Dell Shows Off Its Eee PC Rival 250
Tom Moreland tips us to photos of Dell's answer to the Eee PC on the Direct2Dell site. Dell posted these after an attendee at the D conference spotted Michael Dell carrying one. The company hasn't released any details, so you can take these with a grain of salt — from a commenter to Dell's post: "Here are the specs for the Dell Mini Inspiron: Atom 1.6 GHz, 3 USB ports, Ethernet, Card reader, Kensington lock, Adapter socket, Mic/line-out, VGA port, screen resolution at 1280×800. Scheduled to be released before the end of June 2008. It costs less than $500."
Re:Vector Fonts (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, such a high resolution on such a small screen means super-smooth fonts, and easy readability... which thus far could only be obtained on high-resolution laptops (1650x1080 on 15" and 1920x1200 on 17").
Considering that the cheap Inspirons have 1280x800 on a 15" screen, just imagine the improvement.
Total Karma whoring (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But which OS will it use? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nice resolution! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is the keyboard usable? (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure how big your hands are, but mine are pretty big, and I've had a 7" EEE since they came out - I absolutely LOVE the keyboard for how small it is. I haven't had a problem typing ~60WPM on it (I normally type ~65WPM). You don't want to type for hours on it, but nobody would want to do that on *any* subnotebook.
Re:Pixel pitch is too small for me (Score:2, Informative)
Just suck it up. If you think that the features and the price are acceptable, then buy it (even if you plan to use a lower resolution). If not, then don't. No-one is forcing you to pay for features you don't need, since you always have the choice of not buying anything.
Re:Dell Defying M$ Again? (Score:2, Informative)
VGA Output (Score:2, Informative)
You could always use DVI -> LCD converter I suppose...
Re:FINALLY! an UMPC with = 1024 x 768 screen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ubuntu (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Dell Defying M$ Again? (Score:2, Informative)
GP is referring to a free version of Windows that would only be available to the ultra-portable market. I can't find the link right now - but the stipulation would be that the MS OS would be free (or very very cheap) to put on machines with 800x600 screens and sub GHz processors IIRC.
MS would then be able to remain a dominant OS by being available/viable in the pending cheap market, and not lose customers to Linux.
Re:Is the keyboard usable? (Score:3, Informative)
I hated the Eee's keyboard for about the first hour, then adjusted enough that it wasn't that big of a deal, at least for what I use it for (web surfing, email, SSH, developing large applications in Python).
Re:Dell EEE PC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:first post! (Score:1, Informative)
I'm typing this from a non-mini Inspiron, and I'd pick ANYONE over Dell based on any characteristic but price - and "under $500" doesn't come near Asus' price for what you get. Main issues with Dell after this purchase:
-Shoddy craftsmanship - the keys occasionally snap off under the normal force of typing, and sometimes aren't replaceable. If I hadn't shelled out a hundred bucks or so extra for a more comprehensive warranty, my F11 key would be permanently gone.
-Bad installations - when the laptop originally arrived with Ubuntu on it, a full 5 gigs of the hard drive was wasted on Dell-created partitions that served no real function to me, without asking whether I wanted them or not, and the install itself had many strange options selected. I reinstalled the whole thing from scratch.
-Stupid lock-ins - Since I bought the laptop without a graphics card beyond the integrated graphics, they locked down the motherboard's ability to accept a hardware graphics card. Since I bought the laptop with memory that runs at 533MHz, it refuses to run my 800-whateverMHz memory that I bought separately any faster than 533MHz, even though they offer 667MHz memory and there's no reason it can't accept even the speed I have.
-Horrible purchase packages - They charge something like a hundred extra bucks to upgrade from 512MB memory to a gig, and a hundred more on top of that to go to two gigs. For comparison, I bought 4 gigs of much faster memory on eBay, brand new and unopened, for $90 including shipping. Newegg would have charged me about $130.
-Ugliness - Dear god, look at the standard Inspiron for a bit. It looks like a brick. They can't really be that bad at design, the XPS line isn't anywhere near that ugly. They just want to make a killing selling the higher-end models, which cost less than a hundred dollars extra to them to manufacture.
For these reasons alone, not just the simple fact that Dell's been convicted of fraud and God knows whatever else recently, I'll take Asus over Dell any day. Besides, the eeePC originally only ran Linux, and that's something I can get behind.
Re:Dell Defying M$ Again? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:But which OS will it use? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FINALLY! an UMPC with = 1024 x 768 screen (Score:2, Informative)
Or, to get more space: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/307 [mozilla.org]
Re:Pixel pitch is too small for me (Score:3, Informative)
1. A DVI connector takes maybe an extra eighth of an inch on either side and a total of an eighth of an inch more in thickness. These machines aren't that tight on space. If they are, though, you could always use Mini-DVI or Micro-DVI (though the latter does not provide analog pins).
2. Go to any store and buy an LCD panel. You will see a handful of sad monitors that are VGA-only. You can recognize these because they are made by obscure manufacturers you've never heard of, are horribly miscalibrated, and are relatively low resolution. Good panels these days are all either DVI or DVI/VGA panels. DVI/VGA panels tend to cost a few bucks more than DVI-only panels.
3. You haven't bought an LCD panel lately, have you? In my experience buying one at Fry's, I'd estimate that more than half of the monitors I saw were DVI-only.
Re:first post! (Score:5, Informative)
If you want a laptop that allows a custom video card, you need to spec the stuff you want BEFORE YOU BUY, and keep a cognizant eye of what gotchas may be involved. Basically, do some research, and not just reviewing halfassed slashdot comments like ours.
After 15 years of experiencing all sorts of good, bad, magical, unreliable, and just plain retarded computer manufacturers, I must opine that you are out of your mind if you think Asus anything better than Dell. They both are cutthroat businesses looking to save a buck where noone might notice, and whenever possible you avoid the lowest end laptops/etc, such as Inspiron.
Don't try to cut corners and save some bucks then complain when you made a glaringly bad decision. (Ubuntu preinstalled on a Dell? Did you do NO research prior to grabbing the first Ubuntu mania inspired laptop you could find?)
Cheers.