In Search of the Cheap Linux Laptop

mr_mischief writes "According to Hot Hardware's recent review, Asus is getting ready to unleash a $199 compact notebook running Linux. This is entirely different from this recent $150 Linux laptop story which many Slashdot readers believed to be a scam. There's a dual-mode menu which offers a simple system for novice computer users, and a slightly more advanced version for others. It's not aimed squarely at the same market as the One Laptop Per Child project's XO, and is expected to be sold to end users worldwide. It's targeted at new users who don't own a computer or at people who want a cheap, small laptop for basic tasks. The reviewed version has a 7" screen and a cramped keyboard to match, but a 10" version is available for $100 more. It offers built-in wired and wireless networking, four USB 2.0 ports, and a three-hour battery life. The storage options are a bit cramped, as you only get 4 GB of on-board storage (8 GB on the $299 model) and no optical drive. As the review says, though, USB 2.0 can make up for that if you like, and the lack of moving drive parts makes the machine run dead quiet."

An NT$10 coin

The author shows a photo with the laptop next to a Taiwan $10 coin, adding that it is about the same size as a US half-dollar. Since this won't help most folks in the US (for whom receiving a half-dollar coin in change is a rare occurrence), it may help to know that the NT$10 coin is not quite 2mm larger than a U.S. quarter.

Re:An NT$10 coin

The author shows a photo with the laptop next to a Taiwan $10 coin, adding that it is about the same size as a US half-dollar. Since this won't help most folks in the US (for whom receiving a half-dollar coin in change is a rare occurrence), it may help to know that the NT$10 coin is not quite 2mm larger than a U.S. quarter.

Most people in the US don't know what a millimeter is either ;-).

Re:An NT$10 coin

Most people in the US don't know what a millimeter is either ;-).

Try telling them that a cigarette is about 100 mm.

It gets complicated using penises as a standard. There's this thing called net-inches...

Stevie420: Are you sure I'd like it? I've never done anything like that before
BillyG666: You'll love it. If I slapped it down on your keyboard it would go from A to Z
BillyG666: Oh shit...

It's too hard to tell what's up when a guy has a little one. Last week I met this guy with one the size of a golf pencil. I couldn't tell if he was trying to make love or trying to erase me...

Re:An NT$10 coin

Try telling them that a cigarette is about 100 mm.

Long or wide?

Re:An NT$10 coin

We could only wish 50 Cent didn't exist.

Memory?

To all the manufacturers making these small, low-power PCs and notebooks I have one request. Please make the RAM expandable. Put an SO-DIMM slot in there, either in addition to the soldered-on system RAM or as the only system RAM.

512 Mb is nice, but being able to stick a 2 Gb SO-DIMM in there would make this system useful for so many more people than just their target audience.

Yes but the question is

Will it run windows? ;)

Worth springing for the 10" screen

From the photos, it looks like the 7" and 10" models use the same case/chassis. The smaller screen just has a giant black bezel around it, taking up the space where the larger screen would go. Although this brings up interesting upgrade possibilities, I think it's fairly obnoxious; I wouldn't mind a 7"-screen laptop if the entire thing were only 7" diagonal (example, something like the Psion Series 7), but a 7" screen in a case that's built for 10" would just annoy me.

The Specs, summarized

900MHz Intel Dothan based Pentium M CPU

512MB of DDR2 memory

802.11g wireless capability

flash-based hard drive ($199 for 4GB, $299 for 8GB)

weight: .89 kilograms, just around 2 pounds

Ports:
  four USB 2.0
  VGA output
  10/100 Ethernet
  56K phone modem

Battery:
  4-cell, estimated 3 hours life

The lack of an optical drive and the low nonvolatile storage space is a bummer, but flash hard drives are faster and stabler. And as the article states, you can always hook up an external.

Re:The Specs, summarized

Screw the optical drive. The Armada M300 I've already mentioned somewhere above doesn't have one (it's in the docking station), and there was exactly one (1) situation when I wished I had it. I don't even use the one in the docking station either, I now just pop the CD/DVD into one of my desktop drives and use the network share to access it. Skipping the CD/DVD drive means thinner laptop plus lower cost and weight, so I'm all for it.

The 8GB flash drive is a much more limiting factor though, as it means I won't be able to store as much pr0n and warez^W^Wuseful business data.

For those interested in the Medison saga

Since it was mentioned in the summary, there's a new blog following the whole fiasco at http://medisonscam.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

Some interesting highlights from the last few days:

The old product pictures has been replaced on Medisons site. According to Comon.dk Medison have foretold that they were replaced by "real" pictures to get more trustworthy. They say that they have hired a professional photographer to take the pictures. The question however, is why a professional photographer would use a Canon Digital IXUS 60 digital camera at 10 in the evening (See the Exif-tags in the pictures). That is for those who don't know a small compact consumer camera... Yes we know that this doesn't "prove" anything, it's just another "fun fact" in this story.

A poster on SweClockers posted the following answer that is supposed to be from the manufacturer: "they got one pcs sample from our customer and not paid". Hmm, interesting, isn't it?

