Asus Eee PC decision.

Apologies to the mods if this is considered a cross-post. I asked in the "what laptop should I buy?" forum which sub-laptop I should get and came to the conclusion that the Asus Eee is it. So now I come here to the Asus experts for clarification.

I have two Dell XPS laptops, so clearly I am not intending this to be a primary laptop. I just want a cheap and SMALL (important) laptop that I can carry around a lot and not worry if it gets busted up or lost. I just want it for word processing/Powerpoint and maybe some extremely primitive gaming (DosBOX games). Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not waiting for a LARGER screen, necessarily, because I want it to be lightweight. (I understand the soon-to-be-released 900 is approximately the same dimensions as the current iteration).

The concern is with the increasing price-point of the Asus line. Is $549 a good price for a 9" laptop? Sure. But is it worth it compared to $400 for a 7" laptop of the same dimensions? I understand it's 1 Mb RAM vs 512K, but is that really a good deal? Seems like a lot of people think not. Any input? All suggestions are appreciated.

 

Personally I don't think it's that bad of a deal. When everything is said in done, a lot of people upgraded the ram and bought SDHC cards for their 7" EEE PC's. This would cost you between $50-100. If you figure that you can get the Linux based 900EEEPC for $549, with a gig of ram, 20 gigs of space and the bigger screen, It's still way below any other UMPC's, and not that much more over the 7" with upgrades. And then you still have the option to upgrade the 9" further. If you really don't need the space then go for the 7" since everything but the screen and HD size are the same. I'd recommend trying to check out the 7" in person b/c you might be suprised how tiny the screen actually is.

 

Gotcha. It's just that I'm having the same misgivings as I did when I saw the HP OneNote, which is selling for like $800. I was like "uh, $800? Sure, it's portable and small ...but $800 is almost what you could get a stripped-down M1330 for ($999)." Admittedly, the M1330 is (duh) 13" and not as light/small. But you know what I mean. There's a point, as everyone is pointing out, at which the "bang-for-the-buck" is no good, even if it's still cheap. That's my big worry.

In other words, is the jump in price (38% more expensive) equivalent to the jump in performance?

 

Well performance wise they're going to be identical. Everything about them is the same except the screen size, the memory and the hard drive size. If you don't need the space and don't care about the size, then why spend the money. You've already got a real laptop so go with the 7". But... If you plan on loading XP, then you will most likely end up wanting to add some more memory and you might want to invest in an SDHC card...Which is bringing the price up. So you basically end up charging yourself on the back end.

Another thing to keep in mind, the new 900EEE's supposedly aren't getting very good battery life. It's only rated at 2.5 hours so that probably means 1.5-2 hours. I think the $400 701 EEE comes with a battery rated for 3.5 hours.

 

OK, thanks!

 

If you don't have to buy right away I might wait another week or two to see what other kinds of reviews show up for the 900. If you have no interest, or if it's not within the budget of what you want to spend, go ahead and buy the 701.

 

Actually, the main thing I'm waiting on is Dell's response. I heard they have an ultra-portable in the works, but I have no idea what the timetable would be, which is the problem.

 

I am just worried if dell puts something out it would be like their axim handhelds, more of a fizzle. They do a great jobs with their conventional products and a ultra portable may be a hit, I think that maybe holding out for the eee 900 w/ atom would be better for your battery life. It will also assist with heat, but there is a utub video of a guy tormenting his eee with shock and heat and still ran

 

June.

That'd be around the same time everyone else like MSI, ECS, and Acer will get into the party as well... oh and hopefully the Atom EEE.