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Just What is this ASUS Eee Thing Anyway?
davidmwilliams writes "ASUS have released a cheap subnotebook. It is far from state-of-the-art tech-wise, with 512Mb RAM and a Celeron processor. It has a 4Gb hard drive and no optical drive. Its screen is 7" and runs at the odd resolution of 800x480 and the operating system looks like something Fisher Price might have designed. Why would you buy it? What on earth can you do with this?" I've been wondering this myself given the huge coverage in the media of this thing.
I've been wondering this myself given the huge coverage in the media of this thing. Well, you posted an article about the source for it violating the GPL (a fixed shortly thereafter). You might have learned something about it then. Or you could do a quick search on your site for it and you'd turn up the first review you posted and we discussed.
Believe it or not, the "huge media coverage" that I've noticed of this thing has only been on Slashdot. Other than that, it's a big name manufacturer, in our world it's huge news. It has a 4Gb hard drive and no optical drive. Its screen is 7" and runs at the odd resolution of 800x480 and the operating system looks like something Fisher Price might have designed. Why would you buy it? What on earth can you do with this? That's not solid logic when you're speaking to a crowd that busts its ass trying to get Linux running on their microwave. I didn't see the reviewer giving any real specific applications of the laptop. Back in college, I used to work with pioneer robots in my classes. The damned things had a 15 lb. Dell notebook mounted on top of them. Ridiculous. Try hauling the robot and the laptop to a demonstration or presentation.
My work here is dung.
Like any sub-notebook, you put it in your man-bag/briefcase, and then carry it about with you at all times, so you always have a computer on you.
Spent 40 bucks on a 2gb ram upgrade, chucked on an nLited winXp. Now I've got a little utility machine that's /REALLY/ tiny and cute, and didn't cost the earth. /bit/ of a pain, and just a smidgeon more screen space would have been great, but it works for what it does.
Keeping it light, in both weight and bootup times means it's a great companion to my main dev laptop (Dell M something) that takes an age till it's usuable with all the dev tools/sql servers it loads up. It barely takes up anymore room in my laptop bag, so if I need to check something quick, that comes out, boots in 30 seconds and is good to go on a wireless connection rather than dragging out my main machine.
I love it. Screen is a
Tempted to get a white one for the kitchen area, just to have vids playing whilst at the breakfast bar, music playing whilst cooking, or whatever.
9.5/10
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Seriously? It is a super portable laptop, or high-feature rich PDA. The specs you list don't sound like much compared to your home PC but are pretty nice on the road when compared to a Palm. It is just another middle ground tool, but the surprising part is that it was done with open source and thus the price has been kept way down.
I personally have a PepperPad 3 that I use while travelling. It came down to weight and the apps available (such as OO.org, Thunderbird/Sunbird, etc.).
I do a lot of travelling and lugging a 6 pound laptop w/accessories through airports sucks. With a fully functional Linux distro on my PP3, I can now use a much smaller messenger bag, and everything, including full-sized external keyboard and mouse, weighs in at less than 3 pounds. And it does everything I need it to while travelling.
There are at least two hardware modifications aka moddings for the ASUS Eee PC mentioned at Repair4Laptop. One explains how to add an internal USB Bluetooth port to the sub-notebook without affecting the built-in wireless or using the empty mini PCIe card slot. The other describes how to install an internal 3G Card.
It's hard to type on if you're used to regular sized keyboards, but it gets the job done. Three hours of battery life isn't that great considering the OLPC gets about 12, and better protected from the environment too. ftfa: "It's endless world of hardware modifications that smart people worldwide have embraced" Um.. what the hell is that supposed to mean?
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
The Eee PC uses unionfs to merge together two partitions: sda1 (/mnt-system, 2.3GB, read-only) and sda2 (/mnt-user, 1.4GB, read-write)
There is a grub boot option "Restore Factory Settings" which wipes the user part.
Deleting installed applications doesn't free up any space - it just marks them as deleted on the user partition.
Seems to me I remember the day when a 640K operating system and a 40Meg disk were king, so having 1.5 Gig left over to play with after the OS is loaded --that's like luxury space. Oh, and I can go back and get more permanent memory if I delete some stuff if won't ever use, can add and subtract multiple versions of multi-gigabyte portable (SD) memory, and if I use a USB Wifi stick, I can connect even to the web at pretty good speed?
What this thing is is portable. Medium powered. Flexible. Ideal for a Linux person like me who would like to have a road warrior unit he can live with -- without the backache.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
The point of the EEE , . - ' Your head. It is a very cheap, very good subnotebook, designed with children in mind,who the fisher interface appeals to.
I think Mr. Williams needs a better thesaurus. From page 2:
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
My dad purchased one, half to play around with, half to actually use. It certainly is not a replacement for a full sized laptop or desktop, but it fits the bill for what he uses it for pretty nicely. The church he attends has a penchant for springing preaching duties on him at the last minute. Instead of carrying a folder full of old sermon notes, he simply carries the ASUS now. Now he has years worth of sermons and notes at his fingertips. Like I said, I would never want to use it as a real PC, but for keeping in touch on the road or just keeping important info handy, its tough to beat.
If I got one, it would become a home media server with a bonus screen, keyboard etc... Has all you'd need like it's fairly cheap, small, has low power requirements, enough processing power and can even run without a UPS to back it up. Just plug in a USB HD.
Probably only the hardware that can run either Microsoft or Linux variants of OLPC OS ( if in future someone decides to create one) ??
Having actually used one, I can say, it rocks. Ok so I wouldn't like to use it as a main machine (not what it was designed for) but if you are an avid note taker, or like to have internet on the run it is all you could want. It is *exceptionally* light, even compared to the JVC mini note range that I look after every day.
Also, its pretty much instant on. So your not hanging round for things to happen. It's ideal to check mail, a few letters whilst in the wifi coffee shop. Its an ideal meeting toy I suppose.
Also a massive advantage of this for linux is that a) A linux company is getting paid to put an OS on hardware and secondly, the hardware and software fit well together, they were designed too.
As for the interface, hell its good. It's simple and quick. What more could you need. If you want more advanced options, turn on the advanced options, its not hard.
The really mad thing? It's not linux peeps buying it, its average shoppers and gadget freaks. Its providing an inroad to the masses that standard linux cannot because of the variety of hardware it must work on.
Put another way, in the uk, you cannot buy one for love nor money at the moment, and probably not until mid April will there be sufficient stocks.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
I want to give one to my mother to get her on the Internet. She only needs to be able to do some light email and web browsing on it.
-- Cheers!
Funny that you would refer to the interface as Fisher Price looking but the reality is for a lot of techies that buy it is that it is an inexpensive / mod-able toy that may eventually find some good use. After all why risk messing up your high end laptop / desktop unit when you can get a device that is designed to be messed around with and is inexpensive in case you do manage to break it. Just look at the Linksys NSLU2 for example. As a product it's nearly completely useless as a NAS. Load on the modified firmware that lets you run Debian on it thou or OpenSlug and presto, you have a Linux server that has a 4 watt power use profile that's pretty hard to beat for price too.
