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CNet Compares Eee PC Against the Competition
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Mar 12, 2008 09:17 AM
from the and-it-fits-in-the-nape-of-your-neck dept.
from the and-it-fits-in-the-nape-of-your-neck dept.
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."
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[+]
Sony Says Eee PC Signals "Race To the Bottom" 393 comments
Alex Dekker writes "Sony's Mike Abary says in an interview, 'If [Asus's Eee PC] starts to do well, we are all in trouble.' Presumably by 'we' he means all the hardware manufacturers who sell over-priced, full-fat laptops. And he's not going to be too pleased when he sees the Linux-powered, sub-$200 Elonex One. Looks like what's bad for Sony may be good for the consumer." The CNet article mentions that a version of the Eee running XP is available in Japan now and will be coming to the US within weeks.
Submission: CNet Compares Eee PC Against the Competition by Anonymous Coward
[+]
VIA Open Platform Mini-Notebook Serves up Linux 111 comments
Vigile writes "VIA is attempting to outdo the ASUS Eee PC with its new OpenBook platform reference design that not only offers up extra features but also supports many more operating system choices as well. The exterior design is pretty damn sexy and is built around (of course) VIA's own CPU and chipset products and can be equipped with WiMAX and/or 3G networking like HSDPA or W-CDMA. What is really impressive is that the device can run versions of Windows Vista or XP, Ubuntu, Suse or gOS." Update: 05/27 13:30 GMT by T :
alphadogg adds a bit more information on the "open" part of "Open Platform," writing "The CAD (computer-assisted design) files for the OpenBook reference design can be downloaded for free and made available to anyone under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license. The terms of this license allow the CAD files to be freely copied, shared and modified."
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The Eee PC's Screen is too Small (Score:4, Insightful)
I should really charge a consulting fee.
Re:The Eee PC's Screen is too Small (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The Eee PC's Screen is too Small (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The Eee PC's Screen is too Small (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The Eee PC's Screen is too Small (Score:5, Insightful)
Like many other incremental steps to today's technology, it's certainly possibly, even feasible, but nontrivial to implement. It'll take engineering, expense, and a new fab process and business relationships to mass-produce an appliance such as this.
Per the summary "Some are trying to beat the Eee on price, some on specs," and this would be an example of beating it on specs while likely yielding on the price war.
I believe there's plenty of room in the market for such competition since the EEE falls into a very small niche of quick-reference usage and ultra-portability. More an appliance than a personal computer, and as individual needs vary, people will buy the device best suited to the expected usage.
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Re:The Eee PC's Screen is too Small (Score:5, Insightful)
Physically small is ok. A substandard resolution is not ok.
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I don't use that particular app or the new drivers. I use the native resolutions that are supported by the ASUS drivers and the ASUS resolution switching app. If i understand your comment, then I agree. Based on the posts I've read, there are certainly folks that, despite this app and the new drivers, found the screen really unusuable at higher resolutions and went back to the original drivers. But, there are also folks who are raving about it as if it's the next best thing to sliced bread. I
Asus Eee hardly groundbreaking (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Asus Eee hardly groundbreaking (Score:5, Interesting)
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Utraportables are *companions* to desktops or desktop-replacements (that's what you describe). Utraportables are "just enough to do something on the move", but that's it. I mean this from a usability perspective, not from power since you can get powerful (but expensive) ultraportables.
You mention gaming, this means that the Dell is out of the question too by the way. (Integrated Graphics: forget it)
You are simply not the target demographic for an ultraportable. Cheap or not. I am, but I'm not shellin
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it portable? Yes. But it's not an ultralight. But at least I can pickup and go somewhere else to get work done without having to keep machines setup at each location.
Do I own a desktop? You bet. I have
Big price diffrence there (Score:4, Interesting)
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Personally I love ultraportables (or palmtops, or subnotebooks or whatever the nome du jour is). For me, it's more important that the device is very portable than that it is equipped with a multi-GHz CPU and a top-of-the-line GPU.
Re:Big price diffrence there (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Big price diffrence there (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because "normal" notebooks are overpowered, overheating beasts? They aren't "laptops" because of that heat, they seem to feel like they burn through jeans when used for longer than 15 minutes on a lap, even on max power saving mode. I think that's a lot of why the marketing literature almost always calls them "notebooks".
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Re:Big price diffrence there (Score:5, Informative)
Because it's ultraportable.
My real ultraportable is a Zaurus SLC3000 [mobiletechreview.com]. It will fit in my back pocket. I use it for writing, it can also be used for emergency SSH sessions and cramped web broswing. It's usually in my backpack, ready for when poetic inspiration strikes. That's ultraportable. (The only thing more portable is my Centro [palm.com]. The neat thing is, my Centro becomes a modem, my Zaurus runs a terminal, and bam! SSH or browsing from anywhere I can get a cell signal, with gear that fits in my pockets.)
My ultraportable-as-this-article-is-using-the-term is an old Sony Vaio SRX77 [pcworld.com] that I've fitted with a solid state harddrive, and installed Puppy Linux on. Good sized keyboard, adequate power, under three pounds and smaller than a standard looseleaf binder. I take it when I'm headed down to the cafe to sit and write or browse for a while. Not pocketsized, by easily portable.
My full sized laptop is heavy, big, and sucks battery. It's a full-featured beast that goes with me on long trips, to replace my desktop.
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Under $1000? (Score:4, Insightful)
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15" screen? misses the point of the article (Score:2)
Once you go to a smaller form factor (not just the screen - but the entire device), costs tend to go up for almost all of the components of the machine, as well as designing things so that they'll fit in there, without overheating problems / too much RF interference, etc.
Dell vostro. (Score:2)
Old School (Score:2)
Wow, talk about insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
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history repeats? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:history repeats? (Score:5, Interesting)
In America, maybe, but Sinclair made an absolute killing with those machines in the UK. The ZX80 and ZX81 pretty much established the home computer market, and then the Spectrum turned up with colour graphics and became the standard machine for a generation of gamers and hackers. It was a long time before Nintendo managed to break that market; even as late as the 16-bit era, the Amiga was serious competition for the SNES and Mega Drive.
The interesting thing about that era was that these machines were largely incompatible with each other, but that didn't matter so much - they were cheap. Vastly cheaper than the contemporary IBM and Apple machines. Will the mass market accept compatibility troubles from a non-Microsoft machine, if it means they can have it for peanuts? Quite possibly.
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it just works (Score:5, Informative)
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 [seclists.org]
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.
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2) Like "an upgrade is available, please click to install"
3) Fans? I'm missing those on my EeePC.
I really don't know what kind of EeePC you got.
I read stories but have never seen one. (Score:2)
For my ultramoble computing I am happier with a Sub $500.00 iPhone (Even without Jail Break or the new custom software coming out) then with those other systems. It is small and Ultra-Ultra Portable it fits in my pocket. It is goog at web browsing, email, taking notes,
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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 [slashdot.org] ) with anecdotal evidence observed amongst your acquaintances?
From a new owner (Score:5, Informative)
- 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
Re:From a old owner (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Just bought one (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Race to the bottom? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I'm here too soon (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:I'm here too soon (Score:5, Informative)
Bored with making MacBooks [cnet.co.uk] 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 [cnet.co.uk] -- 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 [cnet.co.uk] 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 [gecube.com]. 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 [elonexone.co.uk] 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
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'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:I'm here too soon (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah, but what about flutter and harmonic distortion?
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