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Just What is this ASUS Eee Thing Anyway?
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Dec 31, 2007 09:11 AM
from the been-asking-myself-that-for-awhile-now dept.
from the been-asking-myself-that-for-awhile-now dept.
davidmwilliams writes "ASUS have released a cheap subnotebook. It is far from state-of-the-art tech-wise, with 512Mb RAM and a Celeron processor. It has a 4Gb hard drive and no optical drive. Its screen is 7" and runs at the odd resolution of 800x480 and the operating system looks like something Fisher Price might have designed. Why would you buy it? What on earth can you do with this?" I've been wondering this myself given the huge coverage in the media of this thing.
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Huh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Huh (Score:5, Funny)
That explains a lot.
Cheers.
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Those Cheeky Bastards at Apple. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nuh, pinched straight from Blender. That's why MS can't get a patent on it.
Tons of Potential (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been wondering this myself given the huge coverage in the media of this thing.
Believe it or not, the "huge media coverage" that I've noticed of this thing has only been on Slashdot. Other than that, it's a big name manufacturer, in our world it's huge news.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Frankly, it is a geek toy. I would have bought one, if I did not have a personal notebook, a company notebook, 3 working computers doing different things around the house and enough parts to assemble 7 more in my loft (obtained for free or nearly free from dot-bomb and post-dot-bomb craters).
Re:Tons of Potential (Score:4, Interesting)
Or a useful tool.
We've just put 20 of them out in the field with a custom app for some of our data collectors. They're doing a fine job at a fraction of the price of a UMPC.
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Re:Tons of Potential (Score:5, Informative)
Really? I just saw it in one of the big Dutch newspapers Saturday:
http://www.parool.nl/media/2007/DEC/122907-eeepc.html [parool.nl]
Looking at Google News shows it in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Independent, the New Zealand Herald, and so on. Googling for specific newspapers shows articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, the Sun, and so on. It's referenced in an article in the Wall Street Journal. This is all outside of the IT press, mind you!
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MacBook eee ThinkPad, according to Google (Score:5, Informative)
I'd consider a position between two of the most recognized brands pretty good.
On the other hands, if we were to believe Internet statistics, Ron Paul would be elected president with the greatest margin in the history of the country.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My real question is: what can I do with this that I cannot do with a $250 used thinkpad, a can of air, and a new battery? Thinkpad is cheaper, has a better everything, and I can actually type on it without shrinking my hands. I guess this eee is a lot smaller and doesn't smell like cabbage yet.
Love the idea of this computer, but the cheapskates have always had the refuge of obsolete c
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tons of Potential (Score:5, Funny)
What's ridiculous is that the robot made you carry it! I guess they're already smarter than us.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The Register [theregister.co.uk] have been covering the Eee quite a bit, particularly a certain scantily clad busty beach babe [regmedia.co.uk], there's a theory going around that she's using an Eee but no matter how long I look at the picture I just can't see any computer - even when I'm using my own Eee!
Re:Tons of Potential (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Tons of Potential (Score:4, Informative)
The thing about this machine over that Dell is that if I buy the home edition of such a machine I'm stuck with Vista which will need way more overhead than this, will require antivirus software, uses software that is not free, and will slow down starting the first time I use it. That was what happened with the last Windows PC I bought (and I mean the last one I'll buy).
I was going to get a MacBook but it too is pretty big and portability was a big factor for me. I got this on a whim thinking that if it wouldn't work I could give it to my six year old (who is now trying to pry it out of my hands). It works. It works very well and the keyboard is pretty easy even for a guy with giant hands like mine.
Running Linux (pre-installed) is great. It has worked better for me than my Windows laptop. And even when the screen is a bit small, I hook up a monitor. Simple. For the price, and for my tastes, it can't be beat.
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What can you do with it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What can you do with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3)
Re:What can you do with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can text message with my phone (ATT Tilt), but the EEE makes slashdot doable, and the web in general a lot more pleasant than it was on the 810.
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Re: (Score:3)
It's praiseworthy, since effectively people use their computers for a limited range of tasks, and that range hasn't changed much in the last ten years. So a cheap, portable laptop fills many niches.
Of course, I left my desktop in the other hemisphere for a few weeks. I rolled outta bed, checked my email; went downstairs, fixed breakfast, read the newspapers
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got a Zaurus - the C3200 model - and an Asus Eee. The Zaurus is way better than any phone or PDA that I've used, as it really was the miniature laptop that a lot of people were looking for. However, compared to the Eee it's not so hot. The keyboard is really difficult to use, and the lack of power from the USB port means you need a powered hub to use an external keyboard. The available Linux distros for the Zaurus have small developer teams and are very unstable - they generally turn my machine into a
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's great (Score:4, Interesting)
Keeping it light, in both weight and bootup times means it's a great companion to my main dev laptop (Dell M something) that takes an age till it's usuable with all the dev tools/sql servers it loads up. It barely takes up anymore room in my laptop bag, so if I need to check something quick, that comes out, boots in 30 seconds and is good to go on a wireless connection rather than dragging out my main machine.
