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This dork will be.

And odds are, none of those dorks will ever pony up the cash and buy one.

Not for $400, that's for sure!

It's certain to be more capable than the OLPC though, and at the same price.

"It's certain to be more capable than the OLPC though, and at the same price."

The machines target two completely different end users and environments. They are not comparible to begin with so bringing up OLPC is really not relevant. You may have had a point if the discussion was about the Classmate but even then, it targets a different environment and end user than OLPC.

As for this dork; I'd be giving it more serious thought if I'd picked up an N800 a few months back. I really hope this trend of low consumption, small form factor, solid state machines continues though. It's nice to see hardware/software combinations coming from major vendors which consider the end user's best interests first rather than Redmond's profits.

To be honest, I'd probably throw a light version of XP on there. I presume there are others with the same plan, too.

If you put XP on yourself, remember ... make sure that you don't use NTFS for the filesystem of the flash "drives". I think that leaves you only with a choice of FAT32 ... even if that makes XP less secure.

You are also going to have to find drivers online for at least the wifi, the webcam and probably the ethernet interface. See if you can't ID the chipsets here by running Linux before you start down the road of installing XP, because it is difficult to do in Windows and be sure you have downloaded the correct driver ... especially if you can't get on to the web in the first place.

... all in all, probably be better to get the OEM to put XP on it for you.

You of course realise that after you put XP on it, you are going to have to fork out a lot of additional cash for applications to bring it up to the out-of-the-box level of functionality of the Linux variant?

For XP you will of course also need to be running a virus scanner, and the CPU is going to be a bit maxed before you get to even think about applications. It will of course require activation, and a pile of Windows updates and it will start phoning home on you.

Are you sure you would want to do all that? Honestly, where is the upside?

Edited 2007-11-06 14:10

Actually installing XP should be easy, Asus officially support Windows XP on the eee PC.

All the drivers are on Asus's site.

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&mode...)

Not that I'll be that it with mine though, I'd much rather install [X]Ubuntu.

To be honest, I'd probably throw a light version of XP on there. I presume there are others with the same plan, too.

I want one too, but why do you want to bjork the thing with a second rate inferior operating system. I know I have to use XP every day at work.

Though I have my doubts about the integrity of Xandros after entering the MS patent deal, it does seem like that they have but together a very nice, original and usable interface for the tiny system.

Anyway if I wanted to mess around with the OS, I would try e17 on Ubuntu.

Edited 2007-11-06 19:46

It's optimized for Xandros, which is sort of like Debian -3 years, or so.



If I had to be critical, a nice uniform KDE suite would be a hell of a lot more efficient and resource friendly, a nice side effect of those icky shared libraries and components that are often referred to as "bloat", that would really rock for similar form factor PC's.



You've just decimated the advantage of a low-powered small form-factor PC. Compiz has no place on an 800x600 screen. It calls for an optimized interface with full screen windows, something more akin to a smartphone/PDA than a typical desktop computer.

This is more about portable data access than a pocket Windows-killer, despite the way the press may try to spin it. I see it more as a PDA on steroids than a laptop-replacement. I don't see that as a bad thing...

Agreed. $200-$250 would have made it a killer. For $400 suddenly it becomes more of a gadget. You can find complete laptops for close to that price with loads of storage and a readable screen. I'm sure that will make a lot of people think twice.

I don't think it's targetting the same market as people settling for a sub-par Vista-basic $400 laptop.

Heck, many people smirked at the iPod when it was launched as being overpriced, and look what happened. It redefined a market because it presented a feature/value ratio that the industry had previously ignored.

It's a bold move, I have my doubts as to whether it will pay off, but I wish them well. It would be nice to see it take off and open a new market.

Edited 2007-11-06 04:24 UTC

I'm curious to know what the development of solid state technology will mean.

Edited 2007-11-06 18:46

Yes, it would be nice if it came out closer to the initial pricing. The HotHardware review said the following about the design:

Doesn't sound like they thought it was cheap.

