Netbooks: Asus EEE, Acer Aspire, Dell Inspiron 9, MSI Wind etc

[UnderOpenSky]

Just logged on to ebuyer and see they are now for sale in the UK, anyone had a chance to play with one yet and maybe customize it? Seems a great concept, my laptop is dying on me and planning on replacing it with a desktop, but would be nice to have true portable computing at a low price. Be interesting to see if any other manufacturers choose to compete and what the mark 2 will look like....

 

[ChrisFilter]

Trying to convince work to buy one.

 

[Xanadu]

Planning on getting one when the slightly larger models come out.

 

[dogmatique]

Should be getting mine thur / fri this week. Looking forward to it!

Seems perfect for trips when you want to check email / web browse / watch a few vids on the train.

Can't beat it at the price!

Will probably garner howls of derision though as I plan to put some kind of lite XP on it so that it works with everything I'm used to.

The included install disk comes with all XP drivers ready to go.

 

[fractionMan]

See http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=231618

 

[Crispy]

I'd want to hack OSX onto one

 

[han]

Should be getting mine thur / fri this week. Looking forward to it!

Seems perfect for trips when you want to check email / web browse / watch a few vids on the train.

Can't beat it at the price!

Will probably garner howls of derision though as I plan to put some kind of lite XP on it so that it works with everything I'm used to.

The included install disk comes with all XP drivers ready to go.

Ooh - give us the lowdown when you've got it

 

[fractionMan]

I'd want to hack OSX onto one

bindun, but it's a bit crap ... http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/15/os-x-on-an-asus-eee-pc/

 

[Crispy]

Yeah, I saw that. Considering that older cersions ran find on G3 computers with 256MB RAM, I think this thing should do okay for lightweight stuff. It'd be for the novelty really

 

[fractionMan]

My fave hack was windows95 on a PSP. Really quite pointless

 

[dogmatique]

Hmm. Seems to be stock problems - no great surprise there. Looks like I'll be waiting for mine to turn up for a while... curses!

 

[Chz]

Played with one... Meh.

I have a 7 year-old Toshiba Libretto that I picked up for free, and the Asus doesn't do anything that it doesn't except have USB ports. (I've got a card with some) The Eee is slow enough that some web sites are noticeably slow to render, and you can forget about Flash stuff. It would be laughable to use it for any serious work, just due to the keyboard.

I can absolutely see how some people might like it, but I can't find a use for it.

 

[fractionMan]

Compiz fusion +xubuntu on an EEEpc.

 

[lobster]

My friend has one, i played with it, its bit too small for me personally, also don;t solid state drives have read/write limitations?

 

[rhod]

Saw one of these in PC World, and they had very cannilly put it amongst the Apple stuff.

Very nice looking bit of kit, and although they had simplified the front end desktop for a newbie user, the applications were real enough, and felt quite responsive. You could get some real work done on one of these beasties!

 

[ChrisFilter]

Got the Mrs one for Xmas. Very impressed... the keyboard is very good and you can happily type properly on it. Linux interface is clear and easy to use. Everything works and it's more than snappy enough when you consider it costs £225!

 

[dogmatique]

Gah. My supplier STILL doesn't have any stock. Grr.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Have you paid for it? Could you not cancel the order and get it from somwhere else?

 

[dogmatique]

They seem to be very difficult to get hold of don't y'know. There's a few of the 2GB versions about, but they're not much use.

Finally managed to get one from ebuyer, arrived today - sod's law, didn't cancel the other order first, so now have another one arriving Monday.

Had a quick play - the keyboard is very small, and the mini-shift key on the right is going to be a real pain, but overall it's lovely and compact, and pretty nippy too - though I did immediately whip out the 512mb memory stick and put in a 2GB one.

The extra PCI slot seems to have gone on my revision of the machine too, which is a shame, though I had no plans to use it.

Had a very brief look around the Linux distro, then immediately started to intstall XP, which I managed to get down to less than 150mb.

Will let you know how I get on.

 

[gnoriac]

Compiz fusion +xubuntu on an EEEpc.

If it can run that, can't it run full-fat ubuntu? (must admit I'm not that keen on xubuntu).
Any idea what it's native OS is like?

 

[ChrisFilter]

Any idea what it's native OS is like?

Very locked down, not for enthusiasts.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i plan to get one for on the move.... i'll probably end up using it as just soming to cart round with me so i'm not too worried

and i can always vnc into onbe of my other puters for other stuff

 

[mack]

Now with added touch screen!

http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2007/12/asus-eee-pc-with-touch-screen.html

Good thread about stock availability here..

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=1067&p=10

 

[Firky]

I'd be tempted if it was bigger than 2GB SS

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

there is a 4 gb model and the 8gb is comming out soon... plus you can easly expand with sd cards

 

[Firky]

I want 100GB which you're not going to get on a little device like this or from SS (anytime soon).

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

buy an usb external drive

 

[Firky]

I feel dumb for not thinking of that.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

kneel before zod!!

 

[lobster]

Saw one of these in PC World, and they had very cannilly put it amongst the Apple stuff.

FWIW Apple design their machines then contract out the manufacturing to Asus and some others. Asus started out building machines for other people (not just Apple, its common practice to outsource manufacturing) and have branched out into selling their own badged hardware.
There are OEMs (the laptop manufacturers we all know) and ODMs (original design manufacturers). ODMs actually build the laptops, and they're relatively unknown. Asus are unusual in that.