Why the Eee? I reviewed one for the local alt-monthly newspaper, and even after I was done with the review, I wound up keeping it. In a nutshell: it's nifty to have an inexpensive, super light, teeny wifi laptop with a crisp, bright screen -- I've been using it primarily for a RSS/CBR reader myself. My advice is ditch the standard OS, which is lovely but would never fully satisfy most slashdot readers and install Ubuntu 7.10. It's easy enough to do and works great after a few tweaks. One caveat to keep in mind is that I can't seem to find any place that sells additional power adapters (yet) so the portability is slightly diminished by having to lug around the adapter too. but I'm sure that will be rectified soon, as Asus has done a great job so far responding to customer complaints and suggestions.
An attractive feature of the eee is that its bios makes it possible to boot from anything, the internal ssd, an sd card or any storage devices connected to the three USB ports.
I dont like loose appendices but the SD card slot is very good, I purchased four 16GB Patriot SDHC cards, and installed four different operating systems on each of them. True, I spent more on these cards than on the eee itself, but I have a functionality regular laptops do not have. My favorite is Ubuntu 7.10 with lots of physics and biology apps (5.4GB used for installation). I also hacked a Win XP disk and managed to put XP on another SD card, but it is slower than linux. The interesting part is that I do not use the internal SSD for booting anything, just for storage.I HATE Xandros, the first thing I did was to erase it.
Since another article claimed we had forgotten about it, Google Trends claims the eee have surpassed ThinkPad, and close to but not still on par with MacBook. If we look at Google News instead, the advantage over ThinkPad is even greater, and even "asus eee" has have more than three times the number of hits than ThinkPad, and half the hits of the MacBook.
I'd consider a position between two of the most recognized brands pretty good.
On the other hands, if we were to believe Internet statistics, Ron Paul would be elected president with the greatest margin in the history of the country.
Sure its fine if your only using it whilst commuting or when moving a short distance to the next power plug, but if the battery life is still that poor where is the advantage. Given the a smaller size, does it actually become that much more portable when you are restricted in the same way a standard laptop is?
Wake me when you can run it for 36hrs+, no software asked...
I find it hilarious that the author says "the OS looks like something Fisher Price might have designed." It's sort of an (un)concious jab at Linux.
Here's something I noticed for years:
Do me a huge favor. Go to an XP machine. Go to control panel, look at the icon for "User Accounts".
Look familiar?
FLR
Has anyone tried to install DSL on this? It's hardly the most robust or full-featured build out there, but it's earned a place near and dear to my heart after making my old 166MHz Toughbook an effective travel companion once again. It would just hum on a machine like the Eee and leave plenty of storage space (I'm using less than 5% of a 5GB drive, including OS, add'l software and various photos and documents.
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
My boss plonked TWO of these bloody things on my desk just before Christmas, with a look of beaming pride on her face - one of them came in pink, y'see.
"Look! It comes in pink! It's so SMALL and CUTE! Aren't they cool? Are they any good? I bought two of them..."
She's now pestering me to buy one for every mobile user because their (dual-core, 2 GB, 7200 RPM, DVD-R, 1600x1280 Latitude D830) laptops are "too heavy". Except she doesn't like the operating system and wants XP on them all. I'm now in the process of tactfully telling her that this is not going to happen... it'd be worse than the f***ing Blackberries they keep buying and expecting us to fix.
"If he were a plant, people would roll him up and smoke him."
Can these use the SDHC cards? You can get a 16gb SDHC card for ~$80 here:
http://www.meritline.com/a-data-16gb-turbo-sdhc-flash-card.html
Precisely, if Lenovo came out with some sort of new thing the thinkpad brand would likely skyrocket for a little while too.
My real question is: what can I do with this that I cannot do with a $250 used thinkpad, a can of air, and a new battery? Thinkpad is cheaper, has a better everything, and I can actually type on it without shrinking my hands. I guess this eee is a lot smaller and doesn't smell like cabbage yet.
Love the idea of this computer, but the cheapskates have always had the refuge of obsolete computers.
1) eee PC has a 900MHZ Celeron CPU which IS UNDERCLOCKED and runs at only 630 MHZ.
2) Nokia N800 is MUCH better than N810,half the price of N810 and supports up to 32GB storage = 2x16GB SDHC compared to max 12GB = 2x6 mini SDHC for N810. Sure in the future 16GB mini SDHCs will show up and this difference will disappear.
I've had one of these for nearly two months now. It runs Ubuntu Gutsy just fine, with all your favourite apps. I'm typing this comment on it, in fact.
It has everything a laptop should (except a CDROM), and plays music, browses the web, runs OpenOffice, etc. It's not helpful to think of it as a "cut-down" or "toy" machine. It's really a pretty standard PC. It generally feels very fast and responsive, perhaps because all the storage is solid state.
It even runs Compiz-fusion flawlessly.
I've been using it over the last couple off weeks as my main machine. My only complaint is that the screen res is low and up-arrow key and right-shift key are too close together, and they have a similar symbol on them.
Have you seen the eee power supply and compared it to a laptop power supply? Have you seen the extra batteries (including a 6 cell 7800 mAh which should provide 4.5hrs or more)? That large extra battery and the power supply together would be about the size/weight of a normal laptop power supply and carrying those around with you should give you at least 7 hours continuous battery life between charges. New asus eee accessories
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
If the unit is more in demand than can be supplied right now, then stoking the demand with more media attention is not a good idea.
If it is stacked to the ceiling in warehouses, then throw fuel on the media fire.
That's, what, 16 OS's total? I'm not sure I could even come up with 16 current operating systems. Kudos.
This Asus thing is kind of linux on the desktop, looks great. I wish I had at least one. I intend to buy 2 : 1 as a personal organiser for its mobility, and 1 for my home automation project because of its low power requirement and the hacking possibilities. fred
Small form factor laptops are great for travel if all you need to do is email, web, etc. I used to use a Powerbook 2400c back in the day. Today my travel machine is an Dell Latitude LS loaded with Zenwalk. It's only a PIII/256/20 but runs just fine with the lightweight distro and didn't cost me anything since someone gave it to me (found when cleaning out a student rental... thanks rich kid!). The big advantage it has over the Asus is the keyboard and screen (21.1") and still weighs in at only a bit over three pounds. Wireless didn't work with the first two cards I tried (Linksys revB and Orinoco Silver) but picked right up on the old 3COM 802.11b card and has worked every time since.
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
I love mine. I bought the cheaper ($350) 4Gb surf model. Initially, there were some concerns that the Surf had non-upgradeable soldered on memory. Fortunately not, and I was able to upgrade the memory to 1Gb. I don't think I'll have any storage problems, as SD cards are now rediculasly cheap. I had a 2gb one laying around, and used that.
I tweaked the standard xandros install to provide a full KDE desktop. I built a custom kernel with USB support built in and large memory support so I could replicate the Linux install and boot it off a flash drive and use > 2gb of memory.
I'm considering developing some games for the thing. It would certainly be a cool platform. The external display works great, and if you hook up a USB keyboard and mouse, you have a tiny quiet energy efficient desktop.
Everywhere I take the thing people ask questions. It's very cool.
At a hospital I consult with; the IT penetration is surprisingly very poor among doctors. The hospital typically receives 600 patients a day; of which about 275 are diabetics - who require repeated visits over years. There are about 150 in-patients who typically stay for 4.5 days before discharge.