I just had a image pop into my imagination. Imagine a meeting room table lined with suits and there giant Thinkpads. In walks the presenter, puts this little pearl white clamshell down at the end of the table beside the projector and off he goes.

It sounds like a nice clean little mobile that would work well for presentations. I'm not sure why your comment braught that to mind but so be it.

I was speaking of this review when quoting build quality:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3829

I agree about the 'Americans' comment but I don't think this falls into that bracket. Those idiots allow things like the 'iPhone' to propagate though.

But dind't Xandros make a deal about patens with MS?

About $30 more ... for the OS alone ... after heavy, heavy discounting by Microsoft of the cost to Asus.

Of course, not only will it cost more, but the Windows variant would come with considerably less software.



For a Windows UMPC with the equivalent software load, it would be far more than just 3x or 4x times the price.

The equivalent Windows software for UMPC alone would cost you 5x the price.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071105-game-changer-asus-eee...


Edited 2007-11-06 03:10

This does bring up the point about what happens if any company does succeed in shipping a large number of Linux machines before they even try shipping a Windows version.

Microsoft has always depended that computer manufacturers or sellers have Windows machines as the bread and butter of their sales. Thus they always must meet Microsoft conditions or license fees or see their OS costs increase.

If a manufacturer instead is already making it's main income from Linux machines, then Microsoft will have to cut some very sweet deals to compete against a free OS. Expect that if machines like this succeed then the Windows tax to the manufacturers will be slashed to the raw bone and then some.

Edited 2007-11-06 03:28

... which, of course, is the whole point of having free-market competition, instead of monopoly lock-in, in the first place.

It should succeed just as soon as consumers find out what a 20k-packages-Debian respository full of extra, free, no-malware software to install to your hearts content is like.

I had heard that there was an Ubuntu variant working for this machine also ... possibly Fluxbuntu or the still-to-be-released Ubuntu embedded.

MS is prohibited by the US anti-trust agreement from playing silly bugger with OEM license pricing based on VARs offering competitive products. They can utilize volume discounts, but they can't penalize VARs for not standardizing.

Where they play games is with the MDF (marketing development funds). These funds are generally made more readily available to vendors that "get with the program". That's the main reason you find a "xxx recommends Windows yyy" on the majority of vendor ads, even if they're advertising non-MS systems.

There's always a way around the system...

But again even that fails if the company is already successful selling Linux machines as it's main source of income, changing over to a Windows machine makes them a me-too manufactor. Just being offer marketing discounts is not enough, they need enough money to get themselves noticed in a sea of other Windows companies.

That means Microsoft needs to pay them big bucks to do the change-over.

Microsoft have caused these problems themselves. When you buy a notebook for running Windows you're either stuck with the old malware-prone XP or the very slow and unstable Vista.

At many places for home and business use I've already given the various computers a second life using Linux and the people that use these systems come by just fine with the occasional minor annoyance but nothing like Windows horror stories.

What I've seen over the last few days of totally broken Windows XP installs where even USB/PS2 keyboards just stop working, so it has to be reinstalled from scratch, is just beyond what I consider an acceptable user experience and considering the uptake of Linux and Apple systems many people agree.

What can be taken away from the possible success of this kind of product is that Linux matters very much but the processor architecture will not going forward, i.e. you can run your Linux OS on x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC etc. and not have to think about this fact at all because of the mostly seamless support on all of the aforementioned ones.

It tells me
1.) People don't know about alternatives
2.) People don't care about alternatives
3.) The alternatives are outside their comfort zone
4.) They think that's the way computers are SUPPOSED to be

5.) People tested the alternatives and found that they didn't meet their needs.

I'm a Linux user and the simple truth is that XP isn't that bad.

Shocking thought I know.

I'm a Linux user and the simple truth is that XP isn't that bad.

Shocking thought I know.

I'm a Linux and XP user and the simple truth is that XP isn't that good. I hear Vista is worse.

