ASUS $199 Eee PC laptop

[dementedlemur]

The 800x480 resolution on that 7" screen kills it for me. Hopefully they bump it up when/if they come out with a larger screen version.

 

[nonameo]

Can it fit in a purse? If it can fit in a purse, it's golden. If it can't, then iffy. I'm thinking that it will be able to fit in a purse.

 

[asdftt123]

After reading all this I'd be pretty tempted to purchase one for $250-$300 if the specs turn out how I want it to. On the specs sheet, it says that it is Windows XP capable, but does not come with it preinstalled. How does one install XP on this PC if it doesn't have an optical drive? Would you have to purchase a USB DVD reader for it? Also, with the provided specs, how can we expect XP to perform on this laptop and how much space will it take up on its precious 2/4/8GB of storage? Also, is Windows XP even usable at 800*480 resolution?

 

[zig3695]

of course its useable. many people used to run 640x480... at least i remember doing it and that was on a 12" screen.

i like this at $200, but at $300 you really have better options as long as you dont mind a larger form factor.

 

[asdftt123]

Just curious, what other options are there for ultraportable laptops? IMO, Even at the price of around $300 I would still buy this. You would have a pretty difficult time to find a competing product in the market to match the size, weight, and price of this laptop. I know you can definitely find a nicer laptop for about $100 more but for most users who want an ultraportable laptop, it's not the specs and flashiness they are looking for, but they want something small and that will accomplish the tasks they need it to do (word processing, internet, music) and the Eee PC can do all of that. I'm the kind of person who would want an ultraportable laptop that's small and sleek but a powerful desktop machine for other tasks.

 

[cheesehead]

Yeah, it's pretty nice. I need to do some serious word processing, though; anything less than 10" is simply not enough.

I'd pay $300 for a 10.4" version, though.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Originally posted by: zig3695
of course its useable. many people used to run 640x480... at least i remember doing it and that was on a 12" screen.

i like this at $200, but at $300 you really have better options as long as you dont mind a larger form factor.

QFT.

http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=79

 

[razor2025]

I don't see how well you can do word processing or surfing the net with low-res small 7" screen. It's too small to be practical for me (since I'm used to high-res screens), and isn't as portable & multi-function as the new convergence device, like iPhones. @ $300, it looks like over-sized PDA, which is a step-back. I don't want to bash the EeePC, because I was very enthusiastic about it when it was originally rumored/announced. However, with price settling on much higher point, it completely loses much of its selling point to me. There's simply too many devices that have internet capability available in the market that provides much more function.

 

[legoman666]

where exaclty does one find a ~10-12" lappy for $400-500? (not used, I never buy used electronics) I was looking to buy the EEE pc for use at school, but it keeps looking less and less desirable as the price goes up and the specs go down. typical bait and switch imo.

 

[frostedflakes]

I have a Nokia 770 with an 800x480 screen. It may not be as nice as my 17" desktop monitor, but it's very usable for web browsing. Most sites are designed to be compatible with 800x600 or 1024x768, so with 800px horizontal resolution you can browse the web with minimal side scrolling. My only gripe about the 770's screen is that it's very small (only 4.1"), so because the pixel density is so high it can be hard to read text from more than a foot or so away without zooming. This shouldn't be as issue w/the EEE PC as the screen is nearly twice the physical size, yet the same resolution, so pixel density shouldn't be too high.

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: legoman666
where exaclty does one find a ~10-12" lappy for $400-500? (not used, I never buy used electronics) I was looking to buy the EEE pc for use at school, but it keeps looking less and less desirable as the price goes up and the specs go down. typical bait and switch imo.

Toshiba Satellite on sale for $349.99

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: SilentRunning

Originally posted by: legoman666
where exaclty does one find a ~10-12" lappy for $400-500? (not used, I never buy used electronics) I was looking to buy the EEE pc for use at school, but it keeps looking less and less desirable as the price goes up and the specs go down. typical bait and switch imo.

Toshiba Satellite on sale for $349.99

That's *much* bigger and heavier -- 15.4".

Even refurb ultraportables don't come cheaper than $600.

 

[eplebnista]

tick...tick...tick

Getting inexorably closer to the end of the month.

 

[zig3695]

so im gonna go into compusa in two weeks with $250 cash in my pocket and walk out with a mp3-streaming capable portable jukebox/laptop that can also orb tv channels too, right?

 

[cmdrmoocow]

Any word on an updated release date? I'm anxious to purchase.

 

[bennylong]

" Second half of September" so this week!

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070904PD215.html

The company plans to ship 200,000-300,000 Eee PCs by the end of this year and annual shipments for next year will grow to more than three million units at least, said the company.

Asustek noted the supply of CPUs, chipsets, flash memory and DRAM are sufficient at present; however, it is facing pressure from LCD panel and battery shortages.

The first batch of Eee PCs, which will hit the market in the second half of September, will feature a 4GB solid state disk (SSD) and 512MB memory.

The company plans to introduce second-generation Eee PCs in April 2008 which will feature Intel's Merom processors. The power consumption of the next-generation notebooks will reduce to 7W TDP, down from 11W TDP, said the company, adding that it may remove the fan to save more power and reduce noise.

 

[Dewayne2]

Wow. That is an amazing price.

 

[Noema]

I'm getting one for sure.

 

[Dizzymon]

Rumor has it that the EEE Pc won't be available until early 2008. I'll wait for 2nd generation since I've waited this long and with prices going up each time I read something new about it.

 

[zig3695]

rumor also has it rumors are dumb

 

[AnitaPeterson]

WELL...

It's official: the entire scheme is dead in the water - another FOLEO folly.

For such a price hike, the specs and performance are disappointing, to say the least. Check out the stories:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/0...sed-in-russian-review/ - Original Engadget story
http://www.google.com/translat...=ru%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8 - translated Russian review.

Sad! I was looking forward to a device like this...

 

[eplebnista]

Latest news from here.

Oct 16 announcement, End of Month in stores, Double RAM?
Friday, October 12th, 2007

According to this article from DigiTimes, ASUS will indeed announce the final Eee PC prices on October 16th. It does officially confirm that the $199 price point can only be reached by contract orders, as expected. An initial batch of 10,000 units will hit Taiwan markets after the announcement. By the end of this month, Eee PC?s will be available in the BestBuy / Newegg channels (as suggested in the last news update.)

Furthermore, x94scorp on our forums noticed a new update on the official ASUS website where the RAM specifications of the devices have all been raised. The 8G model has 1GB of RAM, the 4G and 4G Surf models have 512MB, and the 2G Surf has 256MB. Have the specifications been raised? Interesting!

 

[zig3695]

sure lotta smoke and mirrors for such an 'awesome' product...

 

[UBB]

The 4GB Eee PC was released in Taiwan today for around NT$11,655 (US$358), according to digitimes. Only bulk buyers will be getting a version of the Eee PC for US$199 and that would be the Eee PC 2G Surf, I believe.

 

[FoBoT]

i guess that is progress, today Taiwan , maybe by Q12008 it'll be here (USA) ?