Anyone else unhappy about the $100 price 'change'?

Who else here is looking to buy one of the ultra-mobile, ultra-cheap laptops when they come out?

Only a few weeks to go.

*snorts* If they release this time. I have my doubts. Personally, for $200 I was thinking "Hey, that would make a sweet 'Gameboy' and media center for trips." I was thinking all of the hardware is fairly standard - I could probably get Win 98 or 2K drivers for all of it to mesh. Run all my old games like Fallout and Wing Commander, not to mention play movies and music for road trips. And sticking 2K on it would leave it functional as a network diagnostic tool.

For $300 I'm thinking "Might as well tack on the extra $200 and buy the lowest level full-featured Dell or Asus." Or, for that matter, just buy and older refurb Mac or PC laptop. Pleanty of other ways I can get a limited tech tool and nostalgia fix in one bundle, for $200.

Oh, I'm sure they will release - but its not going to be the smashing success I once thought (at $200). The 8g model will supposedly be $400, and my thinking is like yours - look what I can get elsewhere for $400! Some places unload laptop inventory for $400 per.

But its so SMALL!

I love that. I need a cheap -take anywhere- computer. I'm sick of thumb typing, and a 3" screen.

I gotta agree with that thinking. I love the design of it. I just can't get past the specs vs cost of it. I mean, heck, it's going to have the same firepower as the old IBM Thinkpads - with a better communications package, of course - but I wouldn't pay more than say $150 for one of those, used. I dunno. $300 new for the low end one isn't unreasonable, but it's not spinning me around saying "awesome deal" either :-)

I heard recently that the Nov 1 target was only for one model, grrr... not the 8g version.

If this proves to be lame, there is always this guy:

http://www.packardbell.co.uk/products/notebooks/easynote-xs/easynote-xs20-006%97coming-soon/productsheet-PC02F00501-1256.html

(An XP version of the EEE is supposed to be out by the end of the year.)

Well, I finally ordered an ASUS EEE on the 15th of this month. The earlier models (2g, 4g) were SOLD OUT in America shortly after going on sale, and those models were back-ordered so I'd be on a waiting list and I thought I would have to wait until well past the holiday season for them to restock.

Thankfully, they released two new models (2g surf and 8g). I immediately ordered one, as I was not going to miss out again and have to wait for more units to ship to north america.

It is AWESOME!

It easily fits in the pocket of my cargo pants. I've been carrying it inside a camera bag, and its so light that more than once I thought I had forgotten to bring it with. Its about as convenient to carry as a large paperback book. With no moving parts, its supposedly a little more shock resistant than a conventional laptop.

The keyboard is small, feels smaller than similarly sized hand-helds i have owned in the past, but after a day of adjustment i can type just fine. Its very annoying that they did not use the largest possible screen for this size device, but its serviceable, and so many other things kick ass about this device, I'm happy with it. I find myself putting firefox and other apps into 'fullscreen' mode, which helps a lot.

If you are thinking about getting this, and are not a linux nut, you might want to carefully look at the pre-installed software. Installing software outside of the 'approved' list may be a bit intimidating to non-techies. OTOH, using the pre-installed software is easier than using a mac. ASUS also has a very easy system for automatically making new custom software available for their custom linux-based OS - but the software library is not large, and they are slow to improve on it.

If you -are- a linux nut, though - wow! You can do anything! It was super-easy to get a version of Xubuntu running on this device. Now i have that on a boot-able SD card, just in case I hose my system, I will just pop that in and keep trucking. For everyday use I stayed with the stock OS simply because its configured to start up lightening fast. I added some xandros repositories and have started installing all my usual linux software. Plus you can always manually download/install many debian packages, so far I've been able to install everything imagined from the linux world on this computer. its great!

It does not come pre-configured to properly handle video conferencing (that will be automatically fixed shortly , but I'm impatient), but this was easily fixed following instructions of the web. I just got off a video conference call with a friend 3,000 miles away. The device is so light, i carried it (perched on 3 fingers) around the block showing her San Diego...until I exceeded the wireless range. I love this computer.

My first day, before i got used to the keyboard, I was not so happy. But i connected it to a keyboard and monitor - the linux OS and lightweight window manager as just so amazingly efficient, I forgot I was using an underpowered subnote. It was subjectively much faster than the higher powered desktop running windows.




If you are a linux enthusiast and are thinking of getting this computer - DO IT!

If you aren't a linux enthusiast, but only use your computer for simple things (web browsing, etc) - I still highly recommend this computer.

If you are thinking of buying this and want to know more, please don't hesitate to post questions here.



Did anyone else out there buy one?