Tuesday December 04, 2007
Tuesday December 04, 2007 The Asus Eee PC breaks through the $A 500 price barrier to retail for $A 499 in Sydney shops this week. So what do you get for $A 500? Based on this review I would say a lot. Sure the screen maybe 18CM across but it gives you everything you need a neat light package.
What is really interesting is that it DOES NOT RUN WINDOWS. Now you know why you pay $1,500 + for a laptop, because you have to pay a Microsoft for the operating system. This little beauty runs Linux which keeps the cost down and takes less hardware to run. The machine comes installed wth a whole bunch of software inclusing Open Office 2.0.
What is also really interesting is that the Eee PC does not have a hard drive which is replaced with a 4GB solid state drive and you can beef up the storage with a USB flash drive card.
As the verdict in this review says. "Less truly is more, at least when it comes to the Eee PC. While Asus considers this mainly as a robust little laptop for kids, it's ideal as a second computer that can be shared among the family or taken on holidays."
Lilliputian laptop .... Asus Eee PC
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I don't get it. I can buy a cheap HP laptop that runs Vista for US$499 (A$571) AND it has a bigger screen and can run all the regular apps that most of the planet uses. Plus it would also have a real hard drive instead of depending on only 4GB.
Did you read the specs on this? The screen is 800X480 and the processor is 900 Mhz BUT it has been underclocked to run 566Mhz!! My cheaper Pocket PC has about the same specs.
While it isn't a lot of money I can think of many other things to spend it on.
Posted by Dennis on December 04, 2007 at 02:26 PM EST #
Yes you make a good comment on the specs.. however in the advertising here Asus are very much targeting it at school age childern. I can also a market as a spare PC at home and to say take on holidays. It is a small machine at less than 1KG and would enable you to do most things you can do on a Vista machine. The review is quite good. The cheep HP and Dell machines are genrally big and clunky. I think the small size is a plus.
The cost of PCs has come down more due to lower component costs in Asia on the back of falling US$ which is not sustainable once the US$ recovers to a more natural level.
Posted by Kirk on December 04, 2007 at 02:49 PM EST #
I've already got one of these on order - for me, the size was the deciding factor. Going to try Solaris on it as soon as it arrives. More at
http://blogs.sun.com/timf/entry/opensolaris_on_a_small_laptop
Posted by Tim Foster on December 04, 2007 at 09:09 PM EST #
What? No, it's cheap because it has a tiny screen, a slow cpu, a cramped keyboard and no optical drive.
Windows really doesn't come into it.
Posted by Dick Davies on December 04, 2007 at 10:45 PM EST #