Asus Eee: Buyers report in

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 4:46 pm

This morning, I decided to buy myself an Asus EeePC! I bought it from Newegg along with a Corsair 8GB Flash Voyager and a USB 2.0 External Enclosure so I can hook up a DVD-ROM drive. Total price was a little less than $500, but I feel that it will be worth it. My Eee should be here some time this week, Wednesday or Thursday along with my other stuff. The first thing I will be doing is to install a nLited version of XP Corp that installs to a little more than 600 MB, leaving me with a little over 3 GB to myself, that is a much needed improvement over the stock Xandros OS. Then I will most likely make an Acronis disk image so I can easily restore the standard XP install. After that, I will most likely install Starcraft and play some good old RTS action!

Is anyone else here planning on or has bought one of these all ready? Report in fellow Eee users!

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 4:51 pm

I'm buying the 8GB version as soon as I have enough, should be some time next week.

edit: Once I have enough, and when it comes out.

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:22 pm

I was thinking of picking one of those up when my old Toshiba work laptop craps the bed. (It's an old P3 500 with stock batteries... about 2 hours of life on a full charge

) My newer laptop is inconveniently large. (Note: See the last paragraph for the long-winded banter that was originally here.)

The only things I don't like about the Eee are the flash memory, standard OS, small keyboard keys, and processor. The programs I use on a regular basis collectively take up 5 or so gigs. And that's real software, too, not Linux. For the cost of the 8 gig version, I could theoretically pick up a used (or refurbished) Pentium M or Centrino based machine with a better screen and more storage capacity. The keys on my old Powerbook Duo are about 1/2" square, slightly bigger than the tops of my full size PC keyboard keys. That's about as small as I can go.

But hey, I might pick one up in a couple years, as long as it can run XP without problems.

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I got a newer HP for graduation last year, and it's plenty fast, but it's a widescreen model and measures 14"x10"x1.5", which feels big for a portable computer. (It's technically a "desktop replacement", I think.) I prefer smaller laptops, like my old Duo 2300c. (It's only 10.5"x8.5"x1.5".) For a while, before I got this Toshiba throwaway (most of our computers came from the trash heap at work), I had a Toshiba Tecra 550CDT/4.0. It's a good size at 9"x11.5"x1.75", but unfortunately all of our batteries for it wore out and it's a Pentium MMX 266. My current work laptop is a bit bigger than the old Toshiba, but not huge.

I wish I could find a reasonably priced laptop with a lot of storage that's sized between the Duo and the Tecra. That would be great.

A future project will probably be buying such a laptop off eBay, re-packing the battery with new cells, maybe replacing the backlight with LEDs, and possibly swapping the hard drive for flash storage (which is just getting cheaper).

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:25 pm

bicostp wrote:But hey, I might pick one up in a couple years, as long as it can run XP without problems.

Asus includes a DVD with XP drivers.

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:26 pm

It could probably do well with a cut down version of XP. XP lite maybe.

I'm planning on just buying an external hard drive on mine, just keep a few programs on the SDD and use the external for music and anything else I'd need.

Post by **Skyone** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:32 pm

What's so great about this thing?

Sir Games-A-Lot · Post by **Sir Games-A-Lot** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:35 pm

Looks cool, but is the battery removable? I might consider buying one to provided they release a high-capacity batterypack.

bicostp wrote:And that's real software, too, not Linux.

Geesh bic, when did you become such a hater?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:37 pm

It looks really cool, but I'm not sure how I'd like it. I think I could get a similarly sized Lifebook off ebay for about the same price, and that'd probably have a higher-res touchscreen.

I'm going to try to replace the cells in my laptop's secondary battery with NiMHs, the lithium cells are completely dead. If that works out good, I'll do the same for the primary battery, which only lasts an hour-ish. Maybe LED mod the screen, if I get a wireless card for it and use it enough to need the extra battery life.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:37 pm

Skyone wrote:What's so great about this thing?

Under two pounds and is quite cheap.

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 6:13 pm

vb_master wrote:Asus includes a DVD with XP drivers.

Geesh bic, when did you become such a hater?

That started when I had to take Linux classes and realized what an impractical, backwards, half-baked pile of it it really is. I typed up a big, thread derailing rant, but basically there's not enough hardware support, crappy community tech support, half-baked WiFi support, too many ways to set the system up, few good programs that don't have Windows ports, too many programs in perpetual beta, and no quality replacements for programs I use a lot. Linux is not a viable everyday OS for my needs.

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Actually, instead of buying another laptop I might just re-pack one of my spare batteries for the P3 500 one and get a WiFi card...