IT usage is about 60% for the in-patients; but less than 12% for out-patients. The problem? Doctors are fed up with using PCs - Windows or Linux. Some of their biggest complaints:
1. Long boot time; Linux is only slightly better here; and Vista is downright pathetic and consequently been banned. The EEE PC boots up in less than 20 seconds and the GUI is immediately functional. No need for any useless login, active desktop, active directory etc.
2. Ultra portable - so the doctor can carry it to the wards and rooms; and dictate into it when necessary. Very cumbersome with laptops; tablets are better; but very expensive compared to the EEE (1:8).
3. Wakes up from suspend in less than 2 seconds - unparalleled.
4. The interface is very user friendly and makes sense without training - unlike Windows.
Surprisingly, this is still not widely avbl in India. Ingram Micro is getting it in the 3rd week of Jan. as I hear. We are ordering about 120 units for our doctors; who are genuinely thrilled with a computer for the first time in their lives.
****
A second appln. is for an e-governance system whereby citizens apply for assistance - there are about a dozen welfare schems like for handicapped, destitutes, old age pension, widow pension etc. The EEE PC is much more functional than a laptop and can be easily carried to the villages by trained self-help-group women assistants. The e-governance appln. is a web-enabled semi-offline-capable system; so even if there is no broadband; the locally installed LAMP appln. gives a very similar look-and-feel; once in a few days it gets synced with the main server.
Being about 25% of the price and weight of a laptop makes the EEE PC very handy for both these situations.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I picked up a 4G surf model.
Can't speak for everyone, but mine is the laptop I actually USE on a regular basis. I'm hesitant to whip out my Toshiba R15 tablet, since it's heavy, and slow to boot. The EE is up in 30 seconds, and thanks to the SSD doesn't balk at being tossed around a bit.
I'll grab it on the way out of the house and just drag it with me like my camera. I've used it in conjunction with my cellphone to check mail on the road, research products, or do a quick wiki lookup when conversation requires. It's also pretty hand for doing photo previews in the field. The SD slot makes reading my casual camera's card easy.
With screen rotation, I can hold it vertically and read e-books and manga scanlations like I would with a paperback.
I've done some coding and remote work with it, but I wouldn't recommend it. Keyboard is way too small for that sort of thing.
About the only thing I haven't done on my EEE is gaming, which is clearly beyond the intent of the unit. That said, I'll bet it'd make a great classic game / emulator platform.
Now that's not to say I don't have my gripes. As I mentioned, the keyboard is just a tad too small. I've had to learn to type with six finger and a thumb. The right shift STILL stymies me 4 weeks after my purchase. There's no capslock indicator, which has caused me no end of trouble when entering passwords. Can't do a middle button emulation click with the rocker style mouse button.
But none of these are game enders. Annoyances yes, but given what ASUS is charging for this little beastie, I'm not expecting perfection. I'm expecting usable, with minor compromises, and that's exactly what I got. Really, the EEE was probably the most satisfying notebook purchase I've ever made.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
They want to check email, websurf, play vids and mp3s, and run a few business apps (Quicken, Excel, Word). They want it to turn on, start working, offer few complexities, and keep doing so for the next five years.
They don't need your dual core. They don't need your MBA. They don't want your $2500 price tag. They want the laptop as a portable media appliance.
The Eee delivers this and no one else does. Expect it to be popular among consumers, and enigma among geeks, for some time.
Anti-Globalism
I feel silly that I would have bought one if I knew the HURD would run on it.
We at slashdot are scientists, specialists and kernel hackers. Your FUD will be found out.
So, I liked the sound of this little guy and looked around as to where to buy it. I noticed that Amazon has a pre-order option for an 8gb drive, 1gb ram machine.
Does anyone happen to know when this version may be released?
I thought it had a solid state drive. :o
Weaksauce as they say...
Well, my old laptop was a Thinkpad X40 (last IBM generation), which is only slightly heavier (1.1 kg). It still has a much larger screen (12") and faster CPU (1G Pentium M). Same RAM. Battery time is only about 1 hour though, so that might be the deciding factor.
G Fab asked "My real question is: what can I do with this that I cannot do with a $250 used thinkpad, a can of air, and a new battery? " ;)
Answer: Be away from your charger longer? or were you rhetorical and did not really desire an answer?
Glad to see that an extended life battery exists. Do you happen to have a link to an e-tailer taht is actually selling it?
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
I've been wondering this myself given the huge coverage in the media of this thing.
It can run Windows... that's the reason for the hype.
If the media was where it should have been then the coverage would be on the OLPC XO and their "Give 1 Get 1" initiative.
Geesh, that's a nice image. I wonder if he normally speaks that offensively at work.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd really have to say it's the size, cost, and lack of moving parts. It's perfect for slipping into my purse (though I expect this'll make it targeted more towards women, since they're the ones already carrying around something that'll hold this). It's cheaper than any other laptop out there, especially the small ones. The fact it has a flash drive means that a) the hard drive will be less likely to be the first thing to fail because I've jarred it so much and b) sitting on my lap as I type in bed, it's still less noisy than my desktop 10 feet away, which is nice for insomniac nights where I hate noise. It boots up faster than any other notebook I've had.
The Linux version it comes with by default isn't really my favorite, but I'll probably get around to tweaking it one of these days. I have, however, noticed that when I show complete technological illiterates my laptop, they tend to figure out how to find stuff faster than when I've shown them Windows stuff. Personally, I tend to figure it's the kind of machine that's great for either know-nothings, or experts. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm willing to read online instructions for any tweaks I want.
It's a laptop that's expected to be used 99% of the time just to get you on the internet, and I don't have any real complaints about that. I have a desktop if I want to use a regular keyboard and a decent size monitor. This is for portability, and it's damn good at that.
What can you do with a small portable computer that runs Linux? I doubt anyone here would have any ideas. Try a site like Fark or something. I think they're into computers.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
You know what guys? I have a Toshiba Portege 3010 that I bought at a flea market just for fun, it was so cute and weights in the region of 1 KG! Its a full-fledged windows PC with 266 mhz speed, 64 Mb ram, 5 GB harddrive and a USB port. This thing is 9-years-old. Did ya get that folks? NINE-YEARS-OLD. Guess what I did with it? Thanks to some russian genious Windows 98 got USB support for general-mass-storage on it so it worked like a charm with todays USB memory stick, another smart person out there in the internet world figured out how to use CF (compact-flash) WiFi devices on it...so I could just insert that one into a pcmcia-cf converter and voila...I had WiFi on it as well. Now...this thing surfs with the speed of any portable today (exept flash videos that do require some cpu power)...but it boots in 17 seconds (yes folks - 17 seconds from the second you turn it on). The point I am trying to make here..is that my TFT-screen based 10.2 Inch portable 1 kilo laptop from yesteryear...does this just as fine as this "modern" device from Asus... cmon guys...I am sure they can do better than that? Or are we really stuck in time somewhere?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Although, I appreciate that they do not offer entirely identical features, the eee and the LT C-500 are comparable and the LT is now available for less than £50 on ebay.
I much prefer having a touchscreen running Debian, although the RAM can be tricky to get hold of.
Cheers
I have one of these. The builtin linux is tweakable enough (like by adding standard debian 4.0 repos to the apt config) so you can install dwm - and from there, you have a very light device that boots into a terminal in under 15 seconds, and you can do everything you usually do "online" (irc and mail through ssh, music through nfs or netradio with moc, web with firefox, etc).