According to the Danish site Comon.dk, Medison will have a press conference on Wednesday to clear things out. They have also spoken with several people in the computer industry that claims, just like all other experts, that the price is "impossible".

The Asus Eee offer however is great I'm looking forward to their machine. You shouldn't look at this laptop from the perspective of using it as full blown desktop Machine. Consider all the stuff you get at mere $200, for a nice mobile computer with full-sized keyboard and rich internet abilities. It makes for far better browsing/mail checking than what you can do on your $600 iPhone.

Sounds good, but...

Overall, this sounds like an amazing computer for school. About 2 pounds? That small? Awesome. However, I've got a few questions.

How easy is it to install additional programs? I'd assume they'd attempt to limit that in the basic interface, with only a few choices from preselected packages. With the advanced interface though, can you install anything you want? Do you get access to the terminal? Is there apt, yum? Something similar to Synaptic so you don't have to use the terminal? Only packages approved by Asus, or can you access any repository you want?

It says that the laptop is Windows compatible. I assume this means that the user can install another OS by themselves. With lack of an optical drive though, will it boot from the USB to install? What about drivers, such as for the webcam?

All in all, it sounds like a great deal. The small screen bugs me a bit, but what do you expect for the size?

What a perfect opportunity...

Here we have a brand new low cost platform that comes preinstalled with Linux. All the ney-sayers are simply yelling sour grapes because Microsoft will not be able to field anything like this in North America or Europe in the foreseeable future.

I am going to buy two for my grandkids - they will love it. They'll be able to play music and TV off the home wireless network. They can VoIP with video using Skype. They can read books from Project Gutenberg. They can message and chat to their hearts content. Hey, they may even do some homework and learn something, Who Knows!

For me, I can add a 22" LCD monitor and create a wireless multimedia node for the bedroom. I can also use it as a smart thin client with USB keyboard & mouse and some speakers.

Add some external storage like a 2.5" 120 gig HD and some earbuds and I can listen to music or avi's until the batteries wear down. I can store all my contact information and write some emails, Skype some friends (VoIP with video), message, play games and chat for hours away from my desktop computer.

This machine is great and I for one am going to promote it to all my friends including the ones that are afraid of computers.

What a great standby machine!

Just so you know, I have 3 laptop computers 'Dell Inspiron 5100 - big, hot and heavy', 'Toshiba Tecra 8200 - smaller, lighter but tied to the power supply now' and 'Dell Latitude CPx - nice but slow, also tied to the power adapter'. These machines, for one reason or another, are unsuitable for newbs and kids whereas the Asus 3ePC looks perfect.

I have no problem with the screen layout the way it is - there are speakers on either side of the screen and a microphone and camera there as well.

All that power, connectivity (WiFi b/g, Ethernet 10/100, modem and USB), excellent memory - 512 meg, sufficient storage with USB addons as required, stereo speakers, microphone, web camera, 3 hours on battery AND it comes with an OS with a FULL office suite, Firefox, Skype, email and lots of applications!

All for $199!

LOOK OUT MICROSOFT!!!

This is the killer product Linux needs to get it's foot in the door - this machines will sell in all the usual outlets plus drug stores, gift shops and grocery markets if promoted properly and Asus may be the guys to do it.

Yep - put XP on that thing and it will be a pig with no room left for anything else. With a light-weight Linux, perhaps Ubunto or Kubunto or even Slax, and the user may really haved something.

This is just my two-bits but I am excited.

Undead Ed

Re:32GB USB stick

The big problem with flash drive (IMHO) is that they stick out.

It would be cool if such a device could have an "internal" USB drive bay. Basicly, you open a lid and there is a recess large enough to stick most USB drives. That way you can upgrade the machine without having anything sticking out.

Re:32GB USB stick

They do, but the format is SD (there's a standard SD slot) and the maximum I've seen an SD card so far is 8GB.

Still, I've seen 8GB cards for under $80, so aside from screen size, you could EASILY upgrade the $199 version to the same internal capabilities as the $299 version for under $80.

Re:32GB USB stick

You know, thinking about it, 8GB is not so bad.

I get roped into doing support for family & friends, and the typical grandmother PC once degunked, normally has a few card games, maybe a few photo's & a pile of email (all dumped in the inbox along with 2000 spam messages).

When I back up a family computer, (trying hard to ignore the crap pr0n on my father-in-laws 'puter), I typically don't have to compress anything to fit on a 800mb CD - it's often just Outlook Express email & nothing else.

get you grandmother set up with one of these laptops and a gmail account, and they will be happy. No having to pay McAfee or MS for endless updates, makes their life easy. Sure they will complain when they can't run the .SCR Christmas card that some stranger sent them, but quiet & portable will win them over.

Isn't think the Google vision for the future of computing; and Microsoft's nightmare; people using generic, cheap laptops for accessing Google, a PS3/Wii for games and some USB/LAN attached box for your data storage? 8GB - or maybe a few more via the USB port is enough for many people; and for those with video/mp3 collections, plug in an external 500GB HDD; as/when you need it.

Re:$450 gets you a decent laptop

a decent laptop that comes with Vista

Oxymoron alert! Oxymoron alert!

