Meh, although it does offer some interesting hacks, I'd much rather just get a cheap laptop that has a decent resolution and use linux on it. That or a Macbook Air. Mmmmmm....
I wanted something small that I could easily use on the subway, and anything else in the Eee's size range would be way too expensive.
Plus I liked the idea of having a computer designed to run Linux right out of the box. With laptops it's often difficult to find one where every component is supported under Linux. You often run into trouble with cheap wireless cards and power-management systems not being fully supported.
X'o'Lore: The Eee is probably one of the cheapest computers you'll find new. It's certainly not a desktop replacement (the resolution is only 800x480 and it uses a 2-8GB flash drive instead of a HD) but if you want something small and easy to carry around that'll cover the basics it's pretty nice. I got the 4GB model for CAN$399.
EDIT: Well, I suppose it could be used as a desktop replacement if you hooked it up to a regular monitor, USB mouse and keyboard, and an external hard drive of some kind. It's got 512MB of RAM (expandable with normal laptop RAM cards, and the 8GB model comes with 1GB standard) and a processor that's rated for 900MHz (although it's underclocked to 600MHz by default, presumably to make the battery last longer) which is still fine for most tasks. Just don't expect to do a lot of gaming on it.
I was going to say something about how nice it was to see the low price on the eee, but it slipped my mind. It's low enough to simply be another gadget. It's like buying an iPhone, but slightly cheaper and probably more useful.
Aside from that the cost of portability isn't just a monetary thing. You pay for it in speed, expandability, freedom of choice on hardware, and reliability as well.
Can the Eee make phone calls? I'm not trying to knock it or anything, but I question comparing the usefulness of a smartphone to a subnotebook. They're entirely different beasts.
I must say, it's a novel solution building a lightweight Linux-based operating system to compensate for lower hardware specs. As much as I like the things Apple makes, the Air can't compete with the Eee in terms of physical footprint. Good price too.
If you're in a Wi-Fi hotspot and have a microphone you can make calls via Skype. Of course, that's not exactly the same thing, but still.
I've got to try hooking a mic up to this thing. Apparently it has voice command built in, and I'd like to see how much things have progressed since I first tried that sort of thing in OS/2 back in 1996.
Well, I suppose the comparison is vague. I was referring to the iPhone as a expensive gadget, nothing more. I wasn't really meaning to compare features particularly. I suppose the "more useful" bit is entirely subjective. I just really have no need of a phone or an mp3 player or really anything an iPhone offers, so it'd be useless to me, but I could find a use for an Eee PC. As such disregard my iPhone comment.
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Plus I liked the idea of having a computer designed to run Linux right out of the box. With laptops it's often difficult to find one where every component is supported under Linux. You often run into trouble with cheap wireless cards and power-management systems not being fully supported.
X'o'Lore: The Eee is probably one of the cheapest computers you'll find new. It's certainly not a desktop replacement (the resolution is only 800x480 and it uses a 2-8GB flash drive instead of a HD) but if you want something small and easy to carry around that'll cover the basics it's pretty nice. I got the 4GB model for CAN$399.
EDIT: Well, I suppose it could be used as a desktop replacement if you hooked it up to a regular monitor, USB mouse and keyboard, and an external hard drive of some kind. It's got 512MB of RAM (expandable with normal laptop RAM cards, and the 8GB model comes with 1GB standard) and a processor that's rated for 900MHz (although it's underclocked to 600MHz by default, presumably to make the battery last longer) which is still fine for most tasks. Just don't expect to do a lot of gaming on it.
Aside from that the cost of portability isn't just a monetary thing. You pay for it in speed, expandability, freedom of choice on hardware, and reliability as well.
I must say, it's a novel solution building a lightweight Linux-based operating system to compensate for lower hardware specs. As much as I like the things Apple makes, the Air can't compete with the Eee in terms of physical footprint. Good price too.
I've got to try hooking a mic up to this thing. Apparently it has voice command built in, and I'd like to see how much things have progressed since I first tried that sort of thing in OS/2 back in 1996.
I found this a little bit ago, and it's only $150, but they don't seem to be for sale at the moment.
EDIT: It's looking like they are, but barely. It's the oldest processor they list for laptops among their products pages.