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In Search of the Cheap Linux Laptop
mr_mischief writes "According to Hot Hardware's recent review, Asus is getting ready to unleash a $199 compact notebook running Linux. This is entirely different from this recent $150 Linux laptop story which many Slashdot readers believed to be a scam. There's a dual-mode menu which offers a simple system for novice computer users, and a slightly more advanced version for others. It's not aimed squarely at the same market as the One Laptop Per Child project's XO, and is expected to be sold to end users worldwide. It's targeted at new users who don't own a computer or at people who want a cheap, small laptop for basic tasks. The reviewed version has a 7" screen and a cramped keyboard to match, but a 10" version is available for $100 more. It offers built-in wired and wireless networking, four USB 2.0 ports, and a three-hour battery life. The storage options are a bit cramped, as you only get 4 GB of on-board storage (8 GB on the $299 model) and no optical drive. As the review says, though, USB 2.0 can make up for that if you like, and the lack of moving drive parts makes the machine run dead quiet."
The author shows a photo with the laptop next to a Taiwan $10 coin, adding that it is about the same size as a US half-dollar. Since this won't help most folks in the US (for whom receiving a half-dollar coin in change is a rare occurrence), it may help to know that the NT$10 coin is not quite 2mm larger than a U.S. quarter.
Toshiba do a 32GB USB flash drive, so storage isn't a problem :)
did you forget your password?
What confuses me as soon as it says "$100 more" is that you are at $299 and for another $150 you can wander into BestBuy and splash $450 on a decent laptop that comes with Vista. Knocking $80 or what ever for the OEM version means that you are talking $370 or so for a decent laptop with a decent screen and a decent disk et al and this is for something with a dual core Intel processor.
Now given Moore's Law around the hardware, and screen real estate, its a bit odd that $299 gets you a computer that is that crap. Now I can see why at the $100 limit you'll be cutting loads of corners especially if you want it to work on low power, but the concept of a $299 machine with crap specs doesn't sound cheap.
$100 means cutting lots of corners, but at $299 it just sounds, somewhat bizarrely, like a bit of a rip off.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
To all the manufacturers making these small, low-power PCs and notebooks I have one request. Please make the RAM expandable. Put an SO-DIMM slot in there, either in addition to the soldered-on system RAM or as the only system RAM.
512 Mb is nice, but being able to stick a 2 Gb SO-DIMM in there would make this system useful for so many more people than just their target audience.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Will it run windows? ;)
From the photos, it looks like the 7" and 10" models use the same case/chassis. The smaller screen just has a giant black bezel around it, taking up the space where the larger screen would go. Although this brings up interesting upgrade possibilities, I think it's fairly obnoxious; I wouldn't mind a 7"-screen laptop if the entire thing were only 7" diagonal (example, something like the Psion Series 7), but a 7" screen in a case that's built for 10" would just annoy me.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
900MHz Intel Dothan based Pentium M CPU
.89 kilograms, just around 2 pounds
512MB of DDR2 memory
802.11g wireless capability
flash-based hard drive ($199 for 4GB, $299 for 8GB)
weight:
Ports:
four USB 2.0
VGA output
10/100 Ethernet
56K phone modem
Battery:
4-cell, estimated 3 hours life
The lack of an optical drive and the low nonvolatile storage space is a bummer, but flash hard drives are faster and stabler. And as the article states, you can always hook up an external.
A spinning hard drive, on the other hand, requires mounting hardware, connectors, cables, and the hard drive itself has a lot of moving mechanical parts. Keep in mind that these things are made by the thousands, or more. Buying out the clearance of last-year's model is not really an option.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
What I'm waiting for a compact laptop/hand-held with a daylight-readable display. That's what would make a OLPC clone interesting to me, and as it appears the Asus doesn't have such a display, I'm not interested. (Of course others may find a low-cost light-weight mini-laptop very useful.)
I'll take a Nokia N800 for $375 Alex.
with built in bluetooth, and an ultrasmall form factor, great built-in wireless...ultramobile lovely linux internet tablet.
and if I don't want to use the touch-screen ultrasharp display...I'll get a 1 handed keyboard from Frogpad.com to connect via bluetooth.
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
First we get the "Wii", now we have the "Eee". What's next, "Oooeeyaaaeee"???
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
I've been reading about these for several weeks now, and am really looking forward to it. Anyone who remembers the i-Opener (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener) will grin to think that this, while slightly more expensive (less than double, when considering inflation, though -- and it's a laptop!) will come with Linux by default.
