What is Digg?65 Comments
- whoreable, on 09/01/2008, -1/+34You are right. Why check it with a duo when you could check it with a quad?
- abbathdoom, on 09/01/2008, -2/+23What I don't get is why it took so long for companies to hit on this netbook idea. It struck me several years ago that I was buying a laptop with specs way above and beyond what I actually needed for the tasks I was using it for. No one needs a Core 2 Duo to check their email!
- dazparkour, on 09/01/2008, -1/+20Yeah, sure. No one needs a 2 core processor to read email, they also don't need to fly anywhere or drive a car that could tow a tank.
They also don't need a 52 inch TV, 900 channels or 7 houses but ***** it, they do! - inactive, on 09/02/2008, -0/+11most people will never use apps that require more power than office
- greenlight2001, on 09/02/2008, -2/+11Yeah, I use mine to look at porn.
- Meglo, on 09/02/2008, -0/+8They've always been getting DRAMATICALLY cheaper all year every year since... 1960? You're just taking notice now :P
- Spire3660, on 09/02/2008, -0/+7Price. Alot of the major PC components have gotten DRAMATICALLY cheaper in the last few years. Ram, Storage memory, video memory, etc.
- larrabee, on 09/02/2008, -0/+6I just purchased a Acer Aspire One ($349) with 120gb HD, 1Gb ram, Windows XP and couldn't be happier. It is perfect for bringing to work (sports training facility) for e-mail and writing when I get a minute. It is worth the $350 so I don't need to bring in my $1500 macbook and risking damage.
I will probably get the Lenovo S10 when they become available, but until then I am in love with the aspire One. - Moosecapade, on 09/01/2008, -2/+8Some of us use our laptops for more than just on the go stuff like checking email...
- inactive, on 09/01/2008, -0/+6I'm on an Eee pc 1000H now typing this. What sold me was battery life, it does just "enough" and that counts. I can watch 720p video, i can overclock or downclock with the super hybrid utility. Small form and excellent battery life was the selling point for me.
- whodoes, on 09/02/2008, -0/+5I just saw "limited atom supply..." and started to wonder what the hell "The Onion" was up to now.
- Slackersrule, on 09/02/2008, -0/+5The new series of netbooks are great. I have an MSI Wind, and I use it everyday for email, web browsing, and even watching up to 720p videos. Gaming is kind of weak on them, but honestly, I don't think anyone buying these doesn't already have a dedicated rig.
- roxgod666, on 09/02/2008, -0/+5If we don't need a 52" tv, then i don't know what we do need
- DforSpiD, on 09/02/2008, -0/+4*Alot of the major PC components have gotten DRAMATICALLY cheaper in the last decades
- czarr, on 09/02/2008, -0/+4noone's suggesting they only make netbooks..
- rusty0101, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3The basic problem has been that the prices of laptops put them generally outside the reach of individual purchases. Businesses have looked at laptops as 'desktop replacements' for people who need to do everything (or almost everything) they do at their desk, also at home, and elsewhere. That means multi-media intensive presentations, and being able to view all the spreadsheet and word documents that have all the macros and dependencies that Microsoft is so fond of embedding in documents, whether those features are needed to convey the information needed to make a decision on the road, or not.
It's only been within the past few years that people realized that while the PDA is essentially dead, as almost all of it's features have been pulled into the cell phone system, there is a niche between the PDA and the desktop replacement that has a large potential market out there. Most of us have been using older laptops to fill these needs, (something that will allow me to quickly ssh into my server from a WiFi point to get some feature back on line) though that has come with the headache of excess weight and poor battery life (potentially fixed by replacing the battery, or adding a battery sled, and even more weight, to the package)
Lightweight Laptops have been available for most of the past decade in Japan and elsewhere, but since all the big distributors in the US, have been selling to "large customers," they have had the fundamental flaw of not seeing beyond that market. - Murdats, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3Until I can store several terabytes of storage on my laptop, and easily throw in another hard drive or another 2gb of ram when I need to, the desktop is not going away.
add to that the fact that a quad core, 8800gtx with 4gb of ram and sevaral terabytes of storage is not too cheap in a laptop. - yeahbuddy, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3I have an Eee 1000H ($400 - eBay/Live.com) (typing on now) and an AAO 120gb/ WinXP ($249 - FW.com/BB deal).
In short, I love these netbooks. The 1000H runs forever, and the AAO is so tiny, I can carry it anywhere (as well as the 1000H). These netbooks are the wave of the future. The vast majority of people don't need a super-computer for a laptop.
I haven't touched my Mac Mini (with a 24" LCD) since getting these netbooks. They are the absolute sweet spot for mobile computing. - ChileanGoD, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3Meglo... don't be a smart ass. The overall price for a good working computer has dropped immensely. Not too long ago the sweet spot for performance/price was 2000$. By the time i got my P4 3.2Ghz was about 1500$. Now I've upgrated to a Core Duo 8400 for 700$. I need to get my dad's an upgrade for their system. Since they are almost satisfied with their athlon 2800+. I suggest to them to go for a double core celeron E1200 that's has more than twice the power and go for 2 gigs of ram... total cost 180$ (mobo, ram and cpu) and they will be happy for a couple of years.
- rusty0101, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3I tend to agree, but I'm not sure how we're going to get to the next step.
Essentially what we need 'desktops' for are dedicated functionality that does not need to be mobile. Video processing, rendering, gaming, etc. Basically things that are very CPU and power intensive.
Processor intensive computer gaming will continue to need those kinds of capabilities. So for that market the future doesn't look too different.
