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CNet Compares Eee PC Against the Competition
An anonymous reader writes "CNet has recently done a comparison of the Asus Eee PC against six bargain laptops that all fall under $1000. Included in the list is the Elonex One, OLPC, EasyNote XS and MSI Wind. "Since the Eee's launch, many of its rivals have begun to create similar alternatives — each designed to pilfer a piece of the budget ultraportable pie. Some are trying to beat the Eee on price, some on specs, but they're all tiny and they're all camped out in the bargain basement." Let the 'race to the bottom' begin."
All fall under a $1000? What kind of standard is that? MY laptop was under $1000 when new, and similar laptops are now in the ~$750 range. Why get an underpowered ultraportable when a normal laptop costs just as much?
The assertion that Asus "flipped the laptop world on its head with a stupidly low price point" made in this article simply isn't true. Sub-$500 laptops have been around for some time now. And, for the money, the Asus really isn't even a particularly good deal. For $100 more, you can buy a laptop with an actual 60GB hard drive and much more muscular processor. The main advantage to the Eee isn't its price point, but the fact that it is very small (and the screen is perhaps too small as the parent points out), light, and durable (since it has a solid-state hard drive).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It reminds this old timer of the early 8-bit pc wars on the 1980's, when Atari/Commodore/Apple/TI/Sinclair and others were slugging it out. It was brutal - TI dumped their load and got out of the market - Atari was tanking big time - Timex/Sinclair eventually came out with a minimalist Z80/ROM BASIC box with a membrane keyboard for ultra cheap - then came the crash of 1983.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If you head over to the EEE user forums (google it), you'll find that someone has already worked up an application that allows the user to select from a wide variety of screen resolutions. The issue is the native size of the screen (which i believe is widescreen cause it's the same one used in portable DVD players). If you go with certain screen resolutions, the fonts become unreadable as they become squished or stretched. However, this application that was developed allows users to select a screen resolution that is the proper ratio to the actual screen size. So the readability is much improved, and you get more desktop realestate.
I should mention this is for an XP install on the EEE only. I have no idea if someone has worked up a similar app for the stock linux install.
hth,
jeff
MSI Wind, £225
If there's one laptop that could seriously end the Eee's reign, it's the MSI Wind. We believe it could be the perfect blend of portability and usability, due to the fact it's slightly larger than an Eee PC, with a bigger keyboard and a choice of screen sizes.
Eight- and 10-inch versions are available, as are Silverthorne CPUs ranging from 1GHz to 1.5GHz. You even get a choice of hard drive types: there are solid-state models for anyone prone to dropping things, and 2.5-inch models for anyone who wants to store lots of multimedia files.
Best of all, the entry-level Wind is set to cost just 299 (£225), or 699 (£530) for the high-end model. Like all good uber-portables, it's available in a variety of colours including blue, silver and pink.
That sounds like the cream of the crop. MSI is a fairly quality manufacturer, and they are offering multiple configurations. The Cloudbook was promising up until I got my hands on one, however, and UGH! You can't get around that funky micro trackpad on one side and clicking buttons on another, and the damn thing gets hotter than my MacBook when crunching video. And that wasn't under any load at all.
Really, what people need to compare the Eee and its progeny to is not full-sized laptops but PDAs. The Eee, the Wind, the OLPC, etc. are more like overgrown Palms than mini notebooks. If you look at them that way, suddenly their uses present themselves. If you expect full-sized laptop performance, particularly desktop replacement laptop performance, from one of these, you are in for a rude awakening.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I saw little (if any) favoritism towards Windows-based machines. For once, they compared the notebooks on the basis of hardware alone. The IT press is finally admitting that you don't need ANY particular OS to use commodity apps in the ultramobile world. Also notice how the only time Vista was mentioned at all, it was to discuss the price of an XP downgrade. For all the advertising money MS pumps into IT publications, I expected much more Redmond "flavor" to the article.
Prices for these usable machines seem to start at ~150USD. I don't understand, then, why I /still/ can't find a sub-100USD thin client device with VGA out, understands X11, WiFi and has USB inputs for keyboard/mouse. These seem to start at $250, with $400-500 being more common -- especially among those that can connect to an X11 server. Given that they surely can't be cheaper to make than a fully functional mini-laptop with HDD, why the hell don't they exist?
I've had mine since December and it has stood up to the rigors of travel. I've added a usb mouse and a bluetooth dongle and upgraded the OS to Ubuntu (I don't see the fascination with putting XP on it). Tough keyboard for extended typing, but a good investment overall to compliment my main work laptop when traveling. I use it walking around data centers for console access.
Sure, the Eee PC is an extremely cheap laptop but at the same time there are all kinds of other laptops on the market. For instance, as the article points out, Asus itself makes the MacBook Pro. In between those extremes there are all sorts of other laptops on the market.
And so what? The Eee PC is specifically designed to be a cheap commodity item made of other cheap commodity items with no significant value add. And there's no real race to the bottom because the commoditization of one thing makes adding value easier up the chain. We are only just starting to see the beginning of what can be done with the Eee. Geeks will pick up 10 of them and do something with them in their garage.
One thing that might come out of this though is that the laptops just above its price range will have to add significant functionality in order to sell. As I understand it, they do. A lot of people are pointing out that for $100 more you can get significantly higher specs although with the tradeoff of a heavier laptop. This is good though as it sets the bar higher for the higher-end equipment. For instance, no one is going to confuse a MacBook Air for an Eee PC even though they have the common theme of being small.
Actually,
I don't use that particular app or the new drivers. I use the native resolutions that are supported by the ASUS drivers and the ASUS resolution switching app. If i understand your comment, then I agree. Based on the posts I've read, there are certainly folks that, despite this app and the new drivers, found the screen really unusuable at higher resolutions and went back to the original drivers. But, there are also folks who are raving about it as if it's the next best thing to sliced bread. I merely pointed out that the laptop has the ability to display screen resolutions beyond what ASUS is bundling, and if people are so inclined, they can do that.
It seems as if the primary reason to do this is gaming. I can't begin to imagine gaming on this thing, but people are installing World of Warcraft and a number of first person shooters. Evidently, some of these programs refuse to install when they detect the native resolution of the ASUS. By using this homebrewed app, they are able to install and play the games they want, and evidently get some satisfaction, despite the small screen and small keyboard.
hth,
jeff