Is the Eee PC still an impulse purchase?

Is $499 the Netbook sweet spot?

If computer stores were like supermarkets and had a rack of impulse purchase items right by their checkout lanes, we could easily see the $399 Asus Eee PC sitting next to the candy bars and magazines. After all, for about the same price as a current-generation video game console, you get a smart, reasonably useful 7-inch laptop, for much less than the traditionally inflated prices of other ultraportables.

Of course, we always want a little more, so the Eee PC had to grow, adding a larger 9-inch screen and more SSD hard drive space. Now that we have got our hands on the new version, called the Eee PC 900, it's a definite improvement over the original (check out our full review here), but we're left wondering if the new features are worth the trade-off in price that's driving Netbook-style laptops higher than the $500 mark and blurring the lines between them and traditional bargain laptops.

The Eee PC 900 is $550--still cheap, but a big jump over the original model's $399. We could see picking up a $399 minilaptop for a trip or a birthday gift on the fly, and even $499 might work if we're feeling particularly flush that week, but once you pass the psychological barrier of $500, it stops being something you can justify on the go and becomes a major personal infrastructure upgrade that must be weighed, considered, justified, and often, submitted to the spousal approval process.

Is the $550 Eee PC too far over the line? Is the $500 mark an important psychological boundary? What's your price limit for impulse tech buys? Use the handy commenting system below to let us know.

[kelvlam]

I actually agree with you, that the $499.99 spot is sort of the barrier for me. buying the Eee is all a cool factor and convenient to have a UMPC only, cause it's not all that powerful to do any movie viewing or gaming, but good enough to surf the web~

[markntravis]

You most certainely can view movies on the EeePC. $550 isn't too much for me.

[7aji88]

If it had a new faster processor, then I would might consider buying it for 550$. Also since they got rid of those empty spaces around the screen, I guess you can't "pimp" this EeePc like the old one. I mean fitting a GPS chip on the side with an extra USB hup for a touch screen and a bluetooth adapter inside. (I didn't do these things but I saw them on YouTube, it's some crazy work to do)

[jeugenio]

I have an eeePC 701. It's been great with the memory upgrades and the SDHC card and I use it as my email, browsing and ipTV machine. Even though the 900 has a larger screen and more memory...I just can't justify spending more money than the original investment I've made. The storage and larger screen are really icing on the cake. I'd like to see the machine do more, and also I would like to see Asus blow minds by offering a better machine at a lower cost than their competition. However, I highly doubt that they would do that. I suppose that would be a pipe dream.

[cant_get_enough_tech]

The EEE 700 should be 300-350 and the EEE 900 should be 400-500, definitely.