ASUS Eee PC- ultra portable, ultra cheap Linux based laptop

Post by **Patrick** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:01 am

Very interesting indeed:
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Han ... _ASUS_Eee/

http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=80

allix · Post by **allix** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:07 am

those specs are pretty old, $299 for 8GB Hardrive ? WTF....

Post by **dann** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:06 am

Read the specs again:

There will be at least two different models of the Eee PC, with the $199 version using a 4GB flash hard drive and the $299 version using a 8GB drive.

That's a flash drive not a standard hard drive.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:20 am

Is number of re-writes still a concern on flash? IIRC, new-gen flash was supposedly not affected, or at least was able to minimize the impact - is this true, or am I just making that up? If the former is still true, than a lappy with a flash drive seems like a shitty idea. Also, I remember a large disparity between writes to a standard platter based HDD and flash, but I can't remember in favor of which. It might be worth a speed hit to have solid state sweetness, though.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:55 am

dann wrote:Read the specs again:

There will be at least two different models of the Eee PC, with the $199 version using a 4GB flash hard drive and the $299 version using a 8GB drive.
That's a flash drive not a standard hard drive.

There has been updates on the announcements. At the begining it was $199 but since they have changed to $250 for the product.

I have been following this closely since I wanna buy one as soon as it is availabe. Which btw also changed form end of August to mid-september.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tFLJJw6WRqM

jamathis · Post by **jamathis** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:15 pm

I read about this not too long ago. I'd like to get one, but my only issue is that it runs Xandros, which I've used before and didn't really like a whole lot.

riddlebox · Post by **riddlebox** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:02 pm

yeah I was wondering if I could put ubuntu on there? I think the 8 gb one would be great, but it would really be 6 gb, after the ubuntu install... I think that it would be perfect for my needs, if I can type email, surf the web, and maybe do a little programming from it, and save any files to a file server.

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:44 am

First review with videos:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4044

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:34 am

They upped the expected price again...

Retailing for somewhere between $299 and $399

This is now becoming a much less appealing value proposition.

mowestusa · Post by **mowestusa** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 1:01 pm

greggh wrote:They upped the expected price again...

Retailing for somewhere between $299 and $399
This is now becoming a much less appealing value proposition.

Yes, considering they had said $199 for the lower end model in the beginning.

However, I'm looking around for a 7"-10" LCD monitor to hook up to one of those $100 thin clients that are available, thinking such a set up would be fun as a second home computer perhaps even running off of LTSP when at home, and running DSL when I'm at LUG meetings or using it outside of the house. However, I can't find one of those small LCD's for under $250. So when you consider you get a 7" monitor, keyboard, solid state memory of 4gigs, 512 megs of ram suddenly that looks like a deal at $299 when I'm looking at spending $120 for the thin client with 256megs of ram, unknown cost for a 4 gig compact flash, and probably $300-350 for a nice small monitor, then $20 for a laptop sized keyboard. All of which would be less portable, less feature rich, and I would have to set up the OS, and I wouldn't have a battery or a webcam.

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 7:43 pm

mowestusa wrote: However, I'm looking around for a 7"-10" LCD monitor to hook up to one of those $100 thin clients that are available, thinking such a set up would be fun as a second home computer perhaps even running off of LTSP when at home, and running DSL when I'm at LUG meetings or using it outside of the house.

Do you really need the monitor to be that small? You can pick up an old used 14" or 15" LCD for next to nothing, and that's still fairly small, especially if you're mostly going to use it in the house.

mowestusa · Post by **mowestusa** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:34 pm

greggh wrote:
mowestusa wrote: However, I'm looking around for a 7"-10" LCD monitor to hook up to one of those $100 thin clients that are available, thinking such a set up would be fun as a second home computer perhaps even running off of LTSP when at home, and running DSL when I'm at LUG meetings or using it outside of the house.
Do you really need the monitor to be that small? You can pick up an old used 14" or 15" LCD for next to nothing, and that's still fairly small, especially if you're mostly going to use it in the house.

Yes, I suppose that would work, but when buying a used 14"-15" LCD, I haven't found any close to nothing, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places. I have had no luck finding anything on ebay for less than $50, without dead pixels or dark spots. I wouldn't consider $50-$100 next to nothing. On ebay most of the sellers kill you on shipping costs.

The smaller the more portable, the more likely that I would take it with me to all sorts of different places, like on vacation, to friends homes to show off Linux, and other places.

The more I look at the Eee PC, I think that it could replace my mp3 player, my old laptop that gets hot, and could become my new date book, my portable video player, and all this might make it worth the $299

Hey, if you know great places to get used 14" or 15" LCD's clue me in, because the little thin client thing still interests me.

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:48 pm

I was talking about ebay. I remember looking some months ago for a 15" on ebay and seeing some for between $50 and $100, but that was with shipping factored in. To me, less than $100 for an LCD monitor is next to nothing, but maybe I'm just a big spender.

Edit: By the way. Here is an interesting deal I found on PCLinuxOS.com. It's a refurbed Net Vista P3 900 Mhz PC with keyboard, mouse and a 15" LCD monitor for just $150. I've been seriously considering picking one up just to have another knock-around system...

http://www.pclinuxos.com/ the deal is at the lower left

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:38 pm

I'd have to recommend a better box and a kvm. But then, unless it's historic or neat, I have no interest in maintaining legacy hardware. Case in point, I just threw out an early toshiba satelite since it was more or less useless, but I still have my crapo SUN Voyager, which is just as useless or moreso.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 1:59 pm

greggh wrote:I was talking about ebay. I remember looking some months ago for a 15" on ebay and seeing some for between $50 and $100, but that was with shipping factored in. To me, less than $100 for an LCD monitor is next to nothing, but maybe I'm just a big spender.

Edit: By the way. Here is an interesting deal I found on PCLinuxOS.com. It's a refurbed Net Vista P3 900 Mhz PC with keyboard, mouse and a 15" LCD monitor for just $150. I've been seriously considering picking one up just to have another knock-around system...

http://www.pclinuxos.com/ the deal is at the lower left

In major cities, there are usually bulk retailers (computer resellers) that can sell up to date equipment for less than retail or even mail order, Just have to look in the phone book. If you can get a couple of buddies in on it then the price can be even sweeter.