Asus' Eee PC: Cute, Compact and Convenient - but Limited
Submitted by srlinuxx on Fri, 02/08/2008 - 09:04.
Like many frequent travelers, I like to take a computer when I'm on the road, but I hate having to lug around a bulky laptop. Unfortunately, most products out there (including Apple's new MacBook Air, which I plan to review) cost too much for my budget.
That's why I was excited about the Eee PC, a 2-pound laptop that ranges in price from US$300 to $500 depending on the configuration. This mini laptop debuted in the U.S. late last year and has been gaining fans and selling briskly on Amazon.com ever since. It's made by the Taiwanese company Asus.
The Eee PC has a 7-inch screen and runs on the Linux operating system, though you can install Windows XP if you are technically inclined. The three "e's" stand for the computer's slogan, "Easy to Learn. Easy to Work. Easy to Play."
Intel ultralight laptop needs big software ? cheap, not enough ?
Marketing people tend to find cheapest products do not sell well. Classmate and OLPC bump their heads on lack of marketing research. The cheaper the product, the more people expect it to work better. Only with bigger software, can you overcome being cheap.
I expect that Classmate, Asus EEEPC and OLPC all have to get Ubuntu and their repositories to be able to sell well. They might get away with Linspire and their CnR warehouse full of software for cheap laptop users. Google Apps may not add enough value to the cheap hardware using gOs, but it is second best until more on-demand applications are available.
In the meantime, BarryK of the Puppy fame is in India. Perhaps even persuading HCL to have a versatile Puppy with many repositories. Barry has to sell Debian repositories, too. Slackware does not have much applications yet.