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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.
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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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 ?