It's easily powerful enough to watch movies, play flash (youtube of course), some opengl games. The keyboard is also very good; if you do your coding through the unix interface (make etc) as you should, instead of some GUI BS, it's very usable for programming, too. (Of course, you should use the keyboard instead of a pointing device to do your stuff; but that's true for any computer, not just the EEE.)
Battery is strong enough to give you 3 hours of movie watching over NFS over wifi.
Negative points I could bring up: it gets warmer than my Lenovo 3000 V100 (although the Lenovo is supposed to be a markedly cool model), and the builtin fan (the single moving part) is audible at times. I can live with these problems - and the EEE makes a lovely modern replacement for my old Toshiba Libretto C100.
we discovered a new way to think.
Not only did they copy Windows 95's taskbar /start menu /system tray model, they did it in 1984. That's some f*ckin' nerve.
At work, need to AC.
This strikes me as very similar to the goal of the defunct palm foleo, which was also to be a light "email / web / word processing" apparatus running linux.
As I see it, the foleo would have been slightly *better* in a few ways, with tight address book integration and a cellular based internet-everywhere option. However, its killer flaw IMHO is a proprietary / non-standard linux implementation, effectively crippling its use as a PC without outrageous hacking.
This seems to have many aspects of the best of both worlds -- a true standard mini-PC if needed, "full" wi-fi, and all the aforementioned advantages of the foleo except always on internet.
Anonymous parent is right - the Eee is 630 MHz. It is NOT 900 MHz, even though all the press articles and even some of the retailer descriptions say this. This was a major disappointment when I bought one.
TFA is quite the troll and I'd question if he's ever used one or even understands the idea that different people have different needs.
For me it's the perfect device for making notes and reading eBooks. I've got a 15" widescreen Dell also but it's simply too big and bulky for most purposes, even smaller screen laptops are the same. This device though is just perfect for carrying around because it's small enough to be easy to carry but big enough that it doesn't suffer the problems that PDAs and phones do - i.e. crap at web browsing, too small to read eBooks decently, no proper keyboard for input and so forth. The closest thing I saw previously to this for doing the job I want was the old Macbook minis, the 13" ones or so but then Apple made them bigger so they have the same issue as standard laptops.
To sum up, these Eee PCs are big enough to overcome the problem of being to small for some tasks that most existing mobile devices suffer but small enough to carry around avoiding the problems that full size laptops suffer, the thing fits in the glove compartment of your car! One final point of course is the price, for under £200 it's not even expensive, it's cheaper than even the likes of the iPhone and does so infinitely much more because it's a standard and open x86 architecture system.
The fact that once you pack all the required accessories you won't be only a few pounds heavier, you can't use it in as many places (back seat of some cars or any other cramped place), it is designed to run Linux and you don't have to hack to get everything running, and you won't be able to hold a regular laptop with one hand a type with the other very long. I could think of many other answers, but these are the first to come to mind.
This thing only lasts for 3 hours. My old thinkpad also lasts about that long on its new battery. I thought it was obvious I was aware that old laptops die fast by noting I'd get a new battery.
This thing is too small to have a large battery. I'm sure it's very efficient and makes the most of what it's got. My thinkpad, on the other hand, was dropped four feet onto concrete and tumbled down a few stairs and still works fine. And I spilled a coke in it a long time ago.
I do like this new machine, I just wonder, if you don't need the speed of a modern laptop, why not go for an old one? But in my opinion, the keyboard is the most important feature of a laptop, by far far far. So I'm a bit biased against this thing.
Other commenter has a similar answer for me.
Fair enough. I know that there's no way a large screened machine will ever compete with a small screened one, but thinkpads can have large batteries. And getting a new battery isn't too expensive if it keeps you truckin'
x40s are great machines.
And you have a 9 y/o hardware package, with a 9 y/o CPU (and the processing power to go with it.) You can enjoy the wonders of the battery life of a 9 y/o ultra-portable's power management. Don't even get me started on 9 y/o hard drives, or yellowed 9 y/o LCD screens. I'm not sure I'd wanna run even DSL on 64mb with that kinda speed, much less Xandros or any reasonably modern distro. (XP is completely out of the question.) I refurbed a bunch of 3010s for a non-profit I volunteer with. They didn't sell terribly well, even though we gave them a 1 year warranty!
But for the sake of argument, you've been able to make a workable unit out of the 3010. How much time, and effort did you have to expend? More to the point, do you really think Joe Average is going to be able to duplicate your efforts? Or will be willing to?
As for being stuck in time, bear in mind the cost of the 3010. You paid blood money to get one of these when they were new. The EEE is reasonable money for most folks, and practically pocket cash for the more well-heeled geeks. The magic is the combination of form-factor and price. This is the first time we've been able to get something this small, this cheaply.
That said, the OP should be commended for saving another machine from the scrap pile. Did you manage to score a unit with the port-replicator and intact keyboard? Those were the most common problems I ended up seeing.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
it runs Doom...
It's a small notebook computer.
"What do you do with one?"
Get two and race them! Throw them at people. Compute things! Use them as a weight to keep errant papers from blowing away.
Sure, it is possible to put 4 OS'es on each 16GB SD card, but I did not do it, I put one on each of them. Sorry for the mistake!
I'm waiting for the Pandora! http://pandora.bluwiki.com/
In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed as an Atheist.
I think I was rather lucky with this unit, the screen wherent very yellow at all... looks bright and all, personally Id prefer to run Linux on it but I where baffeled on how fast it boots windows and how easy I got it up to speed (for surfing use). Heck...I even connected an USB-Microscope from Bresser just to use it as a portable microscope, and - yes - I did get the docking unit for it too (its a small dongle sort of thing) that gave me Serial and Parallel ports (which I used to burn Eproms on an older Eprom burner that only works on older serial units). They keyboard and everything works like a charm, I didnt ever have that kind of money to be able to afford those ULTRA-thin computers when they hit the marked so its nice to actually have one. It feels pretty weird to actually see one when comparing it alongside my modern 512 Mb-nvidia-card 2 gb ram "portable" from these days that weights 3 times as much and ...yes...looks 3 times as big. the thing is - do you really want to do 3d-work on the move? Do you REALLY need the power of a desktop computer on the move? My answer? I am an old geezer by now...I remember back 10 years ago when I wanted Laptops to have Voodoo graphics cards..so I could play my 3d games on it and work with 3dstudio on it as well.... the truth is...there is no real need for this... now we know this...but back then was more "because we could" rather than "we need it", get it? A portable should be "truly" portable...and do only what we truly need. this really should give some design "room" for the designers of these units, dont you think?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
"and the operating system looks like something Fisher Price might have designed"
No, this distinction is the sole domain of a default Windows XP installation. I have seen the Asus subnotebook, it's not a bad little PC. It doesn't run Windows, and has just about everything you need for daily Internet life. It's bigger than my Nokia 770, runs the same screen resolution (800x480) and has a real keyboard. Aside from it's obvious limitations, it's destined to fill the gap between the keyboardless tablets and notebook PC's.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
1. Write an article about this interesting little sub-notebook thingie.
/. about the thingie, and link to your article.
2. Post a blag on
3. ???
