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119 Comments
- smacksaw, on 01/12/2008, -0/+33This reviewer nailed it - it's a perfect PC that fills the gap between a full-size notebook and a PDA or phone. I still can't bring myself to get rid of my Sony VAIO C1, though I think the Eee PC might replace it for me when the next model comes out in April.
- yetAnotherCroc, on 01/12/2008, -0/+24Its an x86 arch. computer. And it runs Linux. That should be answer enough.
- schestowitz, on 01/12/2008, -9/+31That is a very well-written review. Recommended read, but just a correction: it's from Associated Press, not SP-I.
- armo, on 01/12/2008, -2/+23You can install XP onto an eee without much hassle. I wouldn't recommend it though because the solid state hard drive (which is not easily replaceable) only has a finite number of write cycles and it's very difficult to control where XP writes to. With Linux you can mount the areas of the file system that are written to often (such as /home /tmp /var/log /var/tmp) on an sdhc card or in volatile ram thus extending the life of the device.
- armo, on 01/12/2008, -0/+18Really? I've not had a problem with the screen except for some programs and web sites not fitting well into the small resolution. One of the first comments people make to me when I show it to them is that the screen is really clear...
- washburn085, on 01/12/2008, -0/+16I read this on my Eee Pc, and am writing this comment on it as well. I love it and recommend it to anyone who is interested in it. Its a great little machine, I just swapped the 512mb of ram for a 1gb stick of corsair for $14 after rebate, now this little thing runs like a champ. the eeeuser website the author cited is a great place for information.
- washburn085, on 01/12/2008, -0/+15of course you can. Its not the most powerful machine, but as stated above. It has x86 architecture and runs linux. For $15 you can double the ram (I did for $14 from newegg.com). The biggest holdup would be storage, but you can use an external hdd or sd card to fix that. 8GB sd card will run you about $35. If the xandros doesn't float your boat, then just install another linux or windows os on it.
- bdbr, on 01/12/2008, -0/+14One problem with EEE PC reviews is that they nearly always show a picture of the thing sitting there by itself...yet the big feature of it is its small size. By itself is just looks like a laptop, and draws the inevitable "what's the big deal, I can get a laptop with a hard drive at Best Buy for that price" comments. When you see it next to a normal 15" laptop, or at least SOMETHING for scale, you can get an idea of how small it is.
- khabba, on 01/12/2008, -0/+9I recently discovered the greatest feature of all. Press F9 during boot-up and you can restore the EEEPC to default factory setting. You can *****-up completely and just restore like new!
- ucffool, on 01/12/2008, -0/+8I'd have to disagree on screen quality. I run a 'demo' clip of Star Wars Episode 1, The Pod Race on it to show people screen quality and everyone is impressed. Yes, the size is a little small when viewing webpages, but the Firefox add-on FullerScreen improves that tremendously.
- Eslamicolt3, on 01/12/2008, -6/+14Nice write-up on the advantages this thing has, and there are many. I got to see quite a few of them at CES this year, as almost half the booths used them to run presentations and whatnot. One major drawback though, the screen is complete rubbish. I was hoping to use this as a portable media player, but the screen looks dull and blurry event at it's meager 7 inches.
- Raider007, on 01/12/2008, -0/+8I saw a bunch while at CES and now i'm craving for one...
with the rumored bigger screen, this might be my next travel computer. install ubuntu and go. - vw195, on 01/12/2008, -1/+9I have an EEE. This thing is great. I take it to work everyday in my briefcase. The screen looks fine. Also the reviewer says he thought installing XP on it would be a pain. It was painless using a combination of nlite and an external CDRom drive, but it is possible to install from USB or SD cards. People have even run WoW on it with some success. Combined with slingbox, it makes a great TV that you can take with you around the house and I also have hooked it to my HDTV and have had no problem with divx or netflix watch now. I havent tried x.264 though, but all in all this is a nice cheap portable htpc. The sweet thing is the $$ as this thing costs less than my phone :p
- afx1, on 01/12/2008, -3/+10The report is definitely more intelligencer than most, I agree!