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 7:23 pm

bicostp wrote:That started when I had to take Linux classes and realized what an impractical, backwards, half-baked pile of it it really is. I typed up a big, thread derailing rant, but basically there's not enough hardware support, crappy community tech support, half-baked WiFi support, too many ways to set the system up, few good programs that don't have Windows ports, too many programs in perpetual beta, and no quality replacements for programs I use a lot. Linux is not a viable everyday OS for my needs.

I respect your opinion, but ever since I switched to Ubuntu, I have been very pleased. Sure there are some of those aforementioned flaws, but I find Linux to be a very solid OS. Anyway, I've been looking for a cheap laptop that I can use for simple internet related crap so I don't have to be tied to my desk when I want to check my mail/facebook/other processor non-intensive stuff without using my mom's crappy Dell.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 7:41 pm

I'm considering one, especially since my Lifebook P1120 is currently down. However, the low screen resolution (800x480) doesn't suit me. More processing power than my Lifebook, as well as more (and upgradable!) RAM are certainly pluses. The lack of availible storage is sad, I don't know why they take up so much flash anyway with the default applications.

If/when they get a 1024x768 model shipping, which last rumor I heard was going to be the 8G model, I'll very likely get one, if they stay around this price.

I just checked Asus's website, and the 8G model out late November has a 7" screen, the rumors indicate that the 1024x768 screen will be ~8". If I can get my Lifebook back running I'll likely skip this model, otherwise it's a hard choice between spending ~$300 for a higher res touch screen and more in-unit storage or ~$400 for more RAM and horsepower.

Valium wrote:It could probably do well with a cut down version of XP. XP lite maybe.

I'm planning on just buying an external hard drive on mine, just keep a few programs on the SDD and use the external for music and anything else I'd need.

Actually, it doesn't do too bad with regular XP in the videos I've seen. Boots it fairly fast too, it can go from being completely off to the Windows Desktop in 40 seconds. It's got a Pentium M proc and 512MB of RAM, Windows XP runs fairly well on that, last I checked anyway. (Vista on the other hand, is a bad idea without upping the RAM at the very least)

An external hard drive is a bit of a pain. Especially since some of us will want to carry around a DVD drive as well. I'll likely pick up a 4GB SDHC card to serve as storage until the 16GB cards come down in pricing.

vb_master wrote:
Skyone wrote:What's so great about this thing?
Under two pounds and is quite cheap.

It's also very small, 10" notebooks dwarf it in size. Beyond that, this is at the top of the list for suspected killers of the Palm Foleo. It fits a niche for some of us that want a practical, small, and cheap notebook.

Sir Games-A-Lot wrote:Looks cool, but is the battery removable? I might consider buying one to provided they release a high-capacity batterypack.

The battery is removable, but I've not heard anything about first-party high-capacity batteries. You can bet if that this model is fairly popular, a third party company will release a high capacity battery for it, though.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:07 pm

bicostp wrote:That started when I had to take Linux classes and realized what an impractical, backwards, half-baked pile of it it really is. I typed up a big, thread derailing rant, but basically there's not enough hardware support, crappy community tech support, half-baked WiFi support, too many ways to set the system up, few good programs that don't have Windows ports, too many programs in perpetual beta, and no quality replacements for programs I use a lot. Linux is not a viable everyday OS for my needs.

It runs servers pretty well.

tom61 wrote:
Sir Games-A-Lot wrote:Looks cool, but is the battery removable? I might consider buying one to provided they release a high-capacity batterypack.
The battery is removable, but I've not heard anything about first-party high-capacity batteries. You can bet if that this model is fairly popular, a third party company will release a high capacity battery for it, though.

The 8GB model will have a battery with more mAh, so as tom said, I am sure there will be a better high capacity battery soon (also why would you want it? Word on the street is that the stock battery can last for 4 hours!)

Post by **CronoTriggerfan** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:35 pm

Cool, but I really don't find it justifiable with used Lifebooks crawling all over the interwebs. Like this one I just bought 10.4" touch screen with a 1024x768 resolution, a 1.2GHz Pentium M processor, and a gig of RAM for $380 shipped.

I'm not talking about just my situation, either. Though it's a neat little device, the point is there's laptops that cost less with more power all over the place. Suffice to say I won't be picking one up anytime soon.

But for VB and those that do get it, have fun! It looks like a cool toy to dink around with.

CTFan

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:58 pm

In my opinion, the black version looks better than the white. The black border around the screen looks really out of place on the white version.

I was looking at pictures of the Eee, and I found this laptop. It looks pretty nice, sounds pretty fast for only 600MHz and gets up to 5 hours of battery life while running Vista. Plus it has a higher-res touchscreen and it can convert to a tablet. I'll definitely be looking into a laptop of that brand when I get a new one (whenever I have the money, so thats anybody's guess).