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Hands-On With the Windows XP-Based Asus Eee PC
MojoKid writes "Though the Asus Eee PC Windows XP variant isn't due out until sometime in April, HotHardware was able to get their hands on a full retail bundle before they hit store shelves in the US. The standard assortment of accoutrements is included in the bundle, along with a couple of notable upgrades. Asus took the initiative to provide an additional 4GB SD card from Adata, a healthy storage expansion for the system. In addition, an Asus-branded optical mouse was thrown in for good measure. Microsoft's Windows Live messenger, photo gallery and email suite are pre-installed on the the machine for collaborative and social networking capability, in addition to Microsoft Works for word processing, spreadsheets, and calendar functionality."
Aaaand the good link.
I can't wait to get my hands on one of these, and put Linux on it.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
I'm not sure I'd run out and get the XP version with only a 4 GB SSD just yet (albeit with an additional 4 GB card). The 8 GB is available now (see http://backpackcomputing.com/ for the link). Also, a version with an 8.9 inch screen, but the same overall form factor should be out in a few months.
I thought that Microsoft was withdrawing Windows XP from the market in a couple of months. Are they still going to offer it on these low-end machines?
I love how XP computers are still making headlines in their releases...News like this has to be a real slap in the face to Microsoft with the tireless Vista promotion, when XP is still big news.
Aren't people gonna want to install the office 07 suite on that thing? I mean, when i make vmware images for xp, the minimum is 8-10 gigs. isn't microsoft works... no... i'm gonna stay away from the microsoft bashing.. I just see people wanting more standard performance out of it than it can really do. We shall see who lasts the longest before their Eee complains about low disk space. I guess if they want to use it as a web browser and email reader, they would have to use a few gigs to get outlook on there. only communists use mozilla anything. nutscrape. yeah.
I guess if you drag your knuckles....
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
I'm going to wait for the bigger screen. http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/hands-on-with-the-9-inch-eee-pc/
The price has crept up to within $100 of a "standard" basic notebook. The only thing this little machine has going for it is size - 800 x 480 is utterly useless because you spend too much time dealing with cartoonishly huge windows. I run into this kind of trouble every time I visit my parent's house and attempt to use their machine set to 800 x 600 - it's bloody unproductive. I'd gladly reconsider the eee when they release the upcoming version with a 1024 x not-quite-enough screen, but I fear the price will be at least $399 for a semi-usable configuration.
I just bought one of the linux base ones from newegg, and I looked around a bit. The midrange 4 gig model sells for about $350, and the 4 gig model with the webcam and a better battery goes for $399, with linux.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=eee+pc&x=0&y=0
Now they are trying to say that they are going to sell a windows based version bundled with a bunch of other stuff for only $399?
The only way I see that happening is if Microsoft pays them to do it. If they are selling a smaller bundle with a free operating system for the same price. I call shenanigans.
once more into the breach
At least according to the specs on newegg.com this thing has VGA out. If one can squeeze PowerPoint onto the thing, it would make the ultimate PowerPoint presentation machine. A mere two pounds, ultra-small, and more than capable of giving PowerPoint presentations that aren't overly loaded with multimedia.
Can anyone verify the presence of a VGA port? eeepc.asus.com doesn't specify, though it may be because every other page on its website is down at the moment.
The WinXP version will retail for 399USD. This includes the SD card and an extra mouse. As far as I know the retail price for the 4G linux version is 399USD. So I am struggling to understand the economy here, provided that the Linux is (supposedly) free. Is actually MS paying to get XP in these things? Or is Xandros license actually more expensive than WinXP license? Please, help me to understand...
Why not put Open Office on it? I work at a college, and papers submitted in MS Works are compatible with nothing, not even Word. You can get a translation file for Word, but it loses all the document formatting.
The Eee couldn't have been designed just for kids:
One of their marketing photos has a blond woman with large breasts using it at the beach.
They should have added Norton security and then compared its speed against the Linux version...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The game.
ASUS doesn't need to make a smartly customized eeePC with a choice set of applications . . . that's called the eeePC. The XP version is for people who can't see past the lack of their comfort zone, or desperately require XP for some reason. Plus, for people who are in that interesting demographic that loves/needs XP but would prefer OpenOffice over works, well hey, it's "OpenOffice.org" for a reason
Plus, have you gotten the impression (ie. do you remember the quotes) that ASUS was never too keen on XP in the first place? Hell, this Xandros-based distro on the eeePC is their baby, I'd suspect that at least some members of the company are sneering at running XP but realize there's a market for it, and their reaction to that reality amplifies the points I've made above.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
You're completely wrong. XP on an EeePC runs great, and that's on one that's been converted using a normal old XP disc and the included Asus CD. Presented some stuff with it using IE and Portable OpenOffice just last week.
I know its not a popular subject around here, but putting Linux on a notebook costs money as well. There has to be someone to call when it doesn't work.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
What planet do you live on? Both my wife and I have the EeePC 701 (the 4GB version with the webcam built in) and we love them. Hers is pretty much as sold, with a bit of tweaking to the menus, mine runs Kubuntu 7.10. These machines, despite their low spec on paper (900MHz processor throttled back to 602MHz, 512MB ram etc) run as well as any of my other laptops when using them for what they were designed for - e.g email, surfing the web, basic word processing etc. I even play some games on mine - Wesnoth, OpenArena etc. Plenty of folk have already installed Windows XP on theirs - usually cutting down the install with something like nLite to get it to fit sensibly on the 4GB drive. Not my thing - I don't run Windows at all, but they all seem happy enough with the performance. As a Linux user, I am a little disappointed that Asus have gone down the Windows road, but I can't really blame them - they want to make the EeePC as popular as possible. I will be sticking with my Linux install and, when the specs of the machines have been upped sufficiently, I will treat myself to another!