I love it. Screen is a
Tempted to get a white one for the kitchen area, just to have vids playing whilst at the breakfast bar, music playing whilst cooking, or whatever.
9.5/10
Weight, apps available... (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally have a PepperPad 3 that I use while travelling. It came down to weight and the apps available (such as OO.org, Thunderbird/Sunbird, etc.).
I do a lot of travelling and lugging a 6 pound laptop w/accessories through airports sucks. With a fully functional Linux distro on my PP3, I can now use a much smaller messenger bag, and everything, including full-sized external keyboard and mouse, weighs in at less than 3 pounds. And it does everything I need it to while travelling.
You Can Personalize the Eee PC Hardware (Score:5, Informative)
I played with one yesterday (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation: Cheap fun for people who are willing to work with a soldering iron. There is not much room inside, but folks are already modding the laptop to add more 'disk' in the form of hand made USB adapters to SD cards internally! The laptop is small, but the mainboard is not so miniaturized that one can't measure/modify the circuits. As a bonus - it cost so little
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Heh heh.
A Misconception (Score:5, Informative)
The Eee PC uses unionfs to merge together two partitions: sda1 (/mnt-system, 2.3GB, read-only) and sda2 (/mnt-user, 1.4GB, read-write)
There is a grub boot option "Restore Factory Settings" which wipes the user part.
Deleting installed applications doesn't free up any space - it just marks them as deleted on the user partition.
What this little machine is.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me I remember the day when a 640K operating system and a 40Meg disk were king, so having 1.5 Gig left over to play with after the OS is loaded --that's like luxury space. Oh, and I can go back and get more permanent memory if I delete some stuff if won't ever use, can add and subtract multiple versions of multi-gigabyte portable (SD) memory, and if I use a USB Wifi stick, I can connect even to the web at pretty good speed?
What this thing is is portable. Medium powered. Flexible. Ideal for a Linux person like me who would like to have a road warrior unit he can live with -- without the backache.
Better Thesaurus (Score:5, Funny)
I think Mr. Williams needs a better thesaurus. From page 2:
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
While you're at it try to use "niggardly" in a sentence...
You are missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
Also, its pretty much instant on. So your not hanging round for things to happen. It's ideal to check mail, a few letters whilst in the wifi coffee shop. Its an ideal meeting toy I suppose.
Also a massive advantage of this for linux is that a) A linux company is getting paid to put an OS on hardware and secondly, the hardware and software fit well together, they were designed too.
As for the interface, hell its good. It's simple and quick. What more could you need. If you want more advanced options, turn on the advanced options, its not hard.
The really mad thing? It's not linux peeps buying it, its average shoppers and gadget freaks. Its providing an inroad to the masses that standard linux cannot because of the variety of hardware it must work on.
Put another way, in the uk, you cannot buy one for love nor money at the moment, and probably not until mid April will there be sufficient stocks.
Why Eee? (Score:5, Insightful)
Slightly OT: Fisher Price (Score:5, Funny)
Here's something I noticed for years:
Do me a huge favor. Go to an XP machine. Go to control panel, look at the icon for "User Accounts".
Look familiar?
Re:Slightly OT: Fisher Price (Score:4, Funny)
Not true: the Eee actually uses a Playskool interface, which has no connection at all to Fisher-Price. This is just another example of the typical superficial journalism you see in media today.
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Fast and Cheep, but not Powerful??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Works great- runs non-cut-down Ubuntu (Score:5, Informative)
It has everything a laptop should (except a CDROM), and plays music, browses the web, runs OpenOffice, etc. It's not helpful to think of it as a "cut-down" or "toy" machine. It's really a pretty standard PC. It generally feels very fast and responsive, perhaps because all the storage is solid state.
It even runs Compiz-fusion flawlessly.
I've been using it over the last couple off weeks as my main machine. My only complaint is that the screen res is low and up-arrow key and right-shift key are too close together, and they have a similar symbol on them.
I'm planning to roll it out for a hospital (Score:5, Interesting)
IT usage is about 60% for the in-patients; but less than 12% for out-patients. The problem? Doctors are fed up with using PCs - Windows or Linux. Some of their biggest complaints:
1. Long boot time; Linux is only slightly better here; and Vista is downright pathetic and consequently been banned. The EEE PC boots up in less than 20 seconds and the GUI is immediately functional. No need for any useless login, active desktop, active directory etc.
