The Asus Eee solid-state sub-notebook is now on sale to the plebes for $400 at Newegg. Having recently been loaned a small UMPC for review, I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that no laptop should have less than a full-sized keyboard, even if it skimps in other areas, like the Eee’s tiny screen.
I want one, of course, but I’ll take my time. The $400 starting price for the 4GB model is just a skotch more than I want to pay for a toy. I’ll wait until these first models are on clearance.
Catalog Page [Newegg.com]
I saw one on open display here in Taiwan, and while the unit looked nice, was a really good ultra-portable size, and was a cheap notebook(about 3K USD), I don’t know how capable it will be for some users; the display was running its custom OS(some kinda Linux maybe?) that was very simple, and had Firefox open and looking at one webpage.
This would be fine if the unit wasn’t insanely unresponsive – using the touchpad was rather difficult in that it wouldn’t respond very well, the left click button felt like crap and didn’t really register, and moving the Firefox window took a long time. It felt the same as a normal PC responds when given too much to work on with not enough memory; stuttered, delayed, and only responsive in periodic bursts. The thing that really made me wonder is that Firefox was the only program running, and it wasn’t loaded up with pages or anything.
For potential buyers, I’d recommend trying to get a hands-on before buying it, or at least seeing video of it being used by a normal person(not a salesperson). I still recognize the fact that while the price is approaching that of normal, Windows, non-gimped laptop computers, those computers aren’t nearly as fucking tiny nor light as this thing, which is a huge plus.
Oh god damn it, it may have been better for this thing to have stayed vaporware, now it’s just going to be a constant reminder of Asus’ failure to keep their promise.
I think it’s worth $400 just because of how super-tiny it is, and because it’s a laptop with a long battery life.
@Benny: You’ve got it backwards. It’s the dollar that was supposed to be worth something, but then it wasn’t
@Benny: What promise?
I’d love to see the cheaper models available. The $200-$300 price points would be great.
@Benny:
In part its the collapsing dollar thats driving the price up.
Tubman you filthy liar, everyone knows that the mighty capital dollar’s made of unicorn tears and those NEVER lose value!
The promise of keeping the price low :p
Remember when it was first announced that it was going to be around the $200 to $300 range, and then it fluctuates, then stops making sense, then the world forgot about it, then they came back and said that it may even have windows XP, then it made less sense, then they came out with the specs, then nobody could understand why…
$400 is way too much for a glorified smart-phone, but without the phone, so… smart?
Great, now I’m making perfect null sense…