Re:$450 gets you a decent laptop

What confuses me as soon as it says "$100 more" is that you are at $299 and for another $150 you can wander into BestBuy and splash $450 on a decent laptop that comes with Vista. Knocking $80 or what ever for the OEM version means that you are talking $370 or so for a decent laptop with a decent screen and a decent disk et al and this is for something with a dual core Intel processor.

For the market this laptop is intended for, 4 GB of storage is probably perfectly adequate. Keep in mind that 4 GB hard drives were standard for laptops just ten years ago, and lots of people did real work with that much storage. At $199 a pop, Asus will have a laptop that is nearly cheap enough to become an impulse buy for a lot of people.

Sure, you can always get a much better machine for a little more money, but a certain segment of the market is always attracted by the lowest possible price. Clearly this is what Asus is aiming for.

Re:$450 gets you a decent laptop

If you buy it for portability and not specs, hell yes, $300 is a good price for a 10" notebook. For coparison, the cheapest sub-12" notebook at Newegg that's is a Fujitsu Lifebook at around $1500 on sale.

What I primarily use a notebook for is web browsing, e-mail and a terminal window. What benefit would a high spec laptop with Vista have for me? It'd just burn battery and heat up my genitals.

Re:$450 gets you a decent laptop

The $450 BestBuy laptop will not be a lightweight 10" machine though. The cheapest LifeBook P7230 which costs ~$1,600 w/ rebates, and it has a 1.2 Ghz Core Solo, 1 Gig of RAM and an Intel GFX chip. The only thing it has significantly more of is the HDD, but then it's not a solid state thingie.

Looking at the Eee's specs, it's significantly better than the old Compaq Armada M300 [hp.com] I currently have. My M300 was originally equipped with a 6GB hard drive, so the 8GB or 16GB models would actually be an improvement, if I hadn't upgraded it with an 80GB Seagate drive :). Assuming the 10" screen will be at least 1024x768, it would be an excellent replacement for the armada, whose battery is beginning to crap out. Faster processor, double the RAM amount and battery life, more USB ports, built in wireless, and a webcam all for just $299.

Despite my excitement, whether the 10" Eee is a rip off or not depends on the needs and expectations of the user. I almost always carry my M300 with me, and I mainly use it for web surfing, some office tasks, light coding work and some gaming. This is exactly what I'd want the Eee to do, and I'm sure it'll handle these tasks just fine (by gaming I meant an occasional game of Starcraft or Doom deathmatch). If, on the other hand, the laptop will always remain on the table at home, and is expected to run Vista, then yeah, an additional $100 will get you a much more suitable machine.

Ok... I now see that there are quite a few replies already, but I'll still post this in case I covered something that hasn't been mentioned yet.

Re:$450 gets you a decent laptop

its a bit odd that $299 gets you a computer that is that crap.

This one is finally the laptop I want: small, lightweight, and not bloated. I don't want to spend 1-2k USD on a mini laptop, and I don't want to spend 500 USD on a bulky laptop, even if it's faster and has extras like Vista (no thanks).

For it's size and weight, this is an excellent buy. Usually we'd be paying more for such a small size. You don't need speed on a a lightweight portable -- save the speed for a desktop (if you want to use your laptop as a desktop, that's a whole different issue).

Re:Could have been cheaper

When optimizing for cost (purely), the device would be both larger and have a spinning HD.

Nope. A USB storage device is just a chip. Small, cheap. In fact, you can get a $4GB USB drive for around $30 *retail.* If you are buying raw chips for incorporating into your own product, expect a smaller price tag.

A spinning hard drive, on the other hand, requires mounting hardware, connectors, cables, and the hard drive itself has a lot of moving mechanical parts. Keep in mind that these things are made by the thousands, or more. Buying out the clearance of last-year's model is not really an option.

Re:Could have been cheaper

you can get 2 gigs on a single die, you can stack that die with a block storage controller in a single chip.
In 10K unit quantities those sell for about $12-20
so since this is ASUS and Intel, I'm betting the price is closer to the $12 range and is a single TSOP48 chip, or the board may have 4 lands on it for 4 2gig chips and a separate controller, thus "modders" will be able to upgrade the machine for under $50 as a single 2Gig in a TSOP48 can now be had in the $8.00 range.
-nB

Re:Only problem is the screen size.

7" is way too small.

Contrary to what some people think, 7" is slightly above average and nothing to be ashamed about.

Even 10" is too small.

Whoah... talk about high standards. Is this for yourself or what you're looking for in another guy? What a size queen...

There should be a 12 or 14" option for $299.

Now you're just getting silly. Even the most outlandish spam doesn't promise that much, and who really wants 14" when it comes down to it? Given the choice, I'd stick with the 10".

Re:does i run windows?

Having a Penguin key (Penguin key sounds cooled than Tux key) would be sooooo cool. Imagine, ur mate is having a go, and needs to open the launch menu, and you say: "Just press the Penguin key man!" or he's sat there n he goes, where the windows key, and you say: "Windows key? Dude, this has a PENGUIN key." he would be like "WWWWWOOOOOOAH!!" like some crazy drug trip.