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With that and a quiet laptop hard drive and fanless power supply, it's finally truly possible to build a completely silent (from 3 feet or so) small form-factor machine that doesn't perform like 5-year-old hardware.

In theory, theory is the same as practice. Ironically enough, however:
Noise emanating from E35M1-I motherboard when the CPU cycles between C0/C1 states

Several others have reported this issue on this motherboard and on certain ASUS laptops. FAIL. In a quiet room, the whiny squeal can be heard several meters away and emanates from underneath the large heatsink. The sound in question is actually more annoying than a fan, which seems further ironic.

Oh, and don't neglect to notice that there is extremely poor Linux support for the onboard thermal sensors, and the situation will likely never improve because ASUS is actively blocking this:
Linux drivers for motherboard sensors?

One might imagine that functional support for environmental sensors (ie. CPU and motherboard temps) might be important for a system that is being run passively.

Maybe I'm colour blind, but the ASUS Transformer sitting on my desk looks decidedly brown. And has a keyboard and touchpad attached.

I have one on my desk, too. However, Transformer is brown only when viewed from the back; I (and GP) were only talking about the front side; quote:

Besides, just look at the Galaxy Tab from the front. It looks almost exactly like an iPad.

From the front, Transformer is also black, with the entire front panel covered by glass. Just like Galaxy Tab, or iPad.

As for Transformer keyboard/trackpad dock - it is a separate, detachable accessory, not part of the tablet itself (indeed, there are remotely similar ones for iPad also, though nothing as convenient).

Back with the original Xbox, its (relative) small form factor and power for the time made it a great media center that's true, and I'm glad this gave us XMBC.

However nowadays you get video hardware acceleration chips, low-power dual core CPUs and all you need to run a media center for less than $200, in a case much smaller than an Xbox (even the new, slim one), much less power consumption and much less noise. I'm running XMBC on Ubuntu Server using an Asus S1-AT5NM10E (the mouthful) witch tops at 2% CPU when displaying a 1080p/DTS movie.

I don't see why anyone would want to run XBMC on an Xbox in this day and age.

You have to wonder how good the cooling system is on that thing...

I'd be concerned about this as well. Look at the cooling on one of the big bulky Asus gaming laptops: http://usa.asus.com/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G73Jh/

I've spent the past few years using a workstation Thinkpad (T61p) as a gaming machine -- they're simply not designed for that purpose like that Asus is. With a small external cooling stand in an air conditioned room, playing WoW for half an hour has clocked my video card (Quadro FX750M -- basically a GF8600M GT) at 97 C. That being said, the Blade appears to have about as much ventilation as my T61p. However, given the positioning of the vents, it IS possible that there are two fans like in the G73.

that device has been on the market for decades in various iterations and been a spectacular failure to consumers.

Not really, no. For starters, most "tablet PCs" didn't have detachable keyboard - you could fold them so as to hide it, but it was still there, adding to the bulk and the weight. That's major flaw number one.

The major flaw number two is non-touch-centric UI in Windows. Sure, you could work in touchscreen mode - but you needed a stylus for any reasonable efficiency (because everything is so damn small!), and even then it's a chore.

GP is right - what we need is not a pure tablet, but something that can work as a tablet (and run software optimized for that mode), but which can also be quickly converted to a laptop by docking it to keyboard, and (the important part!) let you run common desktop software when thus converted. Hardware-wise we've already seen that this is quite possible, in Asus Transformer. The problem with Transformer is that it doesn't offer as much as it could in docked mode - you still run Android, and most Android apps still don't acknowledge the possibility of a full-fledged hardware keyboard or a touchpad (controlling an honest to god mouse cursor). At best you can tab around widgets, and use arrows and Shift to edit/select text - much like iPad with a keyboard dock (though Transformer's dock is much, much more convenient - I tried both). You can run Ubuntu in chroot, but you still need to connect to it via VNC, and no existing VNC client for Android works well with the touchpad.

