part of the puzzle: the P button boots PowerCinema which is in the 4th partition. Presumably a custom BIOS is at work here.
5. Anyone know how to fix this to get Windows (or Rescue) and Linux in the same bootloader?
6. One way might be to edit the Grub bootloader in the PowerCinema partition. Press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to get a console after it has booted. But then you'll need to power on using the P button.
7. Another way: edit the Windows bootloader. This doesn't seem to work - the Windows bootloader is ignored. Details follow: Download Bootpart from winimage.com/bootpart.htm, or simply follow the instructions.
   1. Install your Linux bootloader (lilo) to the first sector of your linux partition (not to the MBR or the first sector of your hard drive)
   2. Use bootpart 3 LBA bootpart.lnx Linux, or follow the next steps:
   3. Take a copy of this first sector, for example: dd if=/dev/hda3 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
   4. Copy bootsect.lnx, via floppy, to your Windows C:\ drive
   5. Append this line to C:\boot.ini C:\bootsect.lnx="Linux"
   6. You will need to do this again if you re-run lilo (for example adding a new Linux kernel)
   7. Unfortunately it seems that the Windows boot loader is ignored :-(
8. Reminder: partimage is useful for backing up and restoring partitions
9. Reminder: booting "rescue" from Linux install CD doesn't mount USB drives so simply modprobe usbcore, usb-storage, usb-uhci [See Booting Linux off of a USB drive]
10. To make a grub boot SD card (using GRUB boot floppy docs):

    	# Mount Linux partition from hard disk
    	mkdir /mnt/hda3; mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3;
    	# Format SD card and mount it
    	/mnt/hda3/sbin/mke2fs /dev/sda; mkdir /mnt/sda; mount /dev/sda /mnt/sda;
    	# Copy GRUB files to SD card
    	mkdir -p /mnt/sda/boot/grub; cp /mnt/hda3/boot/grub/stage[12] /mnt/sda/boot/grub;
    	cp /mnt/hda3/boot/message /mnt/sda/boot;
    	cp /mnt/hda3/boot/grub/{menu.lst,device.map} /mnt/sda/boot/grub;
    	grub
    		device (fd0) /dev/sda
    		root (fd0)
    		setup (fd0)
    		quit
    

    You may also want to make a copy of your MBR on this SD card. See also Linux Recovery and Book Disk tutorials.

Conclusion

The Pros outweigh the Cons for me - the small size with high-res screen, long battery life, PowerCinema button, ...

Links

• MV
• Rock Direct
• Mobile Support for drivers
• Rock Forum
• HP Utility to make USB flash drives bootable
• PowerCinema Linux (the only CyberLink page which seems to admit that they have such a product!)
• PowerCinema Linux source code (Warning: large zip file!)
• Clevo (drivers??)
• Uniwill 223II0 (seems that the Mobeus is this product)
• Uniwill 223II0 downloads (BIOS and drivers)
• Uniwill forums (see Linux and 223II0 forums)

Contact

Mail me

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