2. Ultra portable - so the doctor can carry it to the wards and rooms; and dictate into it when necessary. Very cumbersome with laptops; tablets are better; but very expensive compared to the EEE (1:8).
3. Wakes up from suspend in less than 2 seconds - unparalleled.
4. The interface is very user friendly and makes sense without training - unlike Windows.
Surprisingly, this is still not widely avbl in India. Ingram Micro is getting it in the 3rd week of Jan. as I hear. We are ordering about 120 units for our doctors; who are genuinely thrilled with a computer for the first time in their lives.
****
A second appln. is for an e-governance system whereby citizens apply for assistance - there are about a dozen welfare schems like for handicapped, destitutes, old age pension, widow pension etc. The EEE PC is much more functional than a laptop and can be easily carried to the villages by trained self-help-group women assistants. The e-governance appln. is a web-enabled semi-offline-capable system; so even if there is no broadband; the locally installed LAMP appln. gives a very similar look-and-feel; once in a few days it gets synced with the main server.
Being about 25% of the price and weight of a laptop makes the EEE PC very handy for both these situations.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The new HMIS appln. is completely web enabled and built on Ruby on Rails. Users login through the browser before they can access the data.... but doctors prefer to even skip that and want to get direct access to their web apps after launching the browser.
So now, instead of cookies we're trying to get the mac address of the connected PC to determine which doctor is trying to access the appln; and then directly serve the page. O
At the price, who could complain? (Score:3, Informative)
Can't speak for everyone, but mine is the laptop I actually USE on a regular basis. I'm hesitant to whip out my Toshiba R15 tablet, since it's heavy, and slow to boot. The EE is up in 30 seconds, and thanks to the SSD doesn't balk at being tossed around a bit.
I'll grab it on the way out of the house and just drag it with me like my camera. I've used it in conjunction with my cellphone to check mail on the road, research products, or do a quick wiki lookup when conversation requires. It's also pretty hand for doing photo previews in the field. The SD slot makes reading my casual camera's card easy.
With screen rotation, I can hold it vertically and read e-books and manga scanlations like I would with a paperback.
I've done some coding and remote work with it, but I wouldn't recommend it. Keyboard is way too small for that sort of thing.
About the only thing I haven't done on my EEE is gaming, which is clearly beyond the intent of the unit. That said, I'll bet it'd make a great classic game / emulator platform.
Now that's not to say I don't have my gripes. As I mentioned, the keyboard is just a tad too small. I've had to learn to type with six finger and a thumb. The right shift STILL stymies me 4 weeks after my purchase. There's no capslock indicator, which has caused me no end of trouble when entering passwords. Can't do a middle button emulation click with the rocker style mouse button.
But none of these are game enders. Annoyances yes, but given what ASUS is charging for this little beastie, I'm not expecting perfection. I'm expecting usable, with minor compromises, and that's exactly what I got. Really, the EEE was probably the most satisfying notebook purchase I've ever made.
Re:At the price, who could complain? (Score:4, Informative)
Tap the touchpad with two separated fingers.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
What do you know? They brought back the Portege! (Score:3, Insightful)
olpcbetter? (Score:3, Insightful)
So this story has been tagged "olpcbetter" but why? The olpc has 1GB flash while the eee has 2GB, 4GB or 8GB. The olpc has 256MB ram while the eee has either 512MB or 1GB. The olpc has a 433MHz Geode LX while the eee has a 630 - 900 MHz Celeron. The olpc is about 1.5kg while the eee is under 1kg. Finally the olpc is 242mm × 228mm × 32mm while the eee is 225mm x 164mm x 21.5mm~35 mm. So the eee is smaller, faster, lighter and has more memory (both ram and flash).
So just how is the olpc better? You might argue that the "dual-mode" screen, or the mesh mode networking and the external antenna, makes the olpc more appealing to you, but unless you are in the olpc target market I can't imagine many would really prefer the olpc over the eee?
The "flamebait" tag seems far more appropriate for this "story"!
Here is the reason for the huge coverage (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the reason for the coverage. To buy an equivalent size laptop from Dell, Sony, Toshiba etc. would probably cost you 3-5 times as much.
As an Eee PC owner I can say these devices are great. Some of the software is pretty irritating but I can live with the faults for the price and practicality. I used my laptop on a Ryanair cliptray yesterday. This is a feat barely possible or advisable with most laptops.
If you can't think of what to do with it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to ask the last question (i.e. you cannot name at least five things you would do with it), then you geek license is revoked immediately. Have a nice day.
Heck, the thing can run Nethack. Do you need _more_ reasons to buy one ?
Re:What Can You Do With It? (Score:5, Funny)
This is not a Slashdot approved use. Please confiscate it immediately. Your service to the Party is appreciated.
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