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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."
It is obvious that there is room for a larger screen on the Eee PC that wouldn't make it any bigger. So if you want to beat the Eee PC, just make the exact same screen with a screen that is as big as it can be.
I should really charge a consulting fee.
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?
I'm not too lazy to read it, but I refuse to read C|Net. Two paragraphs per screen, and each screen is filled with so many blinking shiney flashing ads it takes forever for each page to load.
And under $1000? WTF? They're comparing a $999 laptop with a $250 laptop? Isn't that kind of like comparing a compact car with a mid sized car? One more reason to avoid C|Net like the plague.
It's sad, that used to be a pretty good site.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
That's not exactly "bargain" space, Apple's Macbook is almost in that range, and last week I configured a Dell Vostro 1500 with a Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2 GHz, 3 GB ram, XP Home, a 256 MB GeForce 8600GT, and a 15" SXGA screen for $833.
rooooar
The article is, basically, a few specs and pictures from press releases lifted out and spread over 7 ad-filled pages. The same information could've been provided in a small table with some pictures next to it. No insight, no investigation, nothing that isn't public knowledge. They didn't even (as an example) do a google search for the phrase "Elonex One" which would've told them that it's a variation on a rather old unit which has been on sale in other markets for a while, so there are lots of hands-on reports (that way they could've commented on the need for a kickstand on that machine, and other useful tidbits). Heck, they reckon that the "VIA Nanobook" and "Easynote XS" are rebrandings of the "Cloudbook", without the vaguest notion of the real relationship between the machines. Just another bit of "news" accomplished by rewriting the press releases with as little thought as possible.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Uhm, do you read what you post? Every single hit on that search were posts in webforms complaining that that Elonex hasn't released any information about it.
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.
Checking, the current V-Dragon is a PowerPC licensed from IBM.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
No, I didn't. Gees, Google is usually so helpful too =(
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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); }
Cnet writes:
"Okay, the hype overshadowed the fact that it's rather slow, sometimes unreliable and nearly impossible to type on if you had grown-up fingers, but these are minor details."
Minor details, perhaps, but I disagree. 900MHz is adequate for web, and text processing. Unreliable? Hardly. Zero crashes on mine. The keyboard is quite usable, once you teach your right pinky not to hit the UpArrow when going for the '/' or Shift keys. The three drawbacks I see are:
1) It's rootable out of the box (samba) http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2008/Feb/0117.html
2) Asus didn't provide an easy way to obtain updates for the masses.
3) The fan runs continuously after about 10 minutes of use.
I installed eeeXubuntu along with compiz-fusion and now it's a great little machine.
For the money and it's size, it certainly gets the job done.
Bored with making MacBooks for Steve Jobs, one day Asus decided to create its own stylish laptop and flog it on the cheap. The result was the Eee PC -- a Linux-based ultraportable notebook that wowed consumers, shocked rival manufacturers and is slowly but surely revolutionising an industry.
But Asus is no longer alone. 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. They're all real products, and a few are already available, so we've included links to our full reviews for those.
Asus Eee PC 701, £220
The Eee has racked up hundreds of thousands of sales in a relatively short space of time. It's portable, attractive, versatile and has completely flipped the laptop world on its head with a stupidly low price point.
In exchange for a touch over £200, the Eee provides a Pentium M 900MHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, a 7-inch 800x480-pixel display, and enough Linux software to keep you busy for weeks. It's awesome value.
Okay, the hype overshadowed the fact that it's rather slow, sometimes unreliable and nearly impossible to type on if you had grown-up fingers, but these are minor details. In the long run it'll be recognised as one of the decade's most important pieces of tech design. Its rivals -- including the Eee PC 901 -- will have a very hard time topping it.
Elonex One (aka GeCube Genie), £99
Let's kick things off with the Elonex One, which many geeks will also know as the GeCube Genie Jr. It's designed for school children, but will no doubt attract a much wider demographic thanks to its ludicrously low price.
The One is an attractive little unit that weighs in at 900g. Elonex says it's designed to be kid-proof in that it's shock resistant, has no moving parts and is very reliable. The main components are housed behind the 7-inch 800x480-pixel display. You get a 300MHz LNX Code 8 Mobile CPU -- no, we've never heard of it either -- 128MB of DDR2 memory and 1GB of flash memory. An enhanced version of the laptop, called the One Plus, ships with 256MB of RAM and 2GB of storage.
What else do you get for fewer than 10,000 pennies? Well, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi is standard, as is wired 10/100 Ethernet, two USB2.0 ports, built-in speakers, and the keyboard's removable so you can use the One like a tablet PC. The display isn't touch-sensitive, so you'll have to use a 'mouse emulator' -- aka nipple -- round the back. The whole thing runs on the Linux Linos 2.6.21 operating system, which comes with a variety of productivity, media and education software.
The One is never going to be the fastest computer in the world, and we're sceptical that it'll be without its problems, but you really can't go wrong for £99. It's available in pink, green, silver, white or black, and will be released in July 2008. Pre-order yours from the Elonex Web site now for a £10 deposit.
Packard Bell EasyNote XS (aka VIA Nanobook), £399
Originally the Everex Cloudbook, this petite laptop now goes by many different names: 'EasyNote XS', 'VIA Nanobook', and courtesy of some potty-mouthed Cravers: 'horrible pile of turd'. That last bit is very unfair -- the XS is pretty accomplished.
It's tiny: just 230x171x29mm and it weighs 950g. It uses a 7-inch display with an 800x480-pixel native resolution, a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 30GB 2.5-inch hard drive, which
But you're allowed to read and post on Slashdot, right? ;)
Connection closed by foreign host.