4. Profit!
Sheesh, I feel dirty... and used. No, wait, I'm pretty much always used on the Internet. Nothing new after all.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So this story has been tagged "olpcbetter" but why? The olpc has 1GB flash while the eee has 2GB, 4GB or 8GB. The olpc has 256MB ram while the eee has either 512MB or 1GB. The olpc has a 433MHz Geode LX while the eee has a 630 - 900 MHz Celeron. The olpc is about 1.5kg while the eee is under 1kg. Finally the olpc is 242mm × 228mm × 32mm while the eee is 225mm x 164mm x 21.5mm~35 mm. So the eee is smaller, faster, lighter and has more memory (both ram and flash).
So just how is the olpc better? You might argue that the "dual-mode" screen, or the mesh mode networking and the external antenna, makes the olpc more appealing to you, but unless you are in the olpc target market I can't imagine many would really prefer the olpc over the eee?
The "flamebait" tag seems far more appropriate for this "story"!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I see the same advantages with the eee that I found with the Compaq Contura Aero (http://www.homecomputermuseum.de/comp/279_de.htm). Small, small, small and good _enough_ for _most_ tasks. Did I say small?
Agree on everything except the battery. My x40 gets about 6 hours on the extended battery. I paid $400 for the laptop on e-bay a year ago, and it really outspecs the $400 4GB eee. Faster cpu, bluetooth, larger screen, 10x the storage, double the ram, and is built like a tank. Best of all, as one of the smallest ultraportables, it's only a teeny bit larger/heavier than the eee.
I think its very obvious that the last 9 years have made dramatic improvements in many areas, yet you suggest we run some piece of crap just because youre happy to run it?
That wifi cf card gets you about a quarter of the way to a Eee, which doesn't have some several years of wear and tear, and actually supports modern hardware without screwing around.
Not to mention tracking down a Portege that still works and didn't get thrown away.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
That's the reason for the coverage. To buy an equivalent size laptop from Dell, Sony, Toshiba etc. would probably cost you 3-5 times as much.
As an Eee PC owner I can say these devices are great. Some of the software is pretty irritating but I can live with the faults for the price and practicality. I used my laptop on a Ryanair cliptray yesterday. This is a feat barely possible or advisable with most laptops.
Exactly. What the OP forgets is that Moore's Law pushes in two directions. The first direction is to give you more performance for the same amount of money. The second direction (and often less appreciated) is to give you the same performance for less money. That's what the ASUS Eee PC does - it gives you the equivalent performance of the older 3010 at a fraction of the price.
I want one but a 7" screen is just a bit too small. I would drop my money in a second if they put out one with a 10" screen. Asus said they would months ago and then retracted the statement. The small screen size is the only thing holding me back right now... --Ron
main(i){(10-putchar(((25208>>3*(i+=3))&7)+(i ?i-4?100:65:10)))?main(i-4):i;}
I expected to use this Eee PC for surfing, reading, commenting and blog writing, and that's what it's evolved to.
It's good for that and worth the $350 (4G Surf). I'm kind of environmental and I also like the fact that it pulled only 0.82 kWh in the first 10 days of use (measured by Kill-A-Watt monitor).
In a multi-PC house there's a place for it.
(I'm also with those who for many years used UNIX boxes with poorer specs than this thing)
Well, you've summed up the minimalist school of notebook design pretty well. And for my day to day use, that's pretty close to where I stand too really. When I was still in university, my tablet got a lot more use, but right now, the EEE is getting far more of the love.
Still, that monster gaming notebook has its purpose too. I've debated picking up a gaming notebook, just to avoid having to haul my desktop around to lan parties. But again, a purpose built device. They build 'em to run modern games, so you pay the price in weight, and wallet. Do I *NEED* it? Probably not, but if you've got the money, why not?
Different beasts, different purposes, right?
On a related note, I feel you on that Parallel port thingy. I actually ended up purchasing a cheap "USB port replicator" (thank you woot.com!) to get a parallel port to do JP1 remote control programming, and basic stamp work. Neither of my current notebooks had a parallel or serial port.
But really, that's an improvement too. Given that this is the only application I've had for either of these ports since I purchased the notebooks, I'm rather glad they've put the space to other uses. I don't do either of those tasks often... why carry the hardware around for occasional use?
By way of comparison, I wasn't thrilled at paying a "premium" for the integrated SD card slot when I first got my tablet. Now I'm not sure I'd consider a notebook without an SD card slot!
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
I have a Nokia N800 now, which is great, and has uber battery life for my use.
I like the EEE, but I'm worried about its small screen. 800x480 seems fine for my N800, which is a PDA form factor. But for a computer going for the "real PC" angle, 800x480 just doesn't seem like enough. 1024x768, *maybe*.
Can anyone who has used one comment on this? Is there any new models in the works with a better screen?
I "reviewed" this in a presentation to my local Unix User Group, whole presentation with many pix at:
http://www.cuug.ab.ca/branderr/eeepc/
of which my favourite is my own "external mod" for it, that I keep the machine, mini-mouse, spare Ethernet cord and some USB keys all in a cookie tin:
http://www.cuug.ab.ca/branderr/eeepc/009_eee_armored.html
that *still* takes up little enough room in my pack that it can go anywhere, whether I know I'll need it or not.
But as slide #5 notes, the killer app for me is that I can give presentations with it. I can do that with a regular laptop, too, but this one's just 3X as easy to lug through the whole nightmare that is air travel in the 21st century. This is a combination of the hardware having a VGA-out and video signal up to 1600x1200 if needed, and that OpenOffice does Powerpoint files just fine these days. Sometimes I have to adjust a few font sizes, took about a half hour to check through 30 slides.
I'm travelling around Europe next summer and this Eee-thing is perfect for slipping in a backpack and hitting the road. Primarily what I would use it for is blog updates (with photos) and checking e-mails at free wifi hotspots. I have no need to store gigs of holiday pics on it as I have a small collection of 2Gb SD cards.
This EEE laptop could well start a new fashion, inspired by the OLPC XO, but in a shape that normal people wouldn't be embarrassed to carry on the street. Just create wifi networks on the go and chat rooms for anyone to join. Better than SMS and for free - if you have an XO or EEE. Commuting would never be the same again.
You just repeated a few of the many things this guy said were great about these machines and completely mis-characterized the article. I know not reading the article is a Slashdot tradition, but it's a bad one. Don't follow it.
Overall for $50 and a few hours of work I think the LS is a GREAT UMPC even withstanding its hardware antiquness. Currently it is plogging away surfing online photo-albums and hotmail for my mom... I kno, I know, I have sent her 12+ gmail invitations but she "already knows how to use hotmail"... meh...
I really would like to get one of these EEEpcs but I already have too many underpowered PCs&Laptops, what I really need is a budget powerhouse to set up as a new media center PC (MythTV... still deciding...)
King of the ellipses AWAY...
I really hate how this article summary is written. I *love* my eee. It's tiny. I take it everywhere. I don't worry about a hard drive crash (it's an SSD). I don't care that it's a slower system, I use it as an Internet/troubleshooting machine. It's plenty fast. I hacked Xandros to put Gnome on it, and it works great! I'd definitely recommend the eee to people, Linux gurus and novices - the default GUI is damn simple to operate, and it's still Xandros (Debian-based) underneath.
Check out www.eeeuser.com if you want to get the real story.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
"Eee" kind of reminds me of that noise Mini Me makes. Eee! Eee!
A wise man once said, "Where is my other quotation mark?