- deathguppie, on 01/12/2008, -0/+7funny all I could find is a $750 500mhz system..
- inactive, on 01/12/2008, -1/+8I'm still waiting for the price to drop down to the originally planned $200-250 price point. I'm hoping these 1st-gen models will stay in production and drop in price once they release the 2nd-gens.
Call me a cheapskate, but $100 makes a *huge* difference in that price range, for this type of product. I'm sure that i'm not alone here. - inactive, on 01/12/2008, -1/+7"I'm sorry, your fingers are too fat to type. To obtain a special typing wand, please mash your palm on the keyboard now."
- lil_isie, on 01/12/2008, -1/+7I really would like to buy one, but I have one question: Will I be able to program in it? I'm a CS Major and do C++ and ML programming for classes, I need to know if I can create and compile with this notebook.
- inactive, on 01/12/2008, -1/+7as said above, it's an x86, and it's running linux, so it should even come with GCC included for compiling C++. The processor is a standard Pentium Celeron, so it shouldn't too much slower than your average cheap laptop.
The only problem you may run into is the small memory. As long as you're just compiling small 100-1000 line class assignments it shouldn't be a problem. But very large compilations will often times need a *lot* of temp space, even if the end-product is small enough (as an example, you would run into trouble doing a gentoo `emerge -uND world` unless you did offsite compiling). But it's just a problem with temp space, so if you run into that issue, you can just plug in some extra USB or SDcard storage and mount that on /tmp or /var for the compile. - reginalduk, on 01/12/2008, -0/+5there is a custom made version of xubuntu called eeexubuntu designed specifically for it.
http://digg.com/linux_unix/eeeXubuntu_Ubuntu_for_t ... - armo, on 01/12/2008, -0/+5The new prototype may interest you http://clumpc.com/?p=5
- Theli, on 01/12/2008, -0/+4The same reason why if you are intending to run a different Linux distribution than the one that comes pre-installed, you should look for distributions designed to run on the machine (such as the eeeXubuntu).
- stupidbrowner, on 01/12/2008, -0/+4You are perfectly correct by saying that it is no more difficult to install XP on the eeePC than any other computer but for mosty users, installing any OS "can feel like a major commitment".
- iceshake, on 01/12/2008, -6/+10"more intelligencer"? Shouldn't it just be "more intelligent"?
- Rickler, on 01/12/2008, -2/+6I'd so buy one of these if the screen was the right size. The screen should fill the panel, not be a little 7" rectangular block in the center.
- ucffool, on 01/12/2008, -0/+4I can't imagine why not. I don't do C++ programming, but I know it is XAMPP compatible so you can have LAMP support. I would say this, you will need a secondary keyboard. I found hand coding PHP difficult on the smaller keyboard... well, not difficult, but I wasn't as comfortable or efficient. Mind you, I use a full size ergonomic at home and have large hands and small fingers, but just a consideration.
- Corinthos, on 01/12/2008, -1/+5I got one a couple weeks ago. I keep it in the bathroom and surf the net and read comics on it. I love it.
- deathguppie, on 01/12/2008, -1/+5having used linux exclusively scince 96, I can tell you that there are much better solutions for systems like this than Ubuntu. I'm not mentioning one, because there are actually more than one.
- Beatmiser, on 01/12/2008, -0/+4The answer is 'yes'.
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=10433#p ... - inactive, on 01/12/2008, -3/+6I am going to buy one next month!
- Kwiter, on 01/13/2008, -0/+3I love my eeePC! I rarely lug my Powerbook anymore, my eeePC is with me daily to watch Videos via VLC and Download and answer my mail offline using Thunderbird. I even use an offline RSS reader for news. I installed eeeXUbuntu which is a bit nicer than Xandros and then replaced the XCFE Desktop with the Ubuntu Desktop, $349 4 Gig model and still have 1.5 gig left for storage, plus uses Thumb Drives and SD cards I already own! I'm picking up an 8 Gig SD to dual boot it with Windows XP(Tho I'm a Mac guy) Not a replacement for a full size machine but rarely need the full size machine on the road.