I purchased the ASUS EEE 4G from newegg about 6 weeks ago. There are several models to choose from, and some idiosyncracies from one model to the next. The 4G has an accessible door on the underside which allows the user to upgrade the RAM module (stock 512MB). In addition to the 4G, I purchased
- an 8Gb SDHC card
- 1 GB RAM module
- XP Home (OEM)
- DVD/CD burner
- Small Laptop Bag
- 4GB USB stick
- 1 set of samsung portable speakers (from WOOT!)
So i'm in for around $700.00 when all was said and done.
What I like:
- Ultra portable and lightweight.
- Very good battery life (around 2.5-3 hours under heavy load). This can be increased by switching off the built in webcam, switching off the wireless internet (assuming you're not browsing), reducing screen brightness, and reducing fan speed
- Ability to overclock. Someone hacked up an app that allows the user to control cpu and fan speed
- Change screen resolutions. Someone hacked up an app allowing the user to select a number of non-native screen resolutions to improve readability and desktop realestate.
- Boot up time. Mine boots XP in around 60 secs, which includes about 10 background apps (antispyware, antivirus, overclock app, screen res app, virtual desktop app, battery monitor etc...). Some people have reported an NLITE'd install of XP booting in under 30 secs.
What I don't like:
- the keyboard is small and awkward. Touchtyping is damn near impossible. Better to use some variant of 4 finger touch typing
- the stock linux install. I've used linux extensively in the past, but just don't use it enough on the desktop to achieve a high degree of familiarity. I used it for the first week, then just decided to switch to XP.
- I would imagine this thing is the opposite of "ruggedized." It feels perfectly fine, but I would hate to drop it from more than a foot. I would imagine it would be in pieces. It doesn't exactly feel sturdy.
- The need to buy a bunch of extra stuff to really make it shine. Right out of the box it's useful, but with the added purchases above, it really becomes a very decent travel laptop replacement. But those added purchases essentially doubled the price of the stock ASUS. I did enough research to know that very few folks are really using a stock machine only.
- The stock speakers are just too soft to overcome any ambient noise.
- Getting XP installed without an external CDROM can be a real challenge.
Going to this website (http://forum.eeeuser.com/) will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about what people are doing with these things, and how to do it.
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.
From the press release that was linked to:
"Although petite in size, this high performance miniature computer truly performs and comes with a durable, shock-proof solid-state design - making it easy for housewives, office ladies and student alike to carry and connect to the Internet."
So what you're saying is that women are as weak, frail, clumsy and careless as children.
Who comes up with this stuff?
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'm not sure I understand your argument there. Are you comparing sales figures from e.g. Amazon and other companies (see e.g.: http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/12/29/1959244.shtml ) with anecdotal evidence observed amongst your acquaintances?
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.
I went on a business trip to Taipei, and bought one on the last day. It's the 4g model with webcam(whichever one that is). After changing it from Chinese to English in 1 minute, I was up & away. The only downside is it can't see my wireless network, but it now sees wireless networks my mainstream laptop can't see around my house. While it can't do everything a laptop can, it is great for taking to the coffee shop for a quick web or email fix.
Voice Command is hilarious. You can amuse your non computer-savy friends by saying "COMPUTER WEB" and it fires up Firefox. Love the crude computer voice it blares out. Just wish it had the "computer" sound from Star Trek:TNG for the added futurism.
I am surprisingly LIKING the hacked-up Linux they used on this. It's even easier to use than Ubuntu. Their simple frontend GUI is actually pleasant to use. I was surprised to login to my linux samba server and have it work on the first try. Just wish I could find the place to change my EEE's computer name/workgroup.
Their wireless connectivity thing is better than Windows, listing connectivity percentages and such, and a text window output of the progress of connecting to the AP. Wish Windows was more like that.
While the keyboard takes getting used to, I like the Function key bindings to various functions(speaker, wireless, etc) to the top row. I have some typing experience on tiny keyboards on its spiritial successor, the Zeos Pocket PC, made 18 years prior. The zeos' keyboard is a bit more "keyboardish"(ie more travel to the keys), but the ASUS one is just fine.
I wonder if some marketing guy had a Zeos pocket pc and thought "hey, let's make an updated version of this!".
It cost me almost NT12000 and to me, is worth every penny. Just wish the bag was a bit bigger to hold the power supply.
It's also missing the Nokia N800. It certainly seems to fit the bill: a small computer, running Linux, WiFi, a tiny 256MB of internal flash, etc. And it's less than $250. It even uses a 800x480 touch screen (no keyboard), so I would rank it pretty highly against the Eee.
The government can't save you.
Yes, $700 CAD when thrown through an exchange rate calculator works out at £325. But then you add on Magic UK Ripoff Taxes, and you'll find that a 1525 of that spec. is £428.99 on the Dell site. More expensive than anything in that lineup, and certainly a lot more than the £220 Eee.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I actually own a Nokia N800 and I love it for browsing the web (going on slashdot). I love the fact that you can link it up to your phone's data plan via bluetooth as it comes in handy when there are no viable wifi spots around. The only thing I would say is, the N800 isn't really suited for typing up documents or even doing a little coding. Sure you could buy a bluetooth keyboard but it ends up being more of a hassle. I'll probably be purchasing an EeePC in the coming month but i'll keep my N800 handy when for more handheld tasks.
Turn based strategy game that runs over XMPP. Phalanx
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.