Here's $2000. Give me 8 of those Thinkpads. What's the warranty on them like?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Current screen is too tiny to really be useful and it looks ridiculous.
One feature which reviewers of some of the early models claimed was available was the ability to boot from iso images on FAT-based USB drives. Can you confirm whether this made it in to the final version? If so, it would be great for installing / upgrading operating systems (just download the ISO and reboot).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Its that thing that McCoy holds over the patient to diagnose him.
The Mac OS X dock is directly from NeXTstep and I pity the fool who thinks it has anything to do with the Windows 95 taskbar.
Compare an x40 with your average college textbook. It's been a few years but I remember carying several books that out-weighed the T43 I just sold.
... and back) for well over a year along with heavy use and when I sold it the thing looked practically new and worked perfectly. The pack had some minimal padding, but since I didn't own it 'till it became part of my severance package I was *NOT* careful with it.
Oh, and you've never owned an IBM laptop. Otherwise you'd understand the durability. I had one that *lived* in a backpack and made my 4HR daily round trip commute 5 days a week (car -> train -> walk -> subway -> walk
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
In a word, yes.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
>actual quote: "A quick Google search ejaculates forth bold experimenters..."
In Soviet Russia, Google searches YOU to ejaculate.
Speaking of which ... :) I recently received a nice Packet-APRS radio kit from Argent data (totally free - here on Slashdot..just for reading the stuff people write here) ...I had to solder and assemble it myself...just to find that it was in need of an RS-232 port to work...and no one of my modern laptops OR desktops actually HAVE one of those ports, great! So I guess Ive got to use that old Port-replicator with the old Portege in order to make this APRS packet thingy work ;). (and just in case you have NO clue of what Im writing about - keep in mind that this is near new-years eve - and Im a TAD bit fuzzy because of a drink or two) and - the fact that Im talking about an earlier radio-amateur thread here on slashdot.org where a guy from argent data where giving out free electronics samples of his Packet-radio reading/writing APRS modem ....to whoever who read that post of his (yeah - I actually received this unit from him...so he is honest enough alright) ... why am I telling you this? Because I need that RS-232 port youre mentioning...most modern laptops OR desktops doesnt even come with this anymore! Does the Asus Eee have this? I suppose I could google it, but I am too lazy to do it...besides the point is moot - as it have no purpose for the everyday use of the common man using an Asus Eee, but they DID mention robots and a Dell...sooooo :)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I have a great 15" laptop that I used to carry around with me almost everywhere. If I needed to take notes on something, look something up, check email, or manage a server I could.
The EeePC lets me do all that, but with a small 2lb computer instead of a full-blown laptop. Let me be clear: this isn't a machine for marathon coding sessions or gaming.
...my first Sony Vaio. Ten inch display, no floppy, no cd. Weighed less than three pounds. Went everywhere with me, took multiple beatings and "just worked". It's the only laptop I would get comments on when I used it in public.
I got my daughter an OLPC. I am impressed with what they accomplished with it, and we haven't even scratched the surface of the applications on it. She's just jazzed that she has her own computer and can write and take pictures of herself. She did ask if she could use it to go to "coms", but her internet access will wait a while.
The OLPC is not, however, a good choice for me as a portable computer. Keyboard is made for kid sized hands and has a much different feel than I'm used to. If I ever start working again the ASUS would be my choice for a stow and go computer.
Are you a retard or just playing one one slashdot?
This is a toy computer which is mighty powerfull for the price.
With a bit of hacking it becomes very usefull.
Get a life! This device is obviously not for you so ignore it.
After perusing the mostly pointless flash website HERE, I have a quick question...
Is it okay to use the device while sitting or does it only work while lying down on your stomach and grinning at it like a retard?
Protector of Capitalist views,
Meorah
I was surprised at just what this machine could do, it will cope with all the office type tasks plus will run programs as diverse as Second Life and Drupal. I borrowed one for the weekend to see what it could do and wrote it all up: http://www.greenhughes.com/category/tagskeywords/asuseee. The most striking thing was that it appeals to non-power users and power users alike. Like many in the UK I'm waiting for new stock to be made available and I'll get one as it perfect for meetings and traveling.
There's also a discussion group called EeePlace that can be found here.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
And I've gone thru a total of 5 T20s in the last year and a half. Weekly commutes from Chicago to either San Francisco or Washington, D.C. and back (taxi & airplane) are rough on laptops. One was just a short drop (18" ?) off of a chair in the Midway food court to the floor. Totally dead.
Circumstances vary, and while I've had better luck with Thinkpads than almost any other laptop (Panasonic Toughbooks are more durable), they still have issues. You've been lucky.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The Task bar is nothing more than an icon box, which the W and X world had in mid 80's. Next came along after that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If money is no object then I would recommend the Fujitsu Lifebook P1610 over either of these options.
It is the size and weight of a hard-cover book, has an 8.9" 1280x768 display which flips out into a tablet mode.
I carry one around without any kind of case.
I can actually wield it like a notebook! (i'm talking about those paper things)
There's also a cheaper, smaller model ($1,000) fujitsu U810
I've owned my Eee PC for 2 months now. It is plenty powerful for everything except running the latest games. The Celeron M is 900MHz and with DDR2 RAM, it has plenty of power to even decode HR XviD videos.
512MB is plenty. Unless you are running new 3D game, that is half a BILLION bytes folks. You don't need that much memory to surf the web, play HD videos, or play postage stamp flash videos.
I put in an 8GB SD card, so now I have 12MB of storage with nothing sticking out. It gives me plenty of entertainment when I have to fly coast to coast or overseas. Traveling with this machine is a pleasure. Try lugging your giant 3GHz laptop to Japan once. You'll appreciate the Eee.
NeXT didn't exist in 1986. You're off by a few years.
I think this is more of a pda/laptop market space. Except for palm, which has not released a new OS version for their pda's , no-one really makes a pda anymore, for sale, in the US. They are all being made a cell phone / pda combination. While surfing the web on an iPhone or crackberry may sound like a good thing, it is not for everyone. Some people want something with a little larger of a screen and a little more like a laptop, but not a heavy as a laptop. This is also where the nokia N770/800/810 fit and the UMPC line. When you want more power than a phone but not the weight of a laptop. Think of it as you want to go on vacation and check your email and surf the web, but you don't feel like you need a 15" screen. While a phone would work, you want to be able to see things at a slightly larger resolution like that of a dvd player.
I wonder if their would be a market for one of these that had a dvd player built into also.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
My Dell Latitude D820 has a DB-9 RS232 com port. That's one of the main reasons my work purchased it - I need to connect to PLCs and other 90s-technology devices with com ports, and I've found that USB converters don't always function like they're supposed to. However, with packet radio, do you need more than just a transmit/receive pair? You might be able to get by with a USB converter. (All that I know about packet radio you could fit on a postage stamp.)
Wouldn't it be battery time AND price?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
"My real question is: what can I do with this that I cannot do with a $250 used thinkpad, a can of air, and a new battery? Thinkpad is cheaper, has a better everything, and I can actually type on it without shrinking my hands. I guess this eee is a lot smaller and doesn't smell like cabbage yet." I was unaware you could get a used thinkpad for 250 USD with built in wifi, 3 USB 2.0 ports, a battery that lasts 3 hours, and DDR2 memory in a case thats fanless. Its all about application...I just got mine last week, im using it at work in place of my NEC MobilePro 900c, i dont need a full size laptop, i needed a simple system that runs applications i need...It does pretty much everything your thinkpad does only the memory is quicker and its a whole lot smaller...