O:nen ki' wahi' Bye for now - cesig, on 01/12/2008, -1/+4Because of the size, I'm guessing.
- inactive, on 01/12/2008, -0/+3the absolute screen size never really bothered me, but i have to say that this prototype looks a lot better with the matching color of bezel.
The black border around the screen with a white case always struck me as ugly, and makes the screen look significantly smalller than it actually is. - scb0825, on 01/12/2008, -0/+3You are not alone. I was very excited when I first heard about these things, and the original price of $250... but when they went on the market and started selling for $400+ I was very disappointed.
I was looking forward to having an affordable laptop that I could use for general purposes, but at $400+ I can purchase an Acer with way more horse power. - inactive, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2Most SSD chips nowadays incorporarate fairly advanced wear-levelling, so running out of write-cycles shouldn't be a problem, in windows /or/ linux.
Even under worst-case scenarios (like filling the *entire* disk alternately with 1s, then 0s) it would take months or years until the first write failure. Under typical load patterns with an "unoptimized" OS, it will probably take a decade or so till the first bit failure; other components like keyboard switches, the LCD screen, or the case hinges, would most likely fail before then.
The main problem with windows on the eeepc is the extensive paging and ram usage. Since the solid state hdd is *much* faster than a traditional magnetic storage disk; windows is "used to" doing more caching than would be neccessary. - EdwardsNH, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2Why not wait just two more months for the new model?
- mojofrojo, on 01/12/2008, -1/+3I think you might have missed the point a wee bit there friend. Small, lightweight, and good battery life. Yea you get a good machine at that price, but I dont think you get any of the features that a person looking to buy a eee pc is interested in.
- onefix, on 01/14/2008, -0/+2I think the Fujitsu would be an excellent choice.
The Eee PC is 2.02lbs and the P1120 is 2.2lbs (not much difference in weight).
I can't argue about the increased size, but I would argue that it's put to good use (larger keyboard and screen).
And you're right, it might not be fair comparing a 6 year old used computer (the P1120 came out in late 2002) with a new one, but I would think there would be a more compelling argument for the new one since it has over half a decade advantage.
I also understand what you're saying about the price point, and at $200 or $250 for a new 8GB model, I would probably buy an Eee PC myself. However, after using the Eee PC for a short while, I can tell you I would probably still use the Fujitsu more simply because it's a more solid piece of equipment.
If you've ever seen those cheap $10 radio controlled cars...if you can imagine a notebook where all the pieces are made like the controllers for those cars, it should give you a good idea of the build quality. - scotw, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2I have one of these and it is a great little machine. I think the killer one will be the 8GB model with the larger screen, that will make a great, cheap media player and internet terminal. One that you won't fret about taking with you on trips, unlike perhaps a more expensive laptop. Unless you keep everything in the cloud (which I guess some people do) then its not a primary or only machine, but as a second, very portable PC its great.
- armo, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2The default system uses union fs which has one partition for the base system which is read only and another containing all your files and updates and additional installs layered over the top of it. Restoring simply deletes everything in the user partition giving you the standard system. This is great if you don't make many changes but, say you wanted OOo 2.3 instead of 2.0 which is installed by default it means you'll have open office installed twice eating up that valuable disk space. There are guides on eeeuser.com for disabling union fs.
I wouldn't worry too much about wiping it completely if you have a external dvd drive. Restoring from the dvd takes about 6 minutes. - onefix, on 01/14/2008, -0/+2The 800MHz Crusoe may perform slower than an 800MHz P4, but the processor in the Eee PC is also underclocked to 630MHz, and the Crusoe doesn't lose 200MHz in the conversion,so it's probably performing slightly better than the Eee PC @630MHz.
