The Netbook Thread

[Dio]

Fingers crossed, the 400yoyos includes the windows tax, so the Linux version will be cheaper. How much does an OEM XP cost?

£45-ish ex for Home.

[Kemper_Boyd]

The Windows Tax varies depending upon how much Microsoft
wants the business. I bet Asus are paying little or even nothing
to put XP on there.

[everklear]

400 Euros is £306 today! You can get quite a lot of laptop for not much more than that these days....

Blimey you're right. I didn't realise the rate was that high at the moment. I've always just used .66 as a conversion. Well that does that in then. I might still wait for a bit to see what is offically announced.

Where are all the "it's not a laptop, you don't use it like a laptop" comments???

(Kidding.)

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who feels ambiguity about the price point for a "computing device".

[oNyx]

If it comes with XP chucked in, with the new Intel CPUs and 8G SSD that's still a bloody good price I reckon.

1024x600 is 'confirmed' by the Reg though, so I'm definitely out of the market for one of the early ones. Still one quarter of my current desktop area mind, but I can probably just about make MSVC work in that.

1024x600 was confirmed all over the place.

Video from CeBIT 2008:


It's so sexy. :O

[moosedude]

That new one looks great, what I like is that it isn't a massive change over the original design but it just fixes the minor issues with the first version.

I was wondering if I could fit a bigger lcd onto my current machine anyway, if I rejected the need for the speakers. It seems like thats excatly what it was designed for...

i also read on the registry yesterday that the future eee's would also be supplied with XP pre-installed (as well as linux). It wasn't clear what type of balance it would be, I'm not even sure I like the idea of XP on it, the default linux install is fantastic and has everything you code need. I reckon as soon as windows starts appearing by default on these it will kill the linux version off and destroying any potential it may have had to change the operating system market....

Bloody windows, I'm so bored of it now.

[oNyx]

A version with Windows will be a lot more expensive and many people will probably pick the ~100 bucks cheaper Linux option. And this is actually pretty favorable for Linux, because the amount of money is relatively big in this case. E.g. on the other side of the spectrum (a high end machine for several thousand bucks) the price for the Windows license is only responsible for a very small percentage of the total price.

[Dio]

See KB's comment above: the version with XP will not be that much more expensive (as evinced by the ability of Dell et.al. to offer $300 laptops right now).

The cutting of machine prices is a huge opportunity for Linux, but they have to get the user experience above horrid for general use first. For the main selling point of the existing eee (a net box with OpenOffice and not enough space to install anything else on) Linux is an excellent choice, but ordinary users don't stand a chance of doing much with it beyond what you get in the box.

So while Linux can be really excellent when a single company focuses on the issues and locks everything down a bit, the more general Linux user experience is still pretty bad and I'm not sure how it can really change. There's too many people involved with completely the wrong mindset.

[GeeZa]

Wow, the screen is much improved. That's basically me sold, really didn't like the older models. Can you run a full Ubuntu desktop on one of these things or are you stuck with the Asus Linux GUI?

[Kemper_Boyd]

Yes you can and if 900 has 8-12 GB flash it should be okay for a default install.

[GeeZa]

Sweet.

[HGFB]

I installed Kubuntu happily on my 4gig model.

[VNVObit]

I installed Kubuntu happily on my 4gig model.

I plumbed for Xubuntu and overwrote Xandros which I found quite irritating although could see a good use for it
have found the 7" model really useful since I installed it (although managed to corrupt the whole lot by trying KDE4 due to in no small part to my inexperience with Linux)
mainly use it for web and email when on the road or at clients (so as not to break their IT policies)

Actually prefer the web experience on it to my iPod touch so tend to use it more often (and iPod is left to its music duties)

[Firefox]

Really, really pleased with my EeePc so far! It's far exceeded my expectations, and Just Works with everything I plug into it and all the wired and wireless networks I've tried. Love the combo of simple GUI with underlying real Linux just a Ctrl-Alt-T away, too.

Any road up, I've just stumbled across a Chinese mini-laptop, the Tianhua GX-1C:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianhua_GX-1C

Interestingly it uses their indiginous Loongson MIPS-alike processor, and has a 1280 x 1024 8.4 inch screen.

[Stone]

The cutting of machine prices is a huge opportunity for Linux, but they have to get the user experience above horrid for general use first.

Amen to that. All the Linux installs I've been lumbered with have been utterly bollocks for initial usability, and yes I have tried Ubuntu

(disclosure: macwanker )

Stone

[defsdoor]

All the Linux installs I've been lumbered with have been utterly bollocks for initial usability, and yes I have tried Ubuntu

Try ubuntu again - I've been very impressed with it. The installer is better than Windows imho - you can try before you buy (er install).