Nine-inch Asus Eee PC lands in the Lab--barely bigger than its 7-inch cousin
The 7- and 9-inch models.
The postman brought us a late-afternoon present on this rainy (here in NYC, at least) Friday--the much-anticipated new 9-inch version of the Asus Eee PC netbook-style laptop.
At first glance, it's easy to mistake this for the popular 7-inch version, as the two share a nearly identical footprint. The 9-inch is bigger by maybe a quarter inch, and weighs 2.2 pounds, compared to the original's 2.04 pounds. Opening it up, you can see the display now fills more of the available space, moving the speakers away from the side of the screen.
As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the Eee PC 900 will be available in the U.S. starting May 12 for $549 in both Linux and Windows XP versions. We got the Windows version, which has 12GB of solid state hard drive space (as opposed to 20GB for the Linux version).
We're currently running the 9-inch Eee PC through its paces and will report back with a full review early next week.
New York native Dan Ackerman, a former radio DJ turned journalist, has written about technology and music for publications including Spin, Blender, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today. He hosts the weekly Digital City podcast and the New York edition of Editors' Office Hours. Dan's new album, Tales Out of Night School, is available now. E-mail Dan.
Seems like looking to Windows is kinda missing the point here. What I want to know (and everybody else too - if I'm right) is what is it like sans Windows. Does the eee PC really shine with Linux? What about replacing the Linux with - well another Linux (Ubuntu?). I guess it'd also be interesting to see, how easy is it to take a Linux eee PC and convert it to Windows (assuming somebody got one and found they really wanted/needed Windows after all - and really how likely is that for most consumers?
But just looking at this as "another Windows laptop" seems to be missing the most interesting question surrounding the eee PC.
For $544 I can get a Dell Vostro that has a 14.1 inch display, 2gb memory, 160gb hard drive, XP, DVD Burner, Core 2 Duo at 60% higher clock speed over the ASUS pentium mobile chip
I can see the Asus is lighter (2.2 pounds versus 5.4), but for the screen, storage, and speed I'm not sure I'm worried about the extra 3.2 pounds. I know the SSD is in the Asus. Cool, but for the same price I get 8 times or more storage.
Anyway, if you like this why do you like it over the Dell. And don't tell me Linux. I'm asking a h/w question here. If you don't like XP you can put linux on the Dell when you get it.
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by Dan_Ackerman
May 10, 2008 12:12 PM PDT
- Yes, that's correct. People who like the Eee PC compare it to $2000-plus ultraportables from Sony, Toshiba, etc. A sub-3lb. laptop used to be a major cost premium, but now, if you keep your expectations modest, the Eee is a great alternative.
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(10 Comments)If you want a basic home 15-inch, than Dell or someone else will sell you a decent 15-inch system for under $600 (just make sure to disable/uninstall all the bloatware).
As for Linux -- here's our review of the original Linux version (which actually rated slightly higher than the XP version): http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-eee-pc-4g/4505-3121_7-32466960.html