They were announced within the last few days. I haven't seen them available anywhere yet, though someone on eeeuser.com reported being able to buy accessories at Best Buy. Nothing on their website, though.
It's easy enough to copy a Linux ISO to a USB key and make it bootable but if it could boot an ISO just sitting on the key (without having prepared the key first) that would be even better (but sounds fiddly without software).
Maybe a bit of good and bad luck. Some model IBMs weren't as sturdy as others. The old 770's were a nightmare. The 600/600m/600x were rock solid (i know someone who's still using my old thrice-handed down 600m). t20 maybe not so much but i never had one.
T23 was pretty solid
T30 was OK for the short time i had one
T40 series are awesome
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
and that CF WiFi doodle. I've got a Thinkpad 600E that's almost useful - if only it could do MS Media Player to listen to Clear Channel radio.
Except, when Palm was about to release the Foleo, it was widely slammed by the media and the project was cancelled. Aka, the "Fooleo".
However, when Asus makes practically the same thing, someone decided to actually praise it. If this thing actually sells, THAT would be (ironic|amazing|hilarious).
I'll vouch for the quality of the 600 series. I'm using a 600e right now, in fact. The only thing I've ever had to replace was the battery...and the cd drive. That died due to a hammer blow, though (a fired employee decided to chuck one in my direction, and caught the laptop, no real damage...the drive even worked, but a dent in the housing made it scrape the cd up something fierce).
I sing the doggie electric!
This is what I would do with this laptop:
1) realize that in North America and Europe there is not much of a market since a 4GB HD and 7" screen are pathetically inadequate.
2) hype the heck out of it while, all the time, ignoring "1)"
3) Market it for $350 (TheSource (circuit city) price for it here in Canada).
4) pray I sell all the units I made and never make the same mistake again.
5) pray for profit (and not a loss).
CC
If you have to ask the last question (i.e. you cannot name at least five things you would do with it), then you geek license is revoked immediately. Have a nice day.
Heck, the thing can run Nethack. Do you need _more_ reasons to buy one ?
I dunno about you, but I'd rather carry a light device with a power adapter, than a heavy one with a power adapter...
1&1 - Cheap domain and web hosting.
The Asus eee has a great form factor and is just a perfect laptop to sneak between a PDA and a notebook. Also you have to just look back to what we used to say about XP, I think I called it an OS designed by a preschool class, but now I can't get rid of it I am so used to it.
Right now it run Linux, it is supposed to run Windows soon and the price is perfect for what you get. Wifi built in.
So again what is wrong with this thing?
"At a hospital I consult with; the IT penetration is surprisingly very poor among doctors."
Apparently not if you do a Google search first.
The $350 model doesn't. Its only when you shell out $400 or more that you get the webcam. For the same $400, you can get 2 OLPC XO machines, one for your mom, and one as a gift to a child in another country. You'll also get a MUCH better video display (800x600, 1024x768 and 1200x900 instead of the wtf 800 x 480), 3x the battery life, etc.
Kevin Smith on Prince
...and I'm posting from it now.
I know we programmers love getting into size wars (almost as much as we love getting into language wars), but sometimes smaller is indeed better.
It's not the individual parts that stand out, but rather the manner in which Asus packaged them into such a rugged, usable, attractive, inexpensive and friendly device that counts. Not since the days of the IBM 240 has anyone managed to pull this off.
The machine is perfectly adequate as a secondary programming platform, and it's stupidly fun to use. It makes you want to play with it.
I installed gcc, jdk6, perl, cpan, perl/tk, python, python wxWidgets, LAMP (with apache2, php5, mysql5 and various pecl extensions incuding pdo and apc), emacs, etc.
The only drawback is the small screen, but editing source in emacs or kate could be a lot worse.
Despite being small, the keyboard is perfectly usable. After a few hours I was able to touch-type on it. And the keys are clicky, something I miss from the days of the old IBM Model M keyboards (well, the eee isn't quite as loud, but I prefer the feel and travel over those on my PowerBook).
Others have mocked and derided the "toylike" asus launcher built on top of icewm, but I actually like it. I can always drop to shell (bash is just ctrl-alt-T away), and the tabbed interface is customizable. You can also install kde or gnome, and even set up compiz if you must.
Plenty of online help over at eeeuser.com as well (I post there as eeeOtter).
I don't often buy hardware, but I was compelled to run out and get an eee, and I'm glad I did. I stick it in my cargo pants side pocket, and now it goes everywhere with me.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Look. Not every gadget needs to be bleeding edge, ok?
My daughter chats on IM, goes on Facebook, reads e-mail and browses the web, generally. She does some modest word processing too.
For her - The EEEPC is perfect. It's small enough to fit in her purse and does everything she wants it to do.
Will it do everything - hell - even many of the things that the power users who tend to lurk on Slashdot want? No. Then again - other than it's Linux based OS, it's not aimed at Slashdotters.
Not every cool gadget is aimed at enthusiasts. Some are aimed at those with modest needs. For those users, the EEEPC is perfection.
.Robert
So, as I said, like it or not the modern desktop environment started with Windows '95.
Huh? Xerox invented pretty much all of modern computing: bit mapped displays, windows, icons, mice, pointers, (= WIMP), WYSIWYG, networking, object oriented software.
Saying Windows '95 invented the modern desktop environment is like saying you invented automobiles because you were the first to hang a pair of fuzzy dice off your rear view mirror.
I'm currently working at a local zoo. One eeeeePC was bought so the keepers could easily go around to all the dataloggers in various enclosures and download readings easily. I tossed WinXP on it the day after it was purchased (using my Asus USB DVD drive) and it was handed to the department in question while I had some time off.
(The second eeeeeePC is just for IT to screw around with. Err, I mean, it's for IT to better evaluate potential applications. I can categorically state that I will not be buying a 16Gig USB flash drive for playing WoW on it. At least, not until I renew my subscription.)
It is not eee specific, linux can be booted from an iso bootable image from a FAT formatted USB stick.Works for any computer with a bootable USB port,including the eee. See eeeuser.com.
Seriously -- how does 80x25 text mode look on the lop-sided VGA screen? Also, how much noise does the machine make (assuming there's a fan at all)? 512 MB /4 GB make a pretty luxurious DOS system, and buying one of these wouldn't cost that much more than replacing the dead battery in my laptop (450 MHz K6 so I'm easily impressed).
that the 4gb hard drive is a solid state, it comes with a webcam and microphone, and it weighs less then my keyboard.
Favorite username: admin'--
It does not have a built in SDHC reader
It does not have built in SSD
Comes with linux and open office
It's NEW not USED
"My real question is: what can I do with this that I cannot do with a $250 used thinkpad, a can of air, and a new battery?"
Work? Thinkpads are much more reliable than average, but used notebooks are an utter crapshoot. You're reasonably likely to put down some $$$ for a used notebook, and find out it's DOA. Or, more likely, that it works but it's all loose and crapped out.
Plus, new notebook batteries are not all that cheap. You'll be saving like $50 over the cost of an eee once you get the battery too. The thinkpad is better in almost every aspect as long as it works, but that's a risk some people are not willing to take.
