“The Asus Eee PC challenges many conventional assumptions about mobile computing. The daring, diminutive device combines a svelte subnotebook form factor with a unique Linux software platform and a budget-friendly price – factors that could make this unprecedented product a mainstream marvel. Last week, my colleague Jon described the Eee PC as game-changing: a characterization that we will put to the test in this review.”
get a pda for portabity or notebook for power, over price at 399.99 CAD and for what? 7 inch screen, no build in cd/dvd drive, and 4 GB of space so I run linux. I don’t think so.
True, I got a used Dell D600 Laptop with a 2Ghz Centrino, 512 RAM, 14 inch screen, CD-RW/DVD drive, and a Radeon R250 for far less money than the Eee PC. No powerhouse, but it runs most games.
If you have a $400 budget for a laptop it seems like your money might be better spent going used.
Edited 2007-11-14 21:42
So, it’s 4 times the weight, way bulkier to carry around, has a spinning hard drive (far less shock resistant), and probably far shorter battery life.
For your main laptop, sure, get a normal one, it will do more things, but it’s not an effortlessly portable device. It’s big and heavy and hot in comparison to the EeePC.
Exactly. This thing was never meant to be your main or only PC. It serves the same function as the bigger Sharp Linux PDAs but with a better screen and keyboard at half the price and no language conversion needed. I for one love the idea of this kind of technology.
A comparable PDA, if it even exists, would be vastly more expensive and have an even worse keyboard.
Lightweight laptops are much more expensive than this as well, albeit more powerful.
This gives a nice compromise at a pretty reasonable price. And the proof of it’s quality can be seen by the fact that it’s selling out everywhere. I’ve already seen it on eBay, selling for about 20% more than it retails for!
Seriously now, what competition is there at that price? OLPC or a low-end PDA?
Clearly you have no idea what the intended market for this is.
This isn’t a traditional laptop replacement. It’s for people that need more than a PDA, but something smaller than a laptop.
I for one would have loved this when I traveled a lot, because this plus a 2.5″-based USB hard drive would have lightened my load tremendously while still allowing me to do everything I need it to do (Office-type stuff, router configuration, web, etc.)
Great device! I am typing this comment on my Eee pc right now. The review is about spot on. I would prefer at larger keyboard and a higher resolution screen.
One thing about the keyboard which is actually more of a pain then the size, some of the keys are different widths. The letter and number key are all the same size but the keys that have the colon and question marks different. Additionally, the comma key and period keys are different sizes, which is kind of weird when typing.
With that said, this is probably one of the best laptops I have used. I pretty well matches my needs. The 900 mHz processor is plenty quick, and the interface is fairly well optimized for the small screen.
I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a small and light mobile system. It won’t disappoint.
-Mike
Can’t wait till ncix has these in stock again.. I think it’s an amazing device. It’s a full laptop. You can’t compare it to a PDA at all. I can easily see myself doing some light development work on this laptop. You could never do that on a PDA. The only thing that comes close is the Nokia n810, and it’s more expensive.
The closest alternatives are ultraportable laptops, and those are generally over $1500. Sure they’re faster with better screens, but that is a hell of a lot to pay for such a small device which won’t replace your main computer.
The size of this thing blows away any normal sized laptop and yet it can (potentially) run any standard application that doesn’t need huge gobs of processing power.
The screen size and software availability for the Eee (remember it can run XP too) is heads and shoulders above any PDA out there.
Yeah, it totally stinks that they didn’t manage to keep to the unreasonably optimistic 200USD estimate but for those who believe that small is beautiful the Eee is still a good value.
I guess the bet is whether the UMPC form factor is going to become a big thing, aimed at and priced for consumers rather than well-heeled executives. If it does, then other manufacturers will pile in with offerings of their own, third-parties will ramp up accessories and specially tailored spins of Ubuntu et al will appear to run on the gear. This sounds a lovely machine but personally I’m not a fan of Asus whose usual territory is at the upper end of the market with a price to match and, often, some glossy bling thrown in. Some decent competition from the Dells and HPs would be nice. They are likely to offer some solid support whereas Asus are much more likely to ditch the whole shebang without a moment’s warning, as do all the other Taiwanese outfits. Me, I’m waiting on this kind of UMPC taking off and then I’ll go for a Dell, HP or whatever.
What I don’t understand is why Palm dumped the Foleo saying: “there is no market for it…” and Asus says: “let’s make money with this…”.
As far as I can see both sizes, computing power and os are quite similar.
Or did I understand something wrong?
It has been speculated that the EEE was a major contributor to the death of the Foleo.
The EEE was announced quite soon after the Foleo, with more capability and a lower price.