Win8 will have something interesting to offer there - if you've seen the demos, it does offer WP7-style touch-centric UI, both for stock and for third-party apps; but you can also fall back to the traditional Win7-style desktop, and run software like Office there. If someone (Asus? Lenovo?) makes a device like Transformer that runs Win8, and automatically switches to classic desktop when it's docked, and to Metro touch UI when it's undocked, it could easily be a killer feature.

Where can I download the source to Android 3, 3.1, or 3.2?

From vendors.

You can get the Asus Transformer versions here: http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/#download

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Eee+Pad+Transformer+TF101&p=20&s=16

Google hasn't released what they've considered "official" sources for Honeycomb, but lots of the code shipping on tablets, etc is out there.

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Eee+Pad+Transformer+TF101&p=20&s=16

Here's the Honeycomb branch of the Xoom kernel: http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=kernel/tegra.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/android-tegra-2.6.36-honeycomb-mr1

and so on. Yea, it's not open source in the bazaar-style development model, but Google puts the sources out in reasonable timeframes.

No problem at all!

I have this thing and it's amazing. I get about 24 hours out of it (with the keyboard dock) from full charge to nothing (made it through a 3-day weekend with medium use).

No problem at all!

Tablets would be nice if you could attach a keyboard and mouse and had some sort of stand to place them vertically.

You mean, like this?

Re-read the GPP, he wanted to ATTACH a KEYBOARD, and MOUSE/MOUSEPAD.

a Better link would be:

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/

Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it ... Give me HDMI out and a real USB port... I'll plug in a seperate monitor, mouse, and keyboard when I need to do my homework.

For the most part, what you've described is Asus Transformer. The only exception is that you can't easily install Ubuntu in dual-boot on it today. You can install Ubuntu in chroot under Android and VNC into it, but it's not particularly fast (though it does let you run OpenOffice when you really need it).

That said, as soon as we get nvflash, we should be able to do full dual-boot on that thing.

You put away your toys and use a keyboard and a mouse like any sane person would do.

Or you make a tablet that has thoseo when and if needed. Imagine that thing running Win8.

Ah, ok - well then I stand by my point ;)

http://iomega.com/iomegatv-media-center/
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/WDTV/
http://usa.asus.com/Multimedia/Digital_Media_Player/OPlay_HD2/
http://delive.netgear.com/
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318 ...and I could probably add about 10 more links to similar products. I suppose a few of these aren't shipping yet, but many of these feature premium streaming services on their own or through a partnership with Boxee, so Roku will be joining them in the commodity streaming player wars in a matter of months...

This will wake up just as fast, is more extensible (at least unless you root the Chromebook), has an IPS screen, is 20% lighter, and has battery life twice as long. And it's cheaper.

How about "let's make a device with hardware better than in iPad 2, but price it like the old iPad" (Asus)?

Yes, this is selling right now. Or, rather, completely sold out right now because they underestimated the demand.

so far there's nothing that's even remotely tempting me.

Did you see this?

I think it'll be the Asus Transformer, with its keyboard/trackpad dock, that will truly kill netbooks. Sure, it's still somewhat pricey ($399 for tablet, and then the extra $140 if you want the dock), but you get 16hrs of battery power on that thing, and you can actually use it as a tablet, too - whichever factor makes more sense for any given activity.

For geeks willing to root and hack things, it's even more awesome - since you can run pretty much any Linux distro within Android (in a chroot jail), and given something with a proper keyboard, you get a device that has lightweight mobile-optimized UI and great battery life, but with the full power of a desktop Linux at your fingertips at any desired moment (think OpenOffice, TeX, the entire development chain... heck, you could run Eclipse and develop right on the device).

The Asus transformer android tablet within the first week sold out in most places in the USA. I think the issue is Android tablets have just now really started to have big name backing so comparing an android tablet to a second gen iPAD is a weak argument. Come back and look at the tablet market in February next year when quad core tablets hit the shelves running android 3.2 and the iPAD is still using the same A5 cpu.

I admit i could have clearer but you completely misunderstood i was trying to say.

Few would pay 1000 dollars for an ipad. And he says that even though "people"/a few tech reviewers getting it for free anyway though it could be worth 1000 yet it was priced lower so its an OK price. Then he goes on to consider it expensive but still worth it at the current price, therefore if some people considered it not worth it it's just expensive.