Pure nonsense. Doug Engelbart's team at SRI invented most of the things you just listed, several years before Xerox PARC even started. From Wikipedia:
In fact, many of the researchers hired by PARC used to work with Engelbart at SRI. They took the ideas with them when they changed jobs.
With a large (8 cell) batery, the x40 is nearly double weight of the eee.
> Oh, and you've never owned an IBM laptop. Otherwise you'd understand the durability.
:-) (Actually, the X61 feels significantly less durable).
Well, I managed to ruin mine. Two hours in an unpadded backpack when I was riding a bicycle was two much for it, it only survived that kind of abuse for 1½ year. So I'm more careful with my X61
Build Quality, or the lack thereof in its construction.
It'll be a serious contender when it loses its cheapness, and not just something with a lot of hype around it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I have one with DSL running from a 512 meg CF card. (Load using a USB card adapter with a machine that boots from CD.) It has 96MB memory and battery life is several hours.
They make cool little appliances but I'd gladly swap for an Asus.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's an UMPC (ultra-mobile PC). It's incredibly portable, and a complete system for getting email, updating podcasts, checking websites, Skype calling, OpenArena playing, etc.
Lightweight is a feature.
Power management isn't working in the OLPC builds shipped to G1G1 recepients in December, but it's supposed to be addressed in a January update.
I'm surprised the OLPC take as long to boot as it does, though: 1 min 30 sec before the GUI comes up, and 2 min 20 sec before it finds and connects with the wireless AP. I thought it would be a bit faster booting from flash -- maybe it's the X11 overhead.
you aren't getting the point of it- the modders have dropped in a 16 gig SSHD in place of the 4/8 gig one in there and once you see one in person they have a really nice construction and form factor-I would never throw out my primary laptop for one, but they are kinda nice for travel and such- though I am going to spring for a wibrain once they are released- the specs on it are more workable, it runs XP and it is only a little bigger than a PSP
What can I do with this? Lots of stuff. Surf the web. Email. Run a word processor. Maybe even edit a picture or two.
Works for me.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Like a lot of people here, I support mission critical infrastructure, and I'm "irreplaceable"... on call 24x7x365.
I always have the laptop, aircard and blackberry, at the ball game, on vacation, at home, always.
The eeepc is small enough to carry around, and big enough to use for hours at a time.
Anything smaller is just too small, anything bigger reminds me that it's a ball and chain.
I have the 1g/8g model, and dual boot Xandros and XP (curse you Nortel).
Improvements would be 2'nd sd slot, screen=all of lid, bluetooth and cell modem internal.
I'm typing this now on my eeepc in my car.
F X=0:1:9999 F D=2:1 Q:((X>2)&(X#D=0)!((D>X/2)&(X'=1))) I D>(X/2) W:$X>75 ! W X,?$X+5-$l(X) Q
But there is no sex in heaven!
e797d223bc58372deecb73cd930f8d08b5fe0b84c26f50e74bf6bd8f6234dc2c
"no offense, but I don't believe you"
none taken, pal. This is the internet, after all. But I swear I'm not kidding. I was shocked that the laptop had only cosmetic damage. I also left a pen on the keyboard and a friend slammed the screen shut. The hinged closed, but there was a bulge. I was so angry, but the little discoloration effect on the LCD went away after 15 minutes.
The CD drive doesn't stay locked in anymore, I think because of the fall I mentioned, and this machine does not look new, but it works, and it did drop that far and fall down some steps at a parking garage. I would have a hard time believing a laptop is that durable too, but this thing really is a magic combo durable and lightweight enough not to fall too hard.
A Little late now, but FWIW, there is not a standard RS232 on the EEE. Like you said, they're rare on modern laptops.
Oddly, I did find an RS232 header on the motherboard for the HTPC that I built on new year's day. (An Nvidia 630i board for those so interested.) But it was pins only, and the requisite port and backplane were not included in the package.
That said, USB to serial isn't at all uncommon.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
You jest surely.
That may have been MSDOS and all the derivative versions (on PCs).
Windows did not hit the radar until Win3.x hit the market.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But the shops in Totenham Court Road (the traditional street where London geeks go to find the latest and greatest gadgetry) had signs advertising the fact that they had a few.
This, at least here, is important: that means it is selling like hot cakes.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That is the main beauty of the eeepc: a truly portable, usable laptop.
See it as a proof of concept, and it is driving home the point that putting Windows adds to the cost...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I got my fiancee an EEE PC for Christmas, and she loves it. I changed the desktop to KDE/Beryl (very easy to do), so it's a lot more user friendly (for someone used to the typical desktop paradigm). It fits in her purse, and has a nice big screen (compared to my nokia 770, n800 and OQO 02 that she had used before) and full laptop keyboard (all be it a small one). So, as the fourth ultramobile pc/device in the apartment, it gets a lot of use. It would be a little to big for me, because I can't fit it in my pocket, but for her, it works. The thing with the Nokia tablets, is that they aren't quite UMPCs, they are internet devices - they don't run real office software, which is important for say, working on a resume. And it's at a much better price than something like the OQO.
The EEE PC is a laptop. It's only real shortcoming is the lack of storage, but it has an SDHC reader (she's got an 8GB card), and I also picked up an 80GB external drive for her. The screen is on the average/large side of UMPCs, and is quite nice. The keyboard is a bit cramped, but I think that she has gotten used to it. At least the keyboard is a full laptop keyboard. It lacks internal bluetooth, but she doesn't really need that; if she did, I would probably just get one of those new tiny bluetooth dongles.
Compared to my OQO 02 (running openSuSE 10.2), it has a similar feel, but she's got a bigger screen and an accelerated video driver on the EEE PC (which I'm jealous of). Even with the cramped keyboard, it's faster to type on the EEE PC than it is the thumb-board on the OQO. The web experience is a little better on the EEE PC, because of the size of the screen.
The EEE PC and the Nokia devices don't really compare too well, except for perhaps the web experience, which is better on the EEE PC. Although, I don't like the default interface of the EEE PC as much as Nokia's Maemo interface. And, the Nokia devices get locked and unlocked quickly into a low power state, which makes it better sometimes for looking something up quickly (you don't need to wait the minute or so to boot up the device).
For me, the OQO 02 is my main laptop(esq) device, because of the fact that it is fully featured, and fits in my pocket. However, the n800 is nice for times that I don't want to worry about carrying around the OQO (it's half the thickness and a lot lighter), but want to have something to jump online quickly. If I were in the market today, and didn't have any ultramobile device, the EEE PC would be a really strong contender because it is really portable, it has a nice sized screen, it's really light, the price is excellent, it is full-featured, and I don't have to put any effort into loading Linux onto it (or dealing with searching for drivers).
As an aside, if anybody has gotten accelerated graphics working on the OQO 02 (VX700 or CX700 VIA video chipset), I'd be interested in hearing how you did it, as there is little support from viaarena on the forums, and the documentation is a bit lacking. The openchrome and unichrome drivers don't seem to work.
That would ensure a machine connecting is the machine it portrays to be, you would still be open to somebody stealing the computer , but balanced against usability the compromise may be worth it. A company that may be able to help is SSH (www.ssh.com) with their Tectia product.
As somebody else mentioned, MAC addresses are trivial to hack, so you should abandon that approach.