Awful UID - but I have been here ages...
I'm also curious about the price.
I just bought a 4G (with free carrying case!) this past Thursday from a local small computer store (that I have been a regular at for over 10 years). I asked the owner what the mark up is on the system and he told me that ASUS sells them to him at 379$ and if he wants to sell them at a price other than 399$, he needs to get written permission from them 14 days in advance. He can't even have a sale for them at 389$ without telling them and getting permission 14 days before the sale, in his words "it's not worth the effort just to cut my profit in half."
What he did mention is that ASUS gives him a quarterly kick back for ever 50 machines he sells, 5000$, and for every 20 2GB memory upgrades, 2000$. As an FYI, the 2GB memory upgrade cost me 50$ and they're not allowed to charge the customers labor in order for it to qualify. Same goes for the various accessories, but he didn't mention what he gets on those, I assume it's comparable. He figured they'd be doing the same with XP when it came available.
Regardless, I installed the Advanced Desktop via apt-get as soon as I got home Thursday night, and have not missed the EEE's default custom desktop one bit.
Note: all prices are in CAD
> The full featured Xandros OS fits in about 200MB. It includes open
> office, flash, firefox, Google mail and chat links,
> Skype and other software that can use the webcam and a reasonable
> media player.
I am not sure from where you got that figure. The standard Eee PC 4G Surf comes with the built-in 4G flash disk partitioned into two partitions (no there's four actually but only those two are part of the Linux installation) - one slightly above 2GB and one slightly below 2GB. The first is used entirely for Linux system and the other is layered on top of that using unionfs. ALL changes by user - EVEN system updates take place on the second partition. The original more than 2 GB partition is almost full - so I reckon the standard Xandros with all you mention is around 2G roughly.
Considering the amount of software - including LOTS is not directly available in simple mode (for example konqueror, kontact, kmail etc.) that is still very impressive.
FYI, In Japan, XP is the only flavor of Eee PC. Not sure about other countries.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
"Movies? Yes, they play great off USB thumb drives..."
Really?
Before I installed a 2 Gig chip, I watched Das Boot with subtitles, and my Eee PC displayed occasional frame drag, and the sound track was slightly off as well.
This off of a 4 Gig memory stick with decent transfer rates, and will play movies on my other PC's without these issues.
So admittedly, I'm skeptical about you're being able to watch movies without any problems with the "stock" 512 Megs of memory.
I do however, use my Eee PC to stream the music for both of my radio shows with the included media player, and it worked wonderfully with the "stock" 512 Megs of memory.!
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
I'm tired of hearing this. The price is on target because it is not a basic notebook. It is an ultra portable device at an affordable price point compared to other ultra portable devices (read ultra portable does not necessarily mean laptop). People buying the eee don't care that the resolution is low, that the device can't play crysis, or that they can get a bigger brick at the same price. All they care about is: is it portable and does it allow me to do email, internet (yes people think browsing web pages == 'internet'), read documents, and run my little apps (IM, youtube, and mp3s).
Until the eee pc came out, every computer manufacturer failed at getting the requirements right for a laptop. It just so happened that asus got it right and that the tech needed (SSDs, CPU speed increases, ram capacity increases) was cheap enough.
However, I still give the OLPC/XO most of the credit for helping to create the market. If all of the news and media coverage of the OLPC never came to be, Asus and others may never have attempted such a device.
The "df" command won't show you the true story :) The thing is the Asus is using unionfs to layer two filesystems on top of each other. One is the original system partition - which is slightly bigger than 2 GB, almost full and read-only. On top of that the slightly less than 2 GB partition that is almost empty bar your /home/user directory is layered. The df command will report around 2 GB with around 2 GB available (I honestly can't remember the total size reported and I've nuked the unionfs on my eee and merged the two partitions into one r/w partition instead).
And well - it IS pretty much a standard debian with almost a complete KDE minus a little bloat (mostly the window manager as far as I can see). If you dig around you'll discover tons of stuff that is either not used or not accessible through the "easy gui". Examples are kontact/kmail/korganizer. The darn thing also got a complete java jre environment - that alone sucks up what - 50 - 80 MB or so.
If you want the true sizes you can mount the partitions of the flash manually and then do your df.
They have to compete, since obviously Asus has no problems releasing Linux only.
I am sure other PC manufacturers are watching, and may try to market properly speced and functioning Linux offering even if only to get out of idiotic exclusivity agreements with MS (which they should not have signed in the first place).
Ladies and gents, maybe this time the year for Linux in the desktop has really arrived, thanks to a company that saw the bleeding obvious: the differential in price between Linux and Windows. This year of economic downturn will concentrate the minds of a lot of people that will wonder why they should keep paying for more expensive, buggier, standards shy software.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Then what? there will be a point when Linux is up to scratch for more demanding tasks.
It is not if but when.
The reason Ballmer was blabbering about patents is because they know their normal modus operandi of embrace and extend is simply not going to work. Patent litigation is is plan B, and even that may not be a plan at all if US courts finally see the light and strike down software patents for what they really are: the cave of the Ali Babas of the IT industry.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.