Asus Confirms Specs, Price of Eee PC 904 and 1000 261
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 ..."
Re:Where's my $200 laptop (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:erm, who actually wants one? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone who wants a small form factor. Like me.
I take two laptops to work every day - my company one, and my Eee (which I'm using to write this post). I don't want to use my company one on the train for various reasons, hence the need for a second one. So, space and weight is at a premium.
Given that most of my time on the train is spent browsing or blogging rather than doing anything *hugely* taxing, I don't mind having a lower power machine.
My current Eee is a 701G, but I may well treat myself to a 1000 some time next year, mostly for the larger screen but also for the improved battery life and more power when I want it.
Re:Enough with the "I got ripped off!" whining (Score:3, Interesting)
For the last six months, since I static-zapped my desktop, it's been my only personal computer.
Likewise. I have a nice used Mac in my home office that I use when I need a full-sized screen, but in practice that means maybe once a month or so. At home, the 701 has become my main computer.
Re:Where's my $200 laptop (Score:3, Interesting)
I just paid for my ElonexONE, which cost me £100, which is around $200. However that price only seems to be available for those of us who pre-ordered units, they've upped the list price since then, to £180 (with a slightly improved spec). The spec is significantly lower than the EEE.
I think it's pretty obvious that making money off these netbook type units at the $200 price point has turned out to be unrealistic at this point in time, as no one has really managed it even at the lower specs around.
VGA output?!? (Score:1, Interesting)
Dear Asus,
The time has come. Drop VGA output and replace with HDMI output. Surely you (and your customers) would love the space savings of an HDMI connector [wikipedia.org] over a VGA connector [wikipedia.org]. As an added bonus, your customers won't be pissed that their laptops have a connector interface that is quickly becoming (already?) obsolete.
Thank you,
Mr. Sensibility
as sound as a pound (Score:2, Interesting)
That only makes the quoted prices worse. People in the UK and EU are looking for a 100 Euro or Pound notebook. If you figure in the lower value of the same processors, the $350 700 models should be available for less than $300 by now but essentially the same components are being sold for twice that. Finally, as the dollar fails, they should be looking to cut costs not raise them if they want to increase their share of huge US market.
If this is part of the M$ deal to put a stop to the growth of Linux on netbooks, it's going to work. Asus is not going to sell as much as they want, it's like they cut their throat to keep M$ happy.
Re:Where's my $200 laptop (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with the "used" approach.
I spent $100 on a deal for two used Compaq Armada M300 [hp.com] machines (PIII) and a docking station. They're small (barely bigger than an Eee PC in one dimension, because the screen is 4:3 aspect), light (magnesium shell), 1024x768 12" displays, run various version of Linux [in.tum.de] and PCMCIA wifi with no problems, and even run Windows 2000 fine (I haven't tried XP). What more do I really need for web browsing and e-mail? These things aren't for gaming or heavy-duty stuff anyway. The only downside has been the battery life and the cost of it: ~$100 more for replacement batteries that give only ~2.5hrs, because the batteries that came with the units were dead. Still, 2 laptops for the price of one EeePC ain't bad, and the form factor is fairly similar. Oh, and the wifi sticking out of the PCMCIA slot looks a bit ugly, but so what.
Your question made me curious... (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't (which I am sure you already knew). The closest you can come is the travelmate 4720, which is about $800. You can get any number of laptops for $500, but none that I can find with a 13" screen. I'm sure that nobody that is responsible for deciding what specs a laptop will have view a smaller screen as a feature.
Also, small form factor aside, those of us who want an EEE also want it because it's pretty goddamned cool. I'll admit it.
Still no touchscreen - what were they thinking? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Perfect (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it true that the SSD drives are soldered in? It's not just the capacity for upgrading - as someone who's rescued a few unbootable laptops, I'd like to know I can pop the drive into some form of USB box to get the data off.
Re:The world is full of idiots. (Score:5, Interesting)
I also own a 701. And for me, it has been a wonderful gateway into the World of Linux.
Just over a week ago I installed my *brand* new PC as Ubuntu. My old PC has now been turned into a 2.25TB RAID5 FreeNAS server. With the 701 as my little screen in the living-room, or for when I go away.
10yrs I stuck with Windows. Through thick & thin. I remembered trying Linux in the late 90s, and commented on how it would be the future. I still have my 'old' PC inside a VM. But, it doesn't get much use now.
All of the above is thanks to the 'eee'.
Re:Enough with the "I got ripped off!" whining (Score:3, Interesting)
i love my 701 it's battery life is good enough and its small enough to carry anywhere I'm out of town 5 days a week theres a place with internet access but very limited software, but luckily they don't mind me plugging one of the monitors into my EEE.
They would have some nice pc's but they are running XP in 384 Meg of ram so dispite being pentium4 extremes at 3ghz+ my EEE runs rings round them.
the eee is quite happy running with a 1280x whatever external monitor.
even net access is easy with 3 doing mobile internet for £5 a month I can just plugin a usb bluetooth dongle its not hspda but thats available for £10 a month and also works on ubuntu.
Occassionally i do need to use windows but i have a 2000 install which takes about 2gb on an sd card which i run in virtualbox.
however the screen can be small for some things which is where the 900 series wins.
I think the 1000 is a bit too big and the hdd is a backwards step. if you need more storage plug in an external drive mostly its not needed.
i wouldnt get a 1000 but the 900 series is tempting
Re:Enough with the "I got ripped off!" whining (Score:2, Interesting)
I attempted to clean up what I originally wrote to make it much more introspective, because I figured if I was going to attempt to pick an argument, I'd do it in a more... intellectual manner, but I hit "submit" a little too soon.
That said, the majority of people I meet or know with EEE PC's have them for totally the wrong reasons. Four people bought them because they apparently believe the hype. The other one only whips out his EEE (with handy USB-to-Serial adapter) when he needs to telnet a router.
Again, I see the market for the EEE misplaced. It's being touted as being "ultra-portable," but it also has a very ultra-small list of applications that it's better for than more traditional, proven devices.
I think there is a huge market for a device that sits somewhere between a fully functional (but small) laptop and a cell phone, but I guarantee that said device will boast the form factor of neither.
No, because (Score:2, Interesting)
His Post made sense without the title as well (as well as being gramatically correct).