Ultra-low-priced Notebook Fest < Cebit08

[ZDevil]

http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-wor...hallenge-eee-pc

 

I wish I was in Hannover now ...

A long shot in the wild. What counts here will be:

-- Screen resolution: the current 800x480 display on Eee PC will be the Achilles' heel for this line of product
-- Battery: 3 hours is the minimum
-- Price: US$500 or 550 at most
-- Wireless solutions: builtin bluetooth is a must, WiMax crowns the winner
-- No exotic design, PLEASE!

Other things like RAM, appearance, OS, USB ports, card readers are not as important, even though presumably they must be reasonable enough.

[speculatrix]

the first laptops I saw were monochrome displays, small area but deep and chunky. they gradually got bigger and bigger, you paid a premium for a larger display, and eventually 14" displays were common. (I bought a 2nd hand 12" xga one, er, 8 years ago, still sort of works).  then widescreens came out, 15", then 15.4, and some 17", the laptops became huge and powerful. now, you pay a premium for a small laptop!

and then the cycle will repeat...

[Snappy]

the first laptops I saw were monochrome displays, small area but deep and chunky. they gradually got bigger and bigger, you paid a premium for a larger display, and eventually 14" displays were common. (I bought a 2nd hand 12" xga one, er, 8 years ago, still sort of works).  then widescreens came out, 15", then 15.4, and some 17", the laptops became huge and powerful. now, you pay a premium for a small laptop!

and then the cycle will repeat...

I politely beg to differ.

The screen size and the laptops were not exactly congruent.  Most of the early laptops (ignoring the pre-lap-usable portable computers!  ) were chunky at best and heavy in the range of 8++ pounds!  

Smaller sized computers had always been a premium.  I doubt we are going to cycle back to big chunky laptops with monochrome displays.

[ZDevil]

The Eee PC ... what's the deal?  

In another (impossible) possible world, if Sony VAIO PCG-U1/U3 (or any other similar devices) was sold somewhere higher than the current price range where the Eee PC is in, say US$600, I bet it will be even far more successful than what Asus has achieved now and be hacked even more seriously.

Compared to the U1/U3, in terms of battery life, size, resolution, weight, capabilities, the Eee PC is not really such a big surprise.
Just saw a couple of U1 an U3 ebaying for around US$700 and US$800 ...
If my 701 cost me more than US$400, probably I simply wouldn't have bought it.
So the thing is, those older ultraportables, however decent they are, failed to capture a big enough target market for consumer electronics.

[speculatrix]

The Reg has a few things to say, especially w.r.t. price
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/03/04/as...e_900_surfaces/

[ZDevil]

$600 is a crucial diving line of two different price ranges, not just to me, but also seems so for many other users.
The +$200 price hike won't justify only a bigger screen and a bit larger SSD, given that it is going to launch in Q3. Six months is long enough for yet another big surprise in this realm. As for the resolution issue, in fact the Windows users of the current EEE are already enjoying a high-res driver (the Linux users are still waiting ...  ). Most, i believe, don't really care about the disk size, because the Eee is used as a mobile machine rather than a main computer. Huge data can just be thrown to the ever-bigger&cheaper SDHC and USB sticks and slim mobile HDDs. The practical difference between 4GB and 12GB is not very obvious then. The higher-res webcam won't make any actual difference either. Instead many are looking forward to builtin bluetooth and/or WiMAX.
Or perhaps, like many Eee adopters, I am just a *poor* user who do not deserve to taste those (over-)one-thousand-dollar tiny sexy laptops.

[teh.sean]

The Eee PC ... what's the deal?  

In another (impossible) possible world, if Sony VAIO PCG-U1/U3 (or any other similar devices) was sold somewhere higher than the current price range where the Eee PC is in, say US$600, I bet it will be even far more successful than what Asus has achieved now and be hacked even more seriously.

Compared to the U1/U3, in terms of battery life, size, resolution, weight, capabilities, the Eee PC is not really such a big surprise.
Just saw a couple of U1 an U3 ebaying for around US$700 and US$800 ...
If my 701 cost me more than US$400, probably I simply wouldn't have bought it.
So the thing is, those older ultraportables, however decent they are, failed to capture a big enough target market for consumer electronics.

I've been on something of a mecca trying to find the right portable computer, I tried everything from the Atari Portfolio all the way to the EEEPC, and I have to say that the VAIO PCG u1/u3 was a pretty nice pitstop. I recently unloaded one of these on ebay after having played around with it. Despite it's attractive features, it still has a few glaring issues:
no wifi or bluetooth built in
short-ish battery life
only Memory Stick / USB (but I guess I can't blame Sony for hyping their proprietary storage format)
fragile construction
poor 'thumbmouse' and 'thumb buttons'

Quite honestly, as far as form factor goes, the Toshiba Libretto has always been my favorite. I would really like to see the UMPC makers do something similar, but clamshell just is not where the market is going right now. : (