Do you have any telepathic gifts? I've seen the systems in a totally unusable state that I've never managed to get Windows XP into myself. I've never said that people couldn't be happily running Windows XP, but there are surely many people that aren't all that happy about it either.



I find it preposterous to claim that I'm incompetent, when I didn't install the systems to begin with. I got them in this state and was asked to fix them, for pay of course. Also I'm only one person and don't suffer from a multiple personality disorder so who is "you guys" actually?

I've reinstalled Windows XP on them with many open source applications that I'd also install on Linux, Mac OS X or Solaris, with the hope that they don't become as easily infected as when I just left the MS crap as the defaults.

You can stick your head in the sand but it's a reality today that in spite of the vast improvements in the stability of Windows (with the exception of Vista) since 95 was released it's still far easier to break than a Linux system, particularly Slackware based.

Isn't funny and ironic that the people that complain most about Windows are the ones who either do not use it or simply do not like the OS in the first place?

I've run every version of Windows from 95 to Vista at very high load and seen improvements over the years but also not the kind of stability and resilience (a.o to malware and rogue processes) that you get with UNIX based systems.

For those who really want Windows XP I'll install it to be as fast and stable and locked down etc. as possible but in the end it still appears not to be enough.

A large part is probably that most people (have to) run as root because otherwise their applications or peripherals don't function correctly.

As it is (or perhaps with the arrival of Vista, was?) using Windows under a limited user account is too annoying and frustrating because too many things don't work, so people take the easy route and just run as administrator.

Primarily Microsoft because of their lack of application permission enforcement early on and secondarily ISVs because of their neglect to code to Microsoft's guidelines are to blame for this situation. It's not something end users can do a lot about.

What UNIX brings to the table is a much stricter permission scheme that was imposed from the get go, starting with CTSS and Multics.

Windows has the same kind of enforcement with NT permissions but it's not as integrated within the NT kernel, more of an add-on. Please correct me if I'm wrong with this and provide links to authoritative information.

What I really want to know is how many of those who say Windows is such a wonderful operating system and in a certain sense the third coming, have ever run another OS, that is either UNIX, VMS or MVS based or even something entirely different.

No, it is not.

It is us techs and nerds who tend to use the non-windows systems but have to maintain Windows as part of our jobs that are doing the complaining.

Most machines I have bought in my life have been non-windows from day one. The laptops I have bought did come with Windows, the hard drives were replaced within minutes BeOS, Haiku or Linux. There is a reason I did that.

0.92 kg. 15W. Full software suite. 15-30 seconds boot. $399. No viruses.

"You can't do that with Vista".

0.92 kg. 15W. Full software suite. 15-30 seconds boot. $399. No viruses.

"You can't do that with Vista". "

You could barely do that with MS-DOS.

AFAIK it is possible to replace the whole OS with another distribution (or even with Windows for that matter).

It is more-or-less a generic PC, architecture-wise.

I'd be very, very surprised if it didn't have links to Debian repositories already set up for you.

If it doesn't, then just add some. There will doubtless be a lot of places springing up on the Internet offering "get your free eeePC software here".

The Add/Remove Software applet only connects to the Asus repos, and does not have a lot of software available.

However, with a little work, you can get Konsole to open (use Open With from the file manager), and then you have access to anything you can get via apt-get.

It's Xandros-based, which means it's Debian-based, but it will be touch-and-go with the latest packages. Give it time, and the community will throw up specialized repos.

it doesn't run debian, it runs the debian based as proprietary as possible xandros

So put Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) on it instead, then:

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10006278o-2000331777...
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10006284o-2000331777...

There is certainly no shortage of software for Ubuntu.

The short answer: YES you can install other apps.

The long answer:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/11/02/up-close-with-the-eee-pc-pa...
http://forum.eeeuser.com/
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:icewmstartmenu

Edited 2007-11-06 11:16

They weren't lying. Prices of some components changed, particularly the flash memory and the screen.

