Asus eee preorder at Citrus Micro

[iseestars]

Originally posted by: DestruyaUR
The 701 is confirmed to run XP with ASUS driver support (supposedly they'll make them available at launch) but I personally wouldn't feel comfortable doing it on anything less than the 8GB model to store a minimal install of XP along with a minimal install of Office (something tells me Word, Powerpoint, and MAYBE Excel) to have some room to spare.

You'd easily want a 1GB fixed paging file on this thing to augment the 512MB of RAM (and since the storage is SSD...bonus). I don't know whether you can switch out the DIMM easily or not.

The only way you'd be able to do XP on a 4GB model is to constantly have a clone of your squeaky-clean just-installed-and-updated OS/Office on a 4GB thumbdrive ready for reimaging at the first sign of Bloatius Windowus, and keep all your documents/music/media files on the removable memory cards.

EDIT: And for people worried about the fragility - if this thing hits as big as some people think it will, somebody'll make a case for it.

Look at my link, those are the final specs confirmed by Asus. They are not making any additional models beyond that. There is NO 8GB model. Repeat: NO 8GB model. From my reading they also are cutting back the CPU, but ASUS has been vague about confirming a specific CPU (for the worse) and it's gonna suck. 4GB, you have to get the $400 model. LAME. For $100 more, you get a real cpu, 2x ram, 20x HD and sata, dvd burner, higher res screen, and all that other junk this comes with, but in a good case.

This is sort of like them agreeing to build you a furnished house and now they decided you ain't getting any furniture and on top of that, you've gotta nail and paint the walls yourself.

 

[ofacto]

Citrus Micro contacted me about the preorders. They could be getting them in as early as the end of this week.

I requested the lowest model in BLACK for $259 2GB SSD, 256MB RAM, 4 CELL BATTERY, NO CAMERA. I know the specs seem to suck now, but the main thing about this I like is the size, and that hasn't changed. Planning on upgrading the RAM as soon as I get it, plus I have a ton of SD cards and Flash Drives.

 

[Dizzymon]

$259!?!?!? Crap add tax and shipping we're at $300 probably.

 

[jhoschei]

I came across this in another forum - but you can look at a Russian translated review of the eeePC

http://translate.google.com/tr...prev=%2Flanguage_tools

They found the ram and the flash chips soldered onto the motherboard with no chance of upgrading.

Also if you look at the pics from the Intel Developer Forum found here:
http://www.anandtech.com/trade...howdoc.aspx?i=3104&p=2

One of the pictures shows a bottom view of the laptop (3rd picture down) and there are no panels that you can remove to upgrade ram...

 

[morkman100]

Originally posted by: iseestars
real specs

Lame. for $500 I got an Acer:
14.1" screen
t2080 1.73ghz
1gb ddr2 667mhz
80gb hd
integrated intel
dvdrw dl
vista ultimate

$400 from the eee pc will get me trash for specs, even if it is smaller. I would want to instal windows... xp at least and there's no way in heck you can even think about doing this on these.

Isn't smaller the whole point? Check out prices on laptops with sub 14" screens. Prices are at least $800. With laptops, the smaller/lighter, the more expensive.

Don't think of it as a "cheap" laptop.... think of it as a "cheap" ultra-portable laptop.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: jhoschei
I came across this in another forum - but you can look at a Russian translated review of the eeePC

http://translate.google.com/tr...prev=%2Flanguage_tools

They found the ram and the flash chips soldered onto the motherboard with no chance of upgrading.

Also if you look at the pics from the Intel Developer Forum found here:
http://www.anandtech.com/trade...howdoc.aspx?i=3104&p=2

One of the pictures shows a bottom view of the laptop (3rd picture down) and there are no panels that you can remove to upgrade ram...

Non upgradeable makes it a bit of a harder sell.

I already have a Thinkpad X22 and Ipaq for travel. The ipaq shown in the russian review is the one I have. The ipaq 480x640 res. The eee is bigger and the resolution is only a bit wider. I can probably get 16GB into the ipaq and it has wireless.

ipaq however does not have a physical keyboard or usb ports. If they bumped up the resolution on the eee and made it upgradeable, it'd be really nice.

 

[zig3695]

i think ill wait a year and get one of these eee pc's on ebay for $100 used.

 

[JWade]

nm, ram is ont he motherboard, no ram slot

 

[Dizzymon]

Just heard back from the people at citrusmicro.com where I had preordered. They've spec'd it down so much and no camera. I'm going to wait for next year to get one of these. Seeing as I already got my Nokia 770 to hold me down for a bit. I got that for $155 only compared to this one that is going to cost me 2x's as much but still falls short of the original specs.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

well its not a bad deal actually. you guys are thinking in terms of people who can afford the 400+ laptop. not everyone wants/needs to spends that much on a laptop. for 300 its not a bad deal for a college student or even as a backup pc.

edit 1.
but really at 399 you might consider the XO's buy one give one offer. the XO is a much better machine and much much more tech in it.

 

[imported_OrSin]

Also don't hold your breath to get any decent drivers from Asus. Thier OEM support sucks.
They dint even support thier own barebone systems. Unless you going high end retail ASUS is piece of crap now. Just look thier own forums and see how many problems they have with all their stuff. And I used to a ASUS fan too, but thier quality or engineering or both has went to hell.