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/#overview
This is better at a better price and ultimately more useful if you add the keybord.

Asus has released the Honeycomb source.

How does Honeycomb get released on a Motorola Xoom if it's not released yet? If it is released, where is the source code?

It's been explained to you in the previous post, Google have already said they "took a shortcut" to get Honeycomb ready for tablets, the source code is simply not ready for general release, the Micro SD card slot in the Xoom doesn't even yet work because of this.

If looking at Honeycomb code is going to stop you from trolling further, then please head over to the Asus website, where they have already released the Kernel source for the EEE Pad, a Honeycomb device similar to the Xoom.

May I suggest an asus eee pad transformer http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=gHh4q7I8dvWJzhdV? It has a detachable keyboard and extra stuff like USB ports and SD card slots. It isn't really moddable to a large degree though.

Tablets are potentially a great portable gaming device. They won't replace PC's anytime soon for many practical reasons but that doesn't mean that a tablet can't be a great portable gaming device. For instance, The Asus EEE EP121 http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=QhWKR7Fmv4jDLbBY This is a pretty powerful tablet. Heavier than the Ipad or Ipad 2 but incredibly potent. If they come out with a variant that includes a sandy bridge processor, then we are getting into a realm where gaming on a tablet is very real. Gabe Newell of Valve/Steam referred to Sandy Bridge as a processor that makes a console experience possible on a PC or Mac. This is what they should focus on. A tablet that runs the same OS as the main system. Capable graphics that can run new generation games at scaled back settings. This way you could for instance have steam on your tablet and your PC. Play the same game on either, just with a different quality experience but portable.

http://event.asus.com/2011/mb/AM3_PLUS_Ready/

You mean, the ASUS display has larger pixels making it look more blocky. I'll take a smaller display of the same resolution *any* day.

Blocky? Seriously? Even on my 18.4" laptop 1920x1080 looks razor sharp. In fact, the pixels are sometimes too small when working on images. On my 42" HDTV 1920x1080 still looks great.

Aka, lacking 120 vertical pixels that the MacBook Pro has.

AKA no black bars in films and a significantly higher FOV in games without vertical image stretching. I'll take a real widescreen aspect over a sort-of widescreen.

Only when running in 3D gimmick mode.

There is no such thing as "3D mode". The 3D effect works by rapidly alternating frames in sync with the glasses. The refresh rate can be set to anything the display supports at any time. This means a maximum 60fps for 3D films or games and 120fps maximum for 2D films or games.

1.8"

I was wrong about the dimensions. They're actually smaller than I thought at 16.3"x12.6"x0.74".

5lbs

6.6lbs

Reviews show that mostly idle the MBP lasts 7.5 hours, the ASUS lasts 3.5 hours. Under heavy load, the ASUS lasts 1.5 hours, the MBP 4 hours.

The 17" Macbook Pro has a 95whrs battery and the ASUS has a 74whrs battery. That is significant, but it's certainly not going to last anywhere near twice as long with both machines running under the same load.

Asus is doing that, IMO. The slider and the transformer are nice products, eliminating many of the limitation a tablet has (e.g. proper input, hands-free operation), but also allowing the usage model of a table (e.g. one-hand usage, usage without a stand).

16 hours battery life of the transformer sounds pretty good, too.

I would love an Ipod for internet browsing and reading books. Heck even developing some small apps wouldn't be bad (except don't you need to pay Apple $100 a year for the development kit? thought I heard that some where) but as a developer I think I'd rather have one of these tables despite the increased price:http://promos.asus.com/US/ASUS_EeeSlate/index.htm

I will admit however that finding Visio equivalant applications for the Ipod is starting to tear me away from Windows based tablets but the specs on the Ipod just aren't there for some of what I want to run and the ASUS one has USB ports...

I hate it whenever people call my T91MT an iPad too.

Yup. That'd do it.

I just looked up the specs on the motherboard I bought last night and it appears I'm in luck. It's a Sabertooth P67.