A very similar thing happened to the OPLC, which had an initial price estimate of $100 per unit and has ended up costing twice that per unit to produce ... non-profit.

If you don't want one, then don't get one ... but you shouldn't let the initial optimistic price target put you off ... if the company could have made them for that initial target price, it would have.

If you are realistic about making a decision on one of these, ask yourself the following questions:
(a) do I actually want a UMPC?
(b) can I get any other one as capable as this one, with all software pre-installed for me, for anywhere near the price?

Edited 2007-11-06 10:49

No we aren't. Not double.

http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18882&comment_id=283100

$299 is not double $200. It is a 50% increase over original optimistic estimates.

well, yes, i do want an umpc, can i get one comparable cheaper? maybe not, but that doesent mean they should be directly putting out fake announcements of golden cheap prices.

And if it'll boot off an external USB drive then the 2G version will good enough for many folks.

Use the internal drive with the original Linux OS for normal stuff and then have a 8G thumb drive for whatever "full-featured" OS you like.

Heck, put a custom server distro on it and turn it into a wireless access point with NAS using a 3.5" USB drive enclosure.

There is a good argument to say that "Windows Vista Basic" is not a feature.

I do have a way around that deficiency for this laptop, though.

Since this laptop uses Intel GMA, which has an open-source 3D graphics driver, and it has an HP printer, which has Linux drivers (hplip), then I would consider buying this unit, keeping the Vista license sticker, wiping the hard drive and installing Ubuntu, and then downloading libdvdcss, Microsoft core fonts and any other fonts and codecs from Microsoft that Ubuntu can use. Windows drivers shouldn't be necessary for this laptop.

The Vista sticker I would keep in case anyone questions my use of Microsoft's fonts and codecs under Ubuntu on this laptop. Since I paid for Vista, and I have the sticker to proove it, I clearly have a license to use any Microsoft-patented technology in Vista.

Edited 2007-11-07 00:00

May I ask who would care about your use of fonts and codecs? I mean who in the world would bother you about that?

Only people posting on sites such as OSNews where they like to claim such things as "using Microsoft codecs is illegal on Linux" ... even though Microsoft offer said codecs and fonts for free download or as part of the base OS install.

To such claims you can then simply reply: "I couldn't buy a PC without Vista basic pre-installed, so because of that I have paid for a Microsoft license for this machine, even though there is no Microsoft OS left on the machine now ... neener neener".

See? The monopoly tax is good for something, at least. At last!

You're right, I can also find regular notebooks with 14 or 15" screens that sell for $500 to $600 ( with better specs ) than the Eee PC.

Many people want something that is real compact, easy to carry around & lightweight. This is what makes the Eee PC the next cool thing to own.

No one else offers a subnotebook for this price. Subnotebooks tend to sell for lots more money. And yes, they do have better specs, but people want a low cost, sub-notebook and the Eee PC is the only one selling right now ( VIA has the NanoBook but it doesn't look as good - so, no real competitor ).

Sub-notebooks tend to have a screen size of 8 to 11" or close to that ( smaller & lighter than regular notebooks ).

Well one of the nice things about the Asus Eee PC is of course the fact that in opposite to other smaller devices it's a "real" computer ;-). That means that people can run all linux-x86 binaries that work on their desktop PC or on their larger notebook. Also you can just plug in a larger USB keyboard, a USB-mouse, maybe an external 2.5"-USB-harddisk and a large LCD monitor and there won't be much of a difference compared to any other "real" PC (except for lower performance). Try to do that with any other "smaller" device :-)

Any computer can run linux look at the playstation 2. This isn't a selling point the other thing makes your small light computer into a desk top when you think for what you need to equal to notebooks that was sold 4 years ago. This thing isn't that small.

Any computer can run linux look at the playstation 2. This isn't a selling point the other thing makes your small light computer into a desk top when you think for what you need to equal to notebooks that was sold 4 years ago. This thing isn't that small.