But the Crusoe's design (which is different than the Celeron-M in the Eee PC) is why I didn't argue about the processor speed in the Fujitsu being faster.
The truth is, for standard applications, the Crusoe probably performs closer to the 800MHz mark. Below is a link to a review that puts the 800MHz Crusoe at just above the speed of the Celeron 733MHz (mind you probably the P3 Celeron).
http://www.cpuscorecard.com/cpu_600.htm - racketboy, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2Just get a big SD card for it....
You won't get a cheap 32 or 64GB anytime soon, but every little bit helps. - onefix, on 01/13/2008, -1/+3I have had the opportunity to use one of these (actually helped someone setup their wireless on one). I have to admit that the one thing that stood out to me has not been mentioned anywhere and that is the build quality. I know it's a cheap laptop, but it just feels like a toy.
If I had to use it every day, I'd seriously be concerned about breaking the thing.
The battery life is also not very good (only about an hour and a half while browsing the web).
For about the same price (about $300), you can get a used Fujitsu P1120 with an 800MHz Crusoe, 1024x600 9 inch Touch Screen, 256M RAM, built-in 802.11 support, about 4 hours of battery life on a single charge, and a 30G harddrive.
The fujitsu has less RAM, but a lot more storage space, a much bigger screen, better battery life, and a much better build quality.
They claim that the hard drive costs so much in the battery life, yet the battery life of the Eee PC is not even close to that of the P1120.
Maybe the next model will fix these problems by beefing up the battery a bit, adding a HDD option, and increasing the quality above that of a cheap toy, but I'm not counting on it. - dopplerdog, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2The SDD size is mostly irrelevant. You can insert an SDHC card in the card reader and you can instantly up the disk space available. There's no point paying premium $$ to Asus for the privilege of disk space when you can simply hunt for SDHC bargains. Eventually, even 64M SDHC cards will be cheap - why bother with paying additional $$ just for an extra 4G in SDD?
Right now the sweet spot appears to be 4G EEE + 16G SDHC card. - brainbox, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2I usually clock three hours out of it, but YMMV depending on use of wifi and audio, screen brightness, all that jazz.
I picked up a generic "Portable DVD Player external battery-pack", which comes with the right power jack to plug into the Eee's DC input and then run/charge the Eee. I can get about 3 hours out of that from a full charge before the Eee falls back to consuming its internal battery power. Making roughly 6 hours in total, at the expense of then having to charge two devices from the mains. (External-battery is labelled "Universal Portable DVD Player Battery 9V/ 39Wh Lithium Ion Battery", model number EDV002SK for the UK version with UK mains charger. Find the thread on EeeUser.com's forum for more info on these.) - miketiger, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2I've had problems with free disk space and netflix watch now. However, it can handle HDTV shows recorded from my MythTV box pretty well, just minor audio skipping here and there which can most likely be remedied with a few tweaks. The 264 codecs seems to require more CPU horsepower though, even when the processor is overclocked to 900mhz.
- inactive, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2where does the original hdd image come from? I doubt they would waste the space on a hardcoded ROM for it.
Would this work after a *complete* reformat and OS-reinstallation. I'm considering getting one and would really like to install Gentoo rather than Xandros; but it would be really nice/neccessary to know how to backup/restore the original OS quickly; especially with the tiny HDD space making a dual-boot setup less than ideal. - Stonekeeper, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2I have one. It's awesome. I'd really like WPA-enterprise easier to setup, but hey, that's xandros for you :/
- smackhero, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2like Megatog615 noted, it was a joke. the article is published on the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer." did you not catch that on the site and description?
- johnboyjr, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2ok so I order the thing from new egg the 4gb one and I ordered 1gb of ram to put in it. I still think its over priced but I fingered I would try it to see why every one loves it. I saw a video on youtube with some one playing Half-life 2 on it.
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