ASUS EEE PC

[KH85]

Ive been looking at getting one for a while, im currently waiting untill the 900 comes out mainly because of the extra screen size!

So does enyone here have one? Id be interested in what you think of them!

Also are there any alternatives to the EEE PC that anyone can recomend??

Thanks for any input

Karl

 

[xSauronx]

theres a huge thread on this, and probably 2 others in this forum

info on the Eee 900 http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ght_key=y&keyword1=Eee

theres a link in my OP there to a review of the unit, dailytech had an announcemen tthat the 900 will be in the usa soon at $549, iirc

 

[DaveSimmons]

At $549 you might consider just getting a Dell Vostro or Inspiron or some HP when some Hot Deal rolls around (check the Hot Deal forum here and GottaDeal.com)

These are going to be 6+ pound laptops, but I've seen deals for that kind with a core 2 and real (if low-end) graphics card for $599.

Or Dell 4 - 5 pound laptops from outlet thread - warranties 100 days or more, prices start $399

 

[runawayprisoner]

I have a regular 7" Eee PC, and I absolutely love it. There will be no switching to the 9" one for me.

It'll be the same machine, just with a bigger screen at a higher resolution. I find myself barely running anything at such a high resolution.

This little thing rocks... seriously. Being able to run Photoshop CS3 while playing back some music and browsing the web for 3 continuous hours on battery wins me. I don't use the machine for much more than that. I occasionally game, and find that most games past 2000 wouldn't run smoothly above 640 x 480, but that's the limits of the screen anyway, so no big deal. The brightness of the screen is also very overwhelming. I hardly find myself going over 20 - 25% of brightness for any reason at all. Overall, it's a good value for the money, and if you can find a used one, you will find yourself having like a $100 deal off the original price.

And here are two screen caps of what I run regularly, just so you have an idea:
http://i235.photobucket.com/al...m/EeePC/screencap0.jpg
http://i235.photobucket.com/al...m/EeePC/screencap1.jpg

 

[abaez]

I took mine to Japan recently and it was invaluable when I found a hotspot to figure out where I was in a pinch. The GPS I have on it also helped too (with Japan maps installed). It's light enough to be able to carry all day in your bag.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: runawayprisonerThis little thing rocks... seriously. Being able to run Photoshop CS3 while playing back some music and browsing the web for 3 continuous hours on battery wins me.

Every time there's a thread on the EEE, someone comes in and says they love using Photoshop on it. May I ask what it is everyone does with Photoshop on the EEE? I just can't see myself firing up Photoshop on a 7" screen and getting any work done. Is it actually useful with Photoshop or is it just everyone's way of saying the EEE has plenty of CPU power for ordinary tasks?

 

[runawayprisoner]

Originally posted by: aldamon

Originally posted by: runawayprisonerThis little thing rocks... seriously. Being able to run Photoshop CS3 while playing back some music and browsing the web for 3 continuous hours on battery wins me.

Every time there's a thread on the EEE, someone comes in and says they love using Photoshop on it. May I ask what it is everyone does with Photoshop on the EEE? I just can't see myself firing up Photoshop on a 7" screen and getting any work done. Is it actually useful with Photoshop or is it just everyone's way of saying the EEE has plenty of CPU power for ordinary tasks?

It's actually useful. The screen is not that small if you set your workspace in Photoshop so that it doesn't take up that much screen estate. It won't lag that much even with a picture 8 times the size of the screen. I can take this with me anywhere and work for at least 2 hours on full battery while listening to music and browsing the web. That's how useful it is to me. Ultimately, I just needed a Photoshop laptop that actually LASTS past 1 hour so I can work on something at least. Sitting in one place is not really my style, and I travel quite a lot as a student.

If the Eee PC is powerful for anything, I'd say... it can run Nintendo 64 emulators quite nicely even at its stock speed (maximum battery).

 

[frostedflakes]

I'd also think Photoshop would be painfully unusable on 800x480, but I'll admit, I haven't tried it on mine.

runawayprisoner, something you might mess around with is AsTray+ software. It allows you to force up to 1000x600 in the native aspect ratio, and 1024x768 in 4:3. The downscaling wreaks havoc on text, so it's not very practical for increasing resolution for web browsing. Seems like it could be very handy for graphics work such as Photoshop, though.

 

[sindows]

I find it impossible to type quickly on the thing...the screen is very impressive for the price however and if you can get used to the keyboard layout, it'll be a nice little machine.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
I'd also think Photoshop would be painfully unusable on 800x480, but I'll admit, I haven't tried it on mine.

runawayprisoner, something you might mess around with is AsTray+ software. It allows you to force up to 1000x600 in the native aspect ratio, and 1024x768 in 4:3. The downscaling wreaks havoc on text, so it's not very practical for increasing resolution for web browsing. Seems like it could be very handy for graphics work such as Photoshop, though.