... tap out some notes. (I esp. like "View Your Mind" -- I hope that will run nicely on the Eee; on the 7" screen it might be annoying, but Hey, not too bad, I bet.)
:))
... eh, it sucks. Hopefully, the 10" screen version will be out soon after the 7".
I want one for school: taking notes is such ludicrous misemployment for my main laptop; I cringe each time I carry it back and forth to my law school classes to
I want one for the car / other travels: portable audio player, and (I hope!) a cool basis for a GPS system using GPS Drive (http://www.gpsdrive.de/) or similar. Can anyone recommend any works-from-the-box GPS modules for a typical Linux system?
Something this size and price, I'd feel justified to take on nearly any kind of travel -- not so much bigger than the Visor Deluxe stolen from my car a while back plus the portable keyboard for that. (Anyone want to send me a no-longer-used Visor Deluxe, so I could rescue the data from my backup cart?
The screen
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Twenty years ago I used a Tandy Model 100. Decent keyboard, way too small a display, no moving parts, fairly small and light, and would run a couple of long days on 4xAA batteries. It also had functional applications and a modem built in. Reporters, etc. used them by the thousands. This might actually be a nearly ideal replacement.
It has a LOT more functionality in a reasonable package.
Battery life is iffy, but probably adequate.
Display seems OK. Sunlight is probably an issue.
But how is the keyboard, really?
sdb
Not to quibble, but wouldn't that be $898, rather than $899?
That's extremely generous. Sales and clearance items do not apply. I'd put the price at $50, and that's generous.
Meanwhile, a 20GB 2.5" HDD can be had for $30, and yet has 5X the capacity. And the capacity increases far faster than size. You can get an 80GB HDD for the same price as your 4GB flash.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
instead of a common laptop. This is not intended as a desktop replacement that needs to be placed on a desk to comfortably use, it is a truly portable pc as a complement to your beefy pc that you can slap out anywhere ,any time, in the class,on the bus, sitting , standing, you name it. With a weight of 2lb, I can comfortably hold this baby with one hand for extended length of time. It will be perfect for me as a student to put in my book bag.
And for taking notes, writing papers , surfing the net, checking email,you don't need a bloated modern laptop(most can burn you if you try to use on you lap)weighting more than 6 lb, with screaming dual core intel processor and wide screen lcd. And if I want some heavy lifting I can easily ssh to my desktop.
I have been wanting something like this for a long time, and the only alternatives before is the tablets like the thinkpad X series with a price tag easily over 1k$,as a poor student I can hardly afford. The EEE is just priced right for me, I will happily snatch one at launch.
The point we are at right now is that there has been little advance in merging components. Computers got cheap, in part, to VLSI. Now, instead of creating a single chip laptop, we have dual cores. To get to the holy grail of the computer so cheap that we buy it for no reason, the device count has to go way down. A couple chips, a couple ports, and a screen. It may even have to have a fake keyboard, just like the cheap computers of the 80's, which, btw, were also just a few chips and few ports.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Since it was mentioned in the summary, there's a new blog following the whole fiasco at http://medisonscam.blogspot.com/
Some interesting highlights from the last few days:
The old product pictures has been replaced on Medisons site. According to Comon.dk Medison have foretold that they were replaced by "real" pictures to get more trustworthy. They say that they have hired a professional photographer to take the pictures. The question however, is why a professional photographer would use a Canon Digital IXUS 60 digital camera at 10 in the evening (See the Exif-tags in the pictures). That is for those who don't know a small compact consumer camera... Yes we know that this doesn't "prove" anything, it's just another "fun fact" in this story.
A poster on SweClockers posted the following answer that is supposed to be from the manufacturer: "they got one pcs sample from our customer and not paid". Hmm, interesting, isn't it?
According to the Danish site Comon.dk, Medison will have a press conference on Wednesday to clear things out. They have also spoken with several people in the computer industry that claims, just like all other experts, that the price is "impossible".
The Asus Eee offer however is great I'm looking forward to their machine. You shouldn't look at this laptop from the perspective of using it as full blown desktop Machine. Consider all the stuff you get at mere $200, for a nice mobile computer with full-sized keyboard and rich internet abilities. It makes for far better browsing/mail checking than what you can do on your $600 iPhone.
Overall, this sounds like an amazing computer for school. About 2 pounds? That small? Awesome. However, I've got a few questions.
How easy is it to install additional programs? I'd assume they'd attempt to limit that in the basic interface, with only a few choices from preselected packages. With the advanced interface though, can you install anything you want? Do you get access to the terminal? Is there apt, yum? Something similar to Synaptic so you don't have to use the terminal? Only packages approved by Asus, or can you access any repository you want?
