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Early Look At ASUS Eee PC 901 With Intel Atom CPU
Might E. Mouse writes "Reviews are hitting the net for the first Intel Atom-powered netbooks, and TrustedReviews has posted one for the ASUS Eee PC 901 20G Linux Edition. Has ASUS won the Atom(ic) war before it even started? With features like Wireless-N and a 6600mAh battery good for four to seven hours, that might well be the case. TR rated it highly, but I'm going to wait for their MSI Wind review before making a purchase — their first look at the Wind showed a better keyboard and larger storage."
An anonymous reader notes that despite the increased capabilities, the 901 debuts at a lower cost than its predecessor.
What difference does the power drain of the chipset make if it still gives you 7 hours battery time?
Sure, a lower wattage chipset would give you more, but what exactly is there to worry about?
-- taking over the world, we are.
FOSS has made it possible to create these machines and circumvent Microsoft's near monopoly...
I'm not sure FOSS made their existence possible, but it certainly made this price differential possible:
The Wind appears to be solidly constructed out of hard plastic--unlike some early mini-laptops, which feel about as sturdy as a Styrofoam mini-cooler. At 10 by 7 by 0.8 inches, the Wind resembles some pricier portables--enough so that the list price of $399 (or $499 for the Windows XP version) seems like a bargain. Wait a week and we'll be able to tell you whether it's worth the money.Computerworld
The mini-notebook phenom has most definitely highlighted the Windows tax on computer hardware. And it's nice to see examples of having that price differential clearly illustrated. And that's the way it should be. If you feel having Windows adds $100 of value to your notebook, by all means go right ahead and fork over the $$$.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The rate at which hardware prices are dropping is simply breathtaking. Consider it from the seller's angle: a $500 drop in price from say $1500 represents a 33% drop in revenue; a $500 drop in price from $1000, on the other hand, represents a 50% drop in revenue. This wreaks havoc on a lot of business models--and of course, creates a lot of new ones.
Looking at this price trend, it seems like every home will soon be littered with a lot of portables--some fairly new, others, say, one or two years old. There might be one on every coffee table, you might throw one in the bathroom, as well as the one in the bedroom, and so on. Managing and maintaining the software on all these devices will be a chore.
In an article I co-wrote for the FaunOS project project, we argue that making the boot device detachable and largely hardware agnostic is an attractive solution. The idea is that users carry and maintain only a single copy of an operating environment which they can run on pretty much any device of their choosing. That way, the user accumulates and maintains know-how on a single evolving operating environment rather than having to duplicate that effort across multiple machines. Does this makes sense?
Maybe I missed a memo, but so far all I've found for WiFi-N support on Linux is "legacy mode" where it falls back to B/G. Is there real, MIMO and bonded WiFi-N under Linux for either the Intel or Atheros chipsets?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
What bothers me is that ASUS is no longer committed to Linux, and the 901 is the last Eee that will feature Linux as the preferred OS. I'm waiting for other companies to bring out an Atom, and also waiting for Ubuntu to finish their notepad version of 8.04 to run on one of these... which should be very soon.
It gets tiring seeing the same arguments over and over, so I'm not going to rehash the arguments in Intel's favor.
On a side note, no matter how you look at it - your hero Negroponte sold out. It's amusing how on their website one of the "5 core principles" is open source software. And to much acclaim, they publicly refused to use Mac OS (which was offered for free) and then turn around and license XP. (Oh yeah, and disagreements with Negroponte is the reason Intel walked away)
How much money do you have, and how spoiled are your kids? From the first link I saw, the MSI Wind is supposed to be priced between $458 to $1072 depending on options. Even at $458, that's quite an expensive device. Not expensive for a portable computer, but expensive none the less. If my kid lost or broke a $500 thing, I would be quite annoyed, and I would not be playing to replace it. Especially considering that a portable computer is nowhere near necessary for kids to have.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Pretty close to ruined, I'd say. They get their first real PC at 2, by 13 they're expected to build their own. Cable broadband. This is pretty standard for our larger family - we're all in IT.
An Xbox with a couple games and controllers runs more than this and there's no way I'd buy them that.
I didn't say I'd be happy about it if their mini notebook was lost or trashed, but it wouldn't be a disaster. The first one that gets broken will just be another toy for me to play with the leftover bits. Motherboard? That looks like it would fit in an RC plane...
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Very valid point. It was XO that started it all,
Started what? Cheap computers? I don't think so. We had the Sinclair ZX80, the Commodore 64, the TRS80-100, the Apple eMate, and the Dana Alphasmart, all the ITX-based machines, to name just a few. (Some of them missed their price targets, but then so did the XO.)
This notion of cheap/easy-to-use computers for education/the masses comes back about once a decade. OLPC was a little ahead of the curve this time, but it's hardly ground breaking.
except the part where these operations have to happen on your mini laptop. Have you not heard of Citrix? Remote Desktop? Cellular modems? It's possible to have all of this happening on your mainframe, the attached supercomputer cluster, and a few thousand desktops and access them all from the laptop referenced in the fine article via VPN tunnel over wireless modem, public wi-fi, hotel room Internet, or any other mode you choose. I actually do this all day.
I know of no reason why I'd need to debug an Oracle database, edit a photo for press, or update my CAD drawing while I was mid-stream fishing, nor while I was boarding a plane. For some things you just have to wade to shore, wait until the flight is airborne, pull up your pants. This laptop will not play consumer games nor will it run Vista well. If you want one that can join your AD domain you have to get the Linux one -- the XP home or Vista Basic one isn't up for that. For everything else, this laptop is fine.
There is no laptop that will impress your gamer friends. The minimum bar to clear there starts at a kilowatt. They're disgusting.
One more time... these things cost five hundred clams. They do all the stuff laptops do, including run business productivity apps. They're cute and they fit on the plane well. They last all day on one charge. They play media. They have USB ports . They have wireless. They support all of the remote desktop technologies you've ever heard of. They come with software that's truly free, and you can install as much more as you want for free via the Applications menu. They play video and audio. Your choice of operating systems are available. Some of them have firewire. FSM preserve us what the heck do you want from a mini laptop for a measly five Benjamins? Sex?
Help stamp out iliturcy.