Asus 3epc, Have you seen it? Options

[ghostshadow]

This thing looks pretty nice. It's not a palm sized device, but it's pretty close. Basically it's an ultra portable. It's going to be flash based. I think with 4gb of storage at launch, there are rumors of an 8 gig and possibly a 16 gig one will be out too.

It will have 512 megs of ram which is shared with the video, it will also have built in wifi, usb, audio jacks. (i hope a PCMCIA slot) 5200mAh battery. It looks like it's going to be a nice little machine, it will come factory shipped with Xandros, it will also be able to run XP (yeuck) if desired. But, of course XP will cost you an additional 100 dollars.

The unit is priced at 200 USD, which sounds spectacular. With it having linux already embedded, I really think it's going to be a really nice companion, especially for the hackability. I really think it'll be a nice little success, I just hope it'll have a PCMCIA slot for additional wifi cards

Edit: here it is on linux devices.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9292516116.html

I want one, very cool.

[speculatrix]

13,888.00 TWD (~424.6 USD) = 8GB SSD, 1GB DDR2 Ram, builtin camera

that's quite expensive when you consider how cheaply you can get a regular laptop now - I think the Kohjinsha/miniVye is a much better ultraportable - the older models are relatively cheap now. 8GB - you can get that in an SDHC card for less than US$70 now!

then there's the via nanobook things, admittedly US$600 but so much more of a real computer!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/via-int...raportable-lap/
(-edit- see http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/01/fics-ce...-fcc-treatment/ for followup)

we live in interesting times, so many new things around, so hard to discern their true pros and cons

Reason for edit: added followup

[ZDevil]

13,888.00 TWD (~424.6 USD) = 8GB SSD, 1GB DDR2 Ram, builtin camera

that's quite expensive when you consider how cheaply you can get a regular laptop now - I think the Kohjinsha/miniVye is a much better ultraportable - the older models are relatively cheap now. 8GB - you can get that in an SDHC card for less than US$70 now!
then there's the via nanobook things, admittedly US$600 but so much more of a real computer!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/via-int...raportable-lap/
(-edit- see http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/01/fics-ce...-fcc-treatment/ for followup)
we live in interesting times, so many new things around, so hard to discern their true pros and cons

I think rather differently.
A laptop at this price would be a piece of crap. Heavy, short battery life, not so portable. Something that I very probably would feel like throwing against a hard solid wall. I also bet it won't launch OOo in 10 secs.
And in what sense is the kohjinsha much better than this? The old model always suffers from short battery power (2 hours). And i am not sure which linux distro now can run on this beast. The new models of Kohjinsha are at least twice the price of the top model of Eee PC.
SSD is surely way better than a mechanical harddrive.
Isn't the nano book planned to sell at $600? That's a lot more expensive and for that price difference, as you say, I can buy one (or two) very big SDHC cards. or an external hard drive plus an external DVD burner.
Perhaps I will hold out until a second generation of Eee PC with a newer processor for umpc and cheaper SSD (by that time) shows up.
The fun part of the Eee PC is you can truly have a decent and cheap "snap'n go" laptop replacement.
I am becoming less and less sure about the idea of a "zaurus replacement". Since my Zaurus is now running full Debian (full OpenBSD earlier on), i think it is now fair to compare (relatively) small gadgets with the same price range as the Z (i mean the C3x00 models; Cxx0 and C1000 are not so up to the job to (although they still can) run full distros, though. I guess I am talking about the real "cost performance ratio" and no religion or aesthetics.

[adf]

I dunno-- for price/performance I'd be happier to spend $500 on a refurb laptop. Here is a result of a 10 second search ($529 usd) from the first site I clicked on:
Compaq Presario C304NR Notebook

* Compaq Presario C304NR notebook meets all your computing needs
* Laptop features the fast 1.6GHz Intel Celeron M420
* Convenient notebook is must have portable computer
* 512MB RAM
* 80GB hard drive
* DVD/CD-RW combo drive
* 15.4 inch TFT flat panel display
* 56K modem
* NIC
* Win XP Home operating system
* Windows Vista capable

This high-quality item has been factory reconditioned. Please click on the icon above for more information on quality factory-reconditioned merchandise.

Shipping: Leaves our warehouse in 1-4 business days.*

Warranty: 90 Day - Manufacturer
Materials: electronics
Model No: rl177ua
Dimensions: 10.2 in. L x 14.1 in. W x 1.38 in. D

I would guess that by looking more closely one could do better.

Not a miracle machine, but it'd open ooo quick enough, and handle on-the-road web stuff (I use nvu and moodle a good bit) pretty well. I'm not buying anything either, but I would have picked up an eeepc at the announced price to display and encourage that sort of highly portable inexpensive technology. At close to the price of the laptop above, the eeepc seems sillly. If it were a more powerfule device, or a more portable one, it'd be different. In my case, anything that doesn't fit in my pocket will see almost the entirety of its use near an ac or a dc (car) outlet. Even my Z, when travelling is mostly near a wall socket or a car socket--how much more true would that be of something that REQUIRES that it be carried in a bag? If we agree (and you are free not to, of course) that even the eeepc will go in a bag and be mostly near external power sources, then what is gained? The light weight is really nice, but the trade off in power and screen real estate seems to me to be problematic, and not offset by simply the weight issue, or better battery life. If there were no Z's, and I thought I'd use the eeepc as a portable media player, or something, that might be different--but phones (aside from the Z) do that stuff as well as cheap tiny dedicated devices--and both can have excellent battery life while remaining pocketable (Same for email, and other traveller's necessities).

I guess I'm disappointed in the eeepc mostly because I thought that maybe there'd be some light, inexpensive, portable gadget that would really suit students in the U.S. and since the OLPC won't be appearing here anytime soon, I'd hoped the nano or the eeepc would fit the bill.