Intel® P67 Express Chipset 2 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (brown) 4 xSATA 3Gb/s ports (black) Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10 Marvell® PCIe SATA 6Gb/s controller 2 xSATA 6Gb/s ports (gray) JMicron® JMB362 SATA controller 1 xPower eSATA 3Gb/s port (green) 1 xExternal SATA 3Gb/s port (red)

So use the Brown ports for boot drive and CD for install, and Grey ports for data drives once the OS loads the Marvell driver, I'm thinking. Ignore the Black ports.

No biggie.

Oh, and in related news Newegg just pulled this motherboard from their shelves. I'm probably the last human being on planet earth to buy one.

Try upgrading to Windows 7 and using Windows Advanced Firewall instead of a 12-year-old product ? :)

I haven't used Windows on a day-to-day base since 6-7 years, so I was pretty surprised to learn that as of two years ago, Windows XP was sold pre-installed on systems like the ASUS Eee Box. These are little Intel Atom-driven machines as small as a lunch box. Due to their limited CPU power, they came with Windows XP.

You generally do not update such small boxes to a big OS like Windows 7, it will probably run dog-slow while the preinstall is working pretty smoothly. So I agree with your general sentiment, but upgrading is not for everyone.

A link: http://www.asus.com/News.aspx?N_ID=YBiaw0wVP6GVZdpn. In the small print, though: "Unlimited calling: All calls are subject to Skype's fair usage policy which is set at 10,000 minutes per month (with a maximum of 6 hours per day)." Still, something to consider. Good luck.

I have one, and it works fine. Great actually, as I just wrote this reply (by hand, not keyboard) in Windows 7, from a moving car. Get with the program!

Here's my take on the whole netbook spec creep question. The original vision of what a netbook was was a miniature laptop that had just enough capability to get you on the web and do a few other basic things. They were small, light and very portable compared to regular laptops. Continuing that vision today would involve not adding bulk, size, and consequently price but by actually reducing those things. Instead of an "an Atom 330 with nVidia's ION", how about a Snapdragon and a PowerVR? No active cooling necessary, very little heat, much longer battery life with the same size battery, cheaper, and now it's even more portable. But that's just an example. The idea is to take the original vision and refine it with newer and newer technologies. Not take the original vision and try to shoehorn it into mini-laptop territory.

But, really, whatever dude. If you think this is a netbook, then so be it. Have a nice day.

Is this a netbook by your "standards"?

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=sZ0sI6WqjnCHGFta

I already have a 2 TB RAID0 in the internal bays of my case, and have only used a third of it over the past year and a half. A substantial chunk of that amount was copied from my previous machine (0.5 TB RAID0 there, and again extra 5.25 bays). Others have suggested more ports, but my motherboard supports 12 USB ports out of the box and I find I don't have need of that many much less any more. The toaster suggested by a poster above is more along the unusual/creative lines I was thinking. I don't think I'd use one of those, it'd be messy and a cooling nightmare. :)

Cheers,
-The submitter.

I recently bought an ASUS netbook which not only came with no recovery discs, but no utility to create recovery media (either optical or USB). If the hard disk dies or the recovery partition is corrupted (e.g. by a failed test restore of your self-created drive image), there's no way to restore the system to its factory state yourself. This has been raised in the ASUS forums and their response is sorry, but you have to return the system to them if you need it restored. Remarkably, people who noted this issue in Amazon.com reviews had their criticism thumbed-down, and ridiculed by "most helpful" reviews containing the narrowminded suggestion that recovery media is unecessary because you can "simply restore from the hard disk!".

Apple fan boys have done this for years compare their top of the line to the bottom of the line in PC tech. When my dad was a teacher apple sales people use to compare 10k$ machines to PC's (not even XT's or AT's) with dual floppies. a) that netbook isn't current (and if you want it to be - you can get one for around 250-300 dollars) and b) there are netbooks out there with the capability to display HD quality - http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=4pE8iOzApxXWWAvF - which in fact has a higher resolution screen than the iPad, is cheaper and can playback 720P video.

well, it can also use custom lithium packs, tho i am unsure how that will effect the weight. Heck, it maybe able to run of the wall socket without batteries inserted for all i know.

now that TRS you linked to made me think of this:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=wxnpgpW4BIy2IJoX

the asus eeekeyboard. But the charger there seems to be the same that they are using for the eeepc series of netbooks. Not the biggest i have seen, but still a brick to carry around.

he $450 Asus model I referenced has a higher resolution, is very light, and claims almost the exact same battery life.