The big problem is that the 'home' video processing and rendering systems are going to continue to need desktop/tower systems because the people developing home based tools to do this type of work are stuck in the single platform solution model, where the UI has to be on the same processor as the data being manipulated.
With GigE, and a separate back end that can do the conversion for you, there really isn't a great need for the desktop to handle the rendering. You should be able to build something like a netbook that when you are at home you drop into a dock that treats the netbook as the location for your home directory or content, and when you want to hit the road, you log out of the desktop, undock the netbook and you have all the content that you are expecting. Any rendering, compiling, or other processor intensive stuff that you don't need to take with you, continues in the server in the corner.
But OK, I'm dreaming. - Ouze, on 09/02/2008, -3/+5"We've heard rumors of an AMD-class netbook processor"
WTF does this even mean? Don't they mean an "AMD netbook-class processor"? Seriously, sometimes Ars reads like a high school desktop publishing class, and is frequently edited & proofread less rigorously then one. - deltaandroid, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2The Wired from Serial Experiments Lain anyone?
- jlian, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2Hi, the fan is quite loud on some of the models, apparently it's a hit-or-miss.
But it's easily fixable by downloading a program for Windows here:
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f ...
On Linux it's slightly more complicated, but you can find the solution here:
http://n00.be/archives/758/
I got one of them loud models, and found the solution, haven't heard of the fan since.
Hope I helped. - elitexero, on 09/02/2008, -1/+3No Intel, it's called school season.
That's like comparing your ice cream sales in January to July and calling summer 2008 an increase in ice cream demand. - Elranzer, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2"AMD-class" maybe they mean "cheaper and less powerful."
- Defiant001, on 09/02/2008, -2/+4Good call sir
- michrech, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2You will not be happy with the 1.6ghz Atom and only 1gb RAM with Vista. I just put it onto my MSI Wind Desktop (Same processor, 80gb WD HDD, Samsung DVD-RW (both drives SATA)) with only 1gb and it really ran the HDD into the ground. I don't think I ever saw the HDD stop -- even while the machine was sitting "idle". I threw a 1gb USB stick at it and let Vista use it as a "ReadyBoost Cache" and it just ran it *and* the HDD constantly.
Nope. You'll be happier with 2gb, and the price between 1 and 2 gb is very small. - jlian, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2Agree, I just got one 3 days ago and couldn't be happier.
- czarr, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2Because there is a demand right now while cellphone tech is not yet capable.
- stygiansonic, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2I got one with the 6-cell; having > 5 hours of battery life on such a nice machine is awesome. I tried the keyboard on the Eee and it was just too small for me. The One's keyboard is just right.
- larrabee, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2price match
- hartley, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2The netbook is an appendum. Sure you got the 52" tv in the living room, but you still have your 13" in the bedroom, or a better comparison, the 7" lcd in your car. The netbook is designed for doing the average basic tasks at a bare minimum and at a minimum cost.
On a similar note, this is why I also feel the netbook is the perfect window for linux to become mainstream. There are many competent user friendly distros out there that will run all of those basic apps perfectly. *pretty much firefox, openoffice, and thunderbird*
**personal opinion that no one will care about: Im currently eyeballing the Acer Aspire One (Xp edition with 1.6ghz Atom, 1gb ram and 120gb hdd) not bad for only $349. - DforSpiD, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2I believe this is what you're looking for:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections
(I also didn't find the joke funny) - Murdats, on 09/03/2008, -0/+1yes, but then the 100 terabyte hard drives won't be and in 10 years the 8800gtx will suck.
if you can make it smaller, then there will be larger better stuff to replace it. - moocow1452, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2Did you put Ubuntu on? It bumps life up to five hours.
- S5S5S5, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1Any of you have fan issues? Lots of people complain about the fan on the Acer.
- D3koy, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2I clicked on this story to get all uppity and talk about how we all knew there were a fixed number of atoms in the universe, conservation of matter and whatnot...boy do I feel foolish now...
- tehWyman, on 08/19/2009, -0/+1I got one two days before the price drops came out :(
- darny, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1"...but plasmids are the paint."
- yeahbuddy, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1Um, the Ideapad S10 has never been in stock...
- inactive, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2Limited Xbox360 supply shows strong console demand...
LOL - hartley, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1The new model with the 6-cell standard is out now?
What was total price? *I assume its the XP version with the 1.6ghz, 1gb ram, and 120gb hdd* - geoffreyireland, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1My girlfriend bought an Acer Aspire One because she is a light web user but I must admit this thing is rather cool and theres nothing better than browsing online from bed. I only really use my main PC now for gaming,
- jub0r, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1Wow. Everyone's all so serious around here. Oh well.
- DforSpiD, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1The rest of the world is just sick of everything being about America's politics...
- jlian, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1Hi, I got the 6-cell one as well. I got it in Canada during a sale, ended up with $409.85. And it is "XP version with the 1.6ghz, 1gb ram, and 120gb hdd*"
- Iztikeit, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1In ten years those things will be very cheap and super small.
- Evi1d33d, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1If you can find one for that price that is. Bestbuy is out of stock, MicroCenter isn't everywhere and all the websites charge $50 extra (greedy bastards).
- Elranzer, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1The first EeePC only had about 3 hours of battery life. Since then, I've never trusted them on it. I'll wait on the Dell Inspiron 910 ("Dell E" or whatever they're calling it).
- inactive, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1yeah i put unbuntu on it, and ran the eubuntu script by ricey, its great, got me volume hotkeys etc
-
Show 51 - 68 of 68 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is