The Foleo was an interesting idea and it promised to do some things better than the EeePC, however there were many differences:
– ARM CPU instead of a standard x86. Because of this:
* Tough to port apps
* Poor performance (compared to the EeePC)
* No Flash, no youtube. (A lot of people care about this, it seems.)
* Not necessarily a good Java port
* Couldn’t run Windows (Again, a lot of people care about this.)
– It was priced at $599, not $399 with price drops likely in a few months
– It was an extremely tailored system, so less flexibility but a potentially slicker UI
– It was based on a 2.4 kernel
– I don’t recall it having USB ports
From an application point of view, things would have to be ported to the Foleo, compared to the EeePC, which is just a PC. No OOo, Skype would be tough, getting developers signed on would be a challenge. The EeePC dodges all of these potential pitfalls by being nothing more than a small, relatively cheap laptop. This was NOT what the Foleo would have been.
Also, Palm went out of their way to try to define the Foleo as something other than a laptop, which was asinine, because that’s what it was. With the EeePC, Asus is letting everyone else decide what it is and isn’t.
For me, the EeePC has replaced my MacBook as my primary portable computer, the higher-end MacBook stays safely at home plugged into a big external monitor for when I do development/serious work, I take the EeePC with me most places and my Nokia N800, which is also a more ambitious project than the EeePC, sits largely unused. (Which is a bit sad, as it’s a very cool device.)
Exactly. This is the future. I was interested in the Nokia N800/810, because it’s almost a standard Linux box (normal X instead of framebuffer, etc). But it’s still too specialized to really take off. If I had one, I would be constantly wanting to run my desktop apps on it. Now I’ve got an EeePC on order (black!) and I no longer really care about the nokia. Standard platforms are the way to go.
A few corrections…
From this page:
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13139
The Foleo did have USB ports, but was significantly larger than the EeePC is. The screen res was also higher.
Foleo:EeePC
1024×600:800×480
2.5lbs:2lbs
cancelled:shipping
The Foleo was marketed as a companion device to your mobile phone, which was a bit odd. It would make much more sense as a stand-alone PDA or ultra-light laptop.
But what I think mostly killed it was the higher price.
IIRC, most comments were along the line of “if it was half the price, I might consider it”, which was also my feeling.
As for choosing an ARM processor, I don’t think that was significant, except that they should have chosen a faster ARM variant (there are lot of ARM processors faster than the 416 MHz PXA27x used in the Foleo). Not being able to play decent video is a serious mistake.
“When running, the Eee generates very little fan noise…”
um, that would be because there isn’t one?
Correct me if I’m wrong but there are no fans at all in the eee. The cpu has only a heatsink which is why the case gets a little warm, and the HD is solid state so no spinning HD noise there either…
I gotta see these when they arrive in Aus. Very interested to see what the price will be over here…
Yes it has a fan.
This thing would be great as a thin client device.
Since it’s already linux based, it will be able to run all the remote X applications
Couple with the wireless link and a thin client software such as ThinServer XP and you can remotely run all your windows apps from home !
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm
ThinServer sounds interesting, but the only “screenshot” available shows Windows Update, Task Manager with a couple of other users logged in (could be done through fast user switching for all we can tell) and an “About” dialog that clearly has the default form icon from VB6.
This kinda raises some doubt as to the capability of the application…
How about showing some screenshots of client? Or the configuration panels?
Err actually the screenshot is to show that ThinServer does support the latest MS updates
I’ve been using their software for a while, works great
There’s even a download page for the demo version. come on try it out, don’t be lazy
As long Eee PC can run rdesktop, it will be able to connect to ThinServer server
The UMPC Market is very niche and i don’t think it’s ever going to get anywhere, it’s too expensive and the devices are quite heavy. The EeePC though has an excellent future, there is a need for a device which fits in between the pda and notebook arena. Smartphone such as most of the HTC device have been trying to get into this arena, however i believe that the EeePC is the way forward in this area. Also if it does take off then hopefully it could be manufactured cheaper in the future.
Now I just need to decide between this and the Nokia N810. The Nokia seems a bit more portable, but the EeePC seems a bit more versatile since it can run regular desktop versions of Linux out of the box. Not to mention Acesses release of GarnetVM is a big boon for the N810 for an old Palm user like my self, though not a big deal since neither will replace my Treo, just the MacBook.
I’ll be getting one of these as soon as they hit europe. I’ve been looking for an affordable, small laptop that I can lug around and use for some light text editing (taking notes etc.), web browsing and a bit of music. This is perfect, plus it’s cheaper and smaller than any second hand laptop I’ve come across. The screen resolution and keyboard do seem a bit worrying, but that’s far from being a deal-breaker considering the rest of the package. Linux pre-installed just sweetens the deal.
Bye-bye macbook (that was what I was looking for, the closest match to my requirements), hello eee pc!