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Asus Confirms Specs, Price of Eee PC 904 and 1000
Ken E. writes "Asus seems to have completed its Eee PC laptop line-up, at least for the time being. The Taiwanese manufacturer has now confirmed both specifications and UK pricing of the Eee PC 904 and Eee PC 1000 — its two latest models. The Eee PC 904 is essentially an Eee PC 900 in an Eee PC 1000 chassis (big keyboard, 8.9in screen, Celeron-M 900MHz, Windows XP) and will cost £269 inc VAT. The Eee PC 1000 will cost £349 inc VAT for an Intel Atom (1.6GHz) chip, 10in screen, 80Gb HDD and Windows XP. Looks like those early Eee PC 900 adopters (£329 inc VAT, initially) have been stiffed. Still, that's progress, I guess ..."
They keep on bringing up the price and specs on these laptops. When they initially announced the EEE, they said it was going to be a $200 laptop. I still have yet to see one for $200, and with the way they keep on upping the specs, I don't think they will ever get to the $200 price point.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Looks like those early Eee PC 900 adopters (£329 inc VAT, initially) have been stiffed. Still, that's progress, I guess.
No. They got a nice working computer for a price they found reasonable. Something better will come out for less money next year, and again the year after that.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is not a good thing for Linux adoption. Earlier articles today pointed to the increased adoption of Linux among housewives, attributed to sales of eeePCs and other cheap laptops. Now that these ones have XP on them, this can't be a good thing for the trend continuing.
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There are low-end but fully-fledged laptops (i.e. 10s of gigs, 512MB-1GB, 13"+ screen) of the OEM-unbranded type in this price range selling all over the Web in the UK. For 50 quid more, you get an Acer. And they all come with 12 month warranties, often extensible. Who actually wants the eepc?
I bought my 900 back in May for £329 so I guess that makes me one of the early adopters who are being stiffed, but to be honest that's just what happens whenever you buy electronics. I'll get over it.
I'm also not entirely convinced that there'd be that much difference in performance for my usage (casual web browsing) between my 900 and the 901, and a few extra gig of HD is fairly inconsequential when I have 320gb of USB drive for transfer/backup between my various computers anyway.
If I'd known about the new models back when I bought my 900 I *might* have waited for the 1000 series (the reason I didn't get a 70x was because I was holding out for the bigger/vaguely usable screen) but if I'm honest I'd still probably have bought then safe in the knowledge that whatever I bought, whenever I bought it, would be superceded within months anyway. Anyone who complains about their computer hardware being superceded needs to get a grip on reality.
<rant> I never understand this point of view. Especially with computer/tech hardware. Every one of us, when buying a new video card, or a new processor, or whatever, knows that within a few months, the price will come down on the thing we just bought, and a newer, better thing will be out. And I never see people bitching about that. But make it some shiny, all-in-one thing like an iPhone or this Eee PC, and suddenly there's this group of people who are outraged about it. What gives? It's life, you know? You can sit on all of your money and never buy anything, for fear that you could get a better deal tomorrow, or you can buy stuff today and enjoy it. </rant>
Not that the OP sounded all that bitter about it. It just reminded me of people who do.
I have always decided to stay out of the arms race attended by PC HW and SW firms.
Most of my HW is quite old, 7+ years apart from my early adoption of an Asus EEE. was I stiffed on the price? hell no - had it over half a year and makes a good wifi web station.
I understand the commercial reasons behind the rapid depreciation in HW and SW - but as far as I'm concerned my PC hardware is a tool, like my car. I'm upgrade only when there is a compelling reason or something breaks. Is the arms race a good or bad thing? well it promotes innovation and new technologies so I cannot really argue against it.
As long as I can still run an up to date distro on my hardware I'm a happy camper. An old PC will let me write SW, surf and do office tasks as well as a new one, and be just as net safe if I keep to a regular upgrade cycle.
A very valid point, though even by technology pricing standards, the iPhone's price drop (33% off after two months) was pretty unusual.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
They've always been available in both XP and Linux versions. The difference is that the original 700 version was out using linux first, and XP came later, the newer versions are doing it the other way around. 901 are now becoming available in the west, and so far it's all Windows XP. The cynic in me wonders if Microsoft called Asus up and said "If you ship XP versions one month before the linux versions, we'll give you a nice little rebate on your XP licenses. giddigy"
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I almost bought a 900 a few wEeeks back. I'm glad I didn't because now I can get a 900 for 399 with a 8.9' screen and 16 gig hard drive at newegg. Or find a good deal on regular 900's at lots of online retailers(100 Mail in rebate). Although the 901 is better, I'd rather save 100 bucks and get a slightly lesser processor. I mean the whole point of this thing is to be simple and surf the web. The upgraded processor isn't really worth the extra 100 IMHO. They really need to get these things in local stores nationwide, and then they'll be cooking.
-wondergod-
What's not to like?
I think the Eee is a perfect candidate for having a trackpoint, it would fit with the compact nature of the Eee. I'd love to see an Eee with one. They don't take up much room and would probably increase productivity.
Does anyone know of a successful hack that added a trackpoint to an Eee?
As a bonus if you dropped the touchpad you'd probably gain some room for adding more mods
Currently, the price of the 40Gb SSD exceeds the price of the laptop :)
Same here - the 1000 doesn't appeal to me at all. It's too small to be my primary machine, and too large to be suitable to carry around whenever I just want to be able to work an hour or two on the move.
That only makes the quoted prices worse. People in the UK and EU are looking for a 100 Euro or Pound notebook.
Theoretically we ought to be expecting something like that (hah), but we know that any $300 laptop will turn into 350 € laptop *if we're lucky*.
Typically most vendors make some kind of reverse currency conversion and $300 are more like 450 €...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
For comparison a Vaio in the same weight class costs 2.5 times as much in the UK, and is larger.
The 700 line is a 9" screen form factor with a dinky little screen sitting in it like a VW Bug parked at a truck stop. My concern is device size, not screen size, so afaic, the 700 is the worst of both worlds. Not to mention the point made by the AC below that the 700 Linux boxen are out of stock left, right and center.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Which is portability. Then people get that portability and decide they want better specs. The price goes up.
There's nothing wrong with this.
+++ATH0
I don't believe they use a 40GB SSD though, more like an 8GB SSD and a 32GB usb stick (I picked one of those up for STG70 a couple of months ago).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I hate it when people put half of their post in the title! I start reading what they have to say, but then realize that their sentence fragment makes no sense whatsoever...oh, I have to read that bit up there too in order to piece together your post. brilliant.