Asus Eee PC T91, around $450 online:
8.9" diagonal LED panel
1,024x600 resolution, works out to about 133 pixels per inch (ppi)
8.86" (W) x 6.46" (D) x 0.99" ~ 1.12" (H)
2.1 lb
up to 5 hours battery life

iPad Wi-Fi, $499 online:
9.7" diagonal LED panel
1,024x768 resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
9.56" (W) x 7.47" (D) x 0.5" (H)
1.5 pounds
up to 10 hours battery life

The iPad is a bit wider and taller but significantly thinner, lighter, and about twice the battery life. When you're talking about a device that has a main selling point of ease to carry I'd say that the award goes to the iPad.

By the way, you can also use a mouse and keyboard with the iPad, as well as the multi-touch.

Like I said, different devices for different targets. If you want a bullet-proof device that really never needs any antivirus or fiddling around with cleanup software and has a simple UI then the iPad is for you. If you want a device that is thicker and heavier but allows a bit more flexibility along with more need for maintenance then maybe a netbook is your device. Neither one is better than the other, overall, just a different focus.

A little winner...
http://event.asus.com/eeepc/microsites/eeebox/en/

I have a few of these bad boys with wireless keyboards [Toshiba PA3705D] running MythTV clients.

Very small foot print, 21W power requirement, and DVI output for easy connection to your telly!

-Marko

2. it has a multitouch interface, unlike other tablets.

Every tablet running Windows 7 (released 5 months ago) has a multitouch interface.

3. it has quite a low price.

The ASUS Eee PC T91 convertible tablet is $453 (with Windows XP) and the Lenovo S10 convertible netbook tablet is $480.

5. it is lighter than other devices.

The Eee PC T91 (9-inch screen) weighs 2.1 pounds. The Lenovo S10 (10-inch screen) weighs 3 pounds and has 16 times more storage than the $500 3g-less iPad.

For me, the only reason not considering an iPad is lack of Flash support and lack of openness.

Windows 7 and Moblin-based Linux support Flash and are open, but I'm pretty sure their interfaces aren't quite there yet by your reasonable standards.

You can go online and go to Dell and get everything right at the same time if that's what you want. Apples and Dells probably source their parts from the same or similar factories.

According to wikipedia, ASUS ( http://asus.com/index.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/products.aspx ) produces the parts for Apple. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus ). Or at least some of the parts.

Is this what you're looking for?

http://eeepc.asus.com/global/product1005ha-spec.html

It's a bit over 1kg, but has great battery life. This particular model is the true successor to the original eee netbooks IMO.

So don't buy a branded box.

Build your own PC. If a part is bad, you just RMA it. No bullshit, no having to send the whole thing in.
I know that companies like Asus have 3 year warranties on motherboards and video cards, AMD has a 3 year warranty on their processors, and companies like OCZ have Lifetime Warranties on RAM, SSD's, and PSU's.

Quit getting ripped off by the computer-in-a-box companies.

The Asus RT-N16 should be up to this task, as it has a rather unusually powerfull cpu on board.
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=WAa6AQFncrceRBEo&templete=2

As low power Linux Gateways/Websever I'm using the ASUS EeeBox (cf.
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=QUObl5lSRQQ3lSqJ -
Atom 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 160G Disk, LAN, WLAN, USB)
It uses about 20-30W and with an external DVD drive attached you can install any current Linux x86 distribution on it.
Plus: you can get it without windows ;-)

http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
http://promos.asus.com/US/1000HE/ASUS/index.html

Two netbooks with long battery lives.

There are smaller devices available, which might be nice for lugging around - but keep in mind that the screen and Wifi are still big power draws, so the bigger the batteries the better.

An EeePC is not an Eee Box