Actually, I find it easier to work with 800 x 480, honest. It's enough for me to see what I am working on. 1000 x 600 is really messy, and it really should have been 1024 x 640 instead. I bet that if we can set it to that resolution, or 1280 x 768, it'll look very natural.

But either way, 800 x 480 is my favorite mode so far. Believe me or not, Photoshop works best at that resolution, too.

 

[coolVariable]

can someone post photos of the eee pc outside (direct sunlight)?

 

[TheShiz]

I was seriously considering an eee pc, then I looked into alternatives and I'm glad I did. the basic 7" eee pc is pretty much a toy, it isn't bad, but I would at least have to go with the 9" version and then I read about the HP 2133 which I think pretty much smokes the eee pc. It has a much better keyboard, already has the 9" screen, feels like a quality machine (not a piece of plastic like the eee) and it has a real hard drive. The only down side is the processor isn't any better than the eee pc's processor. I'm running xp on the 2133 and it runs great though. If you are really thinking about the 9" eee, you should take a look at the 2133 because it is in the same price range and I think it is a much better machine.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Umm... the VIA C7 processor on the HP 2133 is seriously under-powered compared to the Celeron M 900MHz on the Eee. I can say that Celeron M 353 is at least on par with VIA C7 at 1.6GHz (and at most faster than VIA C7 1.6GHz in anything), which just means that the highest spec'ed HP 2133 is still a bit inferior to Eee PC. The bigger screen and bigger hard drive are a plus though, and ample RAM right from the get-go is also a big plus. Just don't expect any miracle with the specs that you have on the HP 2133.

By the way, as for how Eee looks in the sun, thanks to the anti-glare filter, you can see the screen really clear even outside, on a sunny day. That was with 25% brightness. The only downside is that the anti-glare filter dims the screen about 5-10%, but that's a good price to pay, considering now you only need 20-25% of the brightness out in direct sunlight. (no pics will be able to show you this. The glare of the sun will affect the lens and kill the picture, or at least that's how it is for my camera...)

Another thing that might interest you: the Eee PC has an IGP that supports Pixel Shader 2.0, although there is no Vertex Shader. Lighting and Transform is done by software, which may kill performance in some games, but not so drastically. In the end, you have the ultimate 1998 - 2003 gaming machine that is quite portable, and will work for quite a while before its battery runs out.

There is also an option to solder a Pentium M ULV 1.20GHz processor in, which will increase performance to an even higher level while not sacrificing much of battery life, if at all.

 

[EquivalentTrade]

Wow, now I really want a EEE. I've seen and heard tons about them, but never seen one in real life.

 

[preslove]

If you can wait, there will be tons of different 'netbooks,' as this segment is started to be called, hitting the market with the release of the Atom processor. The ECS G10IL is the one I'm looking forward to the most.

 

[ghost recon88]

The new 900 ones don't have the dual-cores I heard they were going to have

 

[runawayprisoner]

Oh yeah, please be advised of the fact that Intel Atom was supposed to increase battery life (and improve portability) and not necessarily improving performance at all. If you think you can live without performance on your ultra-portable machine then go for Intel Atom, by all means.
Here's an Atom benchmark:
http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/03/intels-atom-doe.html

Of course, with using only 2.5-3W of power, that's quite impressive. But performance-wise, The Celeron M inside Eee PC is still hella fast for a processor that's using only 4-5W.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: ghost recon88
The new 900 ones don't have the dual-cores I heard they were going to have

the Atom processor that the Eee is supposed to get is *not* a dual-core. its not meant to be powerful, but power-efficient for the sake of battery life

 

[ghost recon88]

Well the Atom was rumored to appear in the 900 series, then when it was announced it wouldn't be in there, Asus was supposed to put in a Merom based dual-core of some form. Instead they just put in the exact same CPU as the 1st gen EEE PCs, except they're letting it run full speed @ 900MHz.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Actually, the CPU is still running at 630MHz on the Eee PC 900 by default. There are rumored to be changes to the chipset that would make busses faster, as well as increasing graphics performance a little bit. But from what early adapters have reported (on eeeusers.com), there's no difference between Eee PC 900 and Eee PC 701 specs wise. Eee PC 701 has an edge with the screen and the faster boot/shutdown time (slightly) whereas Eee PC 900 has a slightly faster SSD (but it has significantly more capacity) and the slightly larger screen with higher res. Downside is that since the Eee PC 900 runs at a higher resolution, performance might not be as good as Eee PC 701.

As for Atom versus current Celeron M, it's a difference of 1 hour extra battery life at most, while the drop in performance is quite noticeable. What's more concerning is how quite a few Atom laptops are shipped with Vista, and Vista is just... oh so famous for being a resource hog, so when compared to a Celeron M running on XP, you'll see who the winner is... performance and efficiency-wise. Atom offers more room for other things, though, and a good thing about Atom platforms is that they have better IGP chipsets than the Celeron M platforms. The IGP on the Atom platforms offer up to 10% more performance than what you see on Celeron M platforms.