May 12th US launch for Asus Eee 9" ($549) but why not just wait?
I've got my eye on the Asus Eee or one of its doppelganger ilk. I want one. For me, the sudden surge in low-cost ulra-portables is the fulfillment of a long-time dream: that someone would come up with an affordable notebook about the size of a large format paperback, that I could just throw in a small bag and carry with me everywhere. The perfect writer's laptop: a machine capable of writing and blogging and almost nothing else.
That said, I haven't bought one yet. I've seen the Asus 7 inch in person, and while it is tiny and cute as an albino ladybug in person, the way the screen is two inches smaller than the case irritates me deep in my bowels, causing grumps. The 9 incher is a significant improvement aesthetically, but the battery life is an abysmal hour and a half. Why bother, when you know that Intel's low-power consumption Atom chip is coming out in little over a month... and with it, an Asus Atom Eee?
Now, Asus has released info on the price and launch date of the 9 inch Eee: it will be released on May 12th in the United States and cost $549. But buying it makes little sense: Asus is promising the announcement of their Atom offering in June, and $549 is, for me, well beyond impulse price, which is what it would need to be for a device a company is making no secret will be totally obsolete in a few months.
It's a crowded market and it's only going to get more crowded. The first guys to release a reasonably attractive 9 or 10" Atom-based ultra-portable for no more than $600 will get my bucks.
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I plan on getting an HP 2133.
The Eee PC is nice but I'd like more HD space and higher screen resolution.
How do these little laptops handle VST instruments or Recording software.
The new mini-notebooks with their all-solid-state storage remind me of the old Radio Shack Model 100 (I still have mine) and I'd really like to have one when the prices come down a bit. That the solid-state memory can wear out is a bit off-putting though.
As someone who happily used a libretto (50ct, mid/late 1990s Eee sized micro laptop), but who wants to do monstrous things (yes, I plan to run SAP R3 enterprise resource management software so I can learn it), I really want 64 bit, and as a dual cpu fan (hyper-threading is close enough), the Atom is very attractive.
So I want a threaded Atom, 2+GB ram, solid state drive, and at least 1024x600 screen, and under $600, which seems plausible for this summer. Just stick some of that tax incentive money under the mattress for a month or two.
These new little laptops are so neat. It makes me feel silly for spending $2300 on a 3-pound Lenovo X60s a few years back that I only use for email, web browsing, Word, and Excel. It's a good machine, though.