It says that the laptop is Windows compatible. I assume this means that the user can install another OS by themselves. With lack of an optical drive though, will it boot from the USB to install? What about drivers, such as for the webcam?
All in all, it sounds like a great deal. The small screen bugs me a bit, but what do you expect for the size?
Consciousness - That annoying time between naps.
There's a decent entry already (with plentiful links to other articles etc) already up. Since Wikipedia allows a different kind of information aggregation than does Slashdot, I hope lots of people (accurately ;)) extend what's there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
you can get 2 gigs on a single die, you can stack that die with a block storage controller in a single chip.
In 10K unit quantities those sell for about $12-20
so since this is ASUS and Intel, I'm betting the price is closer to the $12 range and is a single TSOP48 chip, or the board may have 4 lands on it for 4 2gig chips and a separate controller, thus "modders" will be able to upgrade the machine for under $50 as a single 2Gig in a TSOP48 can now be had in the $8.00 range.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Have you guys notice?
It comes with linux by default, yet its keyboard has the regular "windows flag" key...Wouldn't it make more sense to print a penguin on it instead?
Just my 50-cents (thickness of the device)
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
I had a refurb Compaq laptop... it came with WinME. I had an option to pre-buy XP for it. I wanted Win2K and, in fact, had an unused license already. So I took my bargain laptop home and tried to install Win2K. It was a nightmare hunting down drivers for the damn thing. Since Compaq did not support Win2K on that particular model, I had to hunt down which obfuscated drivers fit those particular chips on other Compaq models... install those... and hope they worked. Or find OEM versions. Eventually I got everything running (more or less).Find the correct drivers = insert the windows CD.
I also got a copy of Mandrake (back when it was Mandrake). Installed it as a dual-boot. Everything worked first shot, out of the box.
I was rather amused. Usually laptop hardware has given me fits with Linux (one time I went through 3 distros before finding one that was happy out-of-box). This was the first time I had trouble with Windows and no trouble with Linux. It really drove home the importance of OEM support for any OS.
Linked from the Eee page at Wikipedia, I just found this (mostly) similarly equipped laptop upcoming from VIA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoBook
... assuming that stays $200, not $279+shipping or something.
It uses a conventional hard drive, but also claims greater battery life. Also a 7" screen, but uses the space differently -- from the description and the way the photo looks (prototype?), I guess that's a trackpad next to the screen. Price will be "agressive," says that page, but it would have to be damn near ferocious to beat the $200 one from Asus
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Forget using it as a laptop, I'm going to use it as the house server. Get it set up, make the system card read-only and stick it in a closet with 1+ USB drives, it's quiet and low heat. If you need to see the 'console' pop the lid and there it is.
Tom.
With the increasing number of quality web apps (gmail, google docs, meebo, facebook) A small computer
that can run firefox would be really useful. Obviously requires a good net connection. So many peoples
use of a computer now falls into wordprocessor + email + web browsing for which a small portable computer
is fine. And with the rise of web apps it is increasily becoming just web access thats required.
Here we have a brand new low cost platform that comes preinstalled with Linux. All the ney-sayers are simply yelling sour grapes because Microsoft will not be able to field anything like this in North America or Europe in the foreseeable future.
I am going to buy two for my grandkids - they will love it. They'll be able to play music and TV off the home wireless network. They can VoIP with video using Skype. They can read books from Project Gutenberg. They can message and chat to their hearts content. Hey, they may even do some homework and learn something, Who Knows!
For me, I can add a 22" LCD monitor and create a wireless multimedia node for the bedroom. I can also use it as a smart thin client with USB keyboard & mouse and some speakers.
Add some external storage like a 2.5" 120 gig HD and some earbuds and I can listen to music or avi's until the batteries wear down. I can store all my contact information and write some emails, Skype some friends (VoIP with video), message, play games and chat for hours away from my desktop computer.
This machine is great and I for one am going to promote it to all my friends including the ones that are afraid of computers.
What a great standby machine!
Just so you know, I have 3 laptop computers 'Dell Inspiron 5100 - big, hot and heavy', 'Toshiba Tecra 8200 - smaller, lighter but tied to the power supply now' and 'Dell Latitude CPx - nice but slow, also tied to the power adapter'. These machines, for one reason or another, are unsuitable for newbs and kids whereas the Asus 3ePC looks perfect.
I have no problem with the screen layout the way it is - there are speakers on either side of the screen and a microphone and camera there as well.
All that power, connectivity (WiFi b/g, Ethernet 10/100, modem and USB), excellent memory - 512 meg, sufficient storage with USB addons as required, stereo speakers, microphone, web camera, 3 hours on battery AND it comes with an OS with a FULL office suite, Firefox, Skype, email and lots of applications!
All for $199!
LOOK OUT MICROSOFT!!!
This is the killer product Linux needs to get it's foot in the door - this machines will sell in all the usual outlets plus drug stores, gift shops and grocery markets if promoted properly and Asus may be the guys to do it.
Yep - put XP on that thing and it will be a pig with no room left for anything else. With a light-weight Linux, perhaps Ubunto or Kubunto or even Slax, and the user may really haved something.
This is just my two-bits but I am excited.
Undead Ed
It's cheap enough, but it's not small enough. I have a laptop with a 15" screen, I paid over $2000 for it. I never use it because it's too damn big. It has actually sat in my closet for over a year at a time. I don't even take it with me on vacations anymore because it's just too big to bother with.
This laptop is sufficient for my needs, and I'm likely to actually carry it because it's small and light enough to be reasonably carried around most everywhere.
That's funny, I was just thinking how much this thing's specs reminded me of my two year old Fujitsu Lifebook. Same screen size, processor, chipset, wireless, etc. Except when I bought it, it was over $1700!
That 900 MHz Pentium M is a goer compared to most VIA's and Geodes. I think this could be a terrific tool for a student.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Having a Penguin key (Penguin key sounds cooled than Tux key) would be sooooo cool. Imagine, ur mate is having a go, and needs to open the launch menu, and you say: "Just press the Penguin key man!" or he's sat there n he goes, where the windows key, and you say: "Windows key? Dude, this has a PENGUIN key." he would be like "WWWWWOOOOOOAH!!" like some crazy drug trip.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
I could imagine that a lot of people would pry the things open and fix/hack the hell out of it... People are even repairing laptop battery cells, so why not repair the notebook itself? For that price, you can as well have a go at it before throwing it away.
The bulk of my work that isn't fixing stuff is done with vim over SSH and a web browser. Firefox is getting a bit heavy, but it only has the one or two tabs I need for the app I'm developing -- Konqueror can handle the rest.
There are other nice things you could do, if you bother to set it up. For instance, instead of carrying a half-dozen boot CDs or DVDs, you could bring this and a crossover cable, and use that to "jump start" someone's computer. Might even prove a good analogy, when someone asks what you're doing.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
...I'm quite happy with my Dell Inspiron E1505 "n series."
For $650, I got Ubuntu (although I quickly converted it to my preferred KDE-based Kubuntu), 1 gig-o-ram, a 1.73 Core Duo (low-power Centrino version), an 80 gig hard drive, WiFi, firewire, 4 USB ports, a 15.4" glossy widescreen, 802.11 g/n WiFi, darn good battery life, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive.
Granted, this is not US$199, but I think it's a pretty good deal for what you get. I'm generally a Mac buyer, but I feel like I got something similar to a $1,199 MacBook. Even though I think the MacBook is still a nicer machine--with better industrial design and OS X/iLife--but for $550 less, I've got a not-bad-looking laptop, a great/stable/secure OS, and tons of free apps that rival iLife (i.e., Picasa in place of iPhoto, Amarok instead of iTunes).
My only complaint is that I had to install the 915resolution package to get beyond 1024x768 (which looks horrible on a widescreen, as you might imagine). Why couldn't Dell pre-install this on the machines that need it (integrated graphics)?
Browsing with Firefox, emailing with Thunderbird, and the media keys working with Amarok are some of the niceties that make me think this was the best bang-for-your-buck computer purchase I ever made.
:q!
It's tough to tell if you post is just profane ignorance or flamebait, but are you fucking stupid? NT based operating systems have this little thing goin on called Microkernel Architecture. No way a win98 or older driver will work as well, if at all on one of these newer OSes.
to recap:
NT 4.0 driver on 2k or xp - maybe
98se driver on NT 4 2k, or xp - NO FUCKING WAY
I have 13 and 15 year old kids, both of whom want laptops. They aren't getting a $1200 Macbook. They aren't even getting a $600 laptop. It'll get left at a friend's house, on the bus, or dropped. It may not, but it may. At $200 or so, it wouldn't kill me if they lost it, though I'd be irritated. At $600 or even $400, it would piss me off and they wouldn't get another one. Price points do matter.
I just recently started a page linking to linux laptop vendors. Check it out, and if you have anything to contribute, feel free to reply to this post.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
It's certainly not any worse than long-time Apple users called the "open-apple" key. Well, at least some did.