Posted on 10/22/2008 3:12:18 PM PDT by Don@VB
Inexpensive laptop computer called Eee ( Manufactured by ASUS?) $299 looked pretty cool. Saw it in target today. Does any body have any experience with it?
I have an ASUS laptop - love it - reliable, great price, durable.
You might want to check out the CNET reviews on all the various netbooks out there.
http://www.cnet.com/1770-5_1-0.html?query=netbook&tag=srch
I saw that too, thought it would be great for taking notes at school.
I love mine. I used to use a full sized laptop with the bells and whistles. No longer.
I’m actually typing this on an ASUS eee right now... I just got the windows version instead of the Linux version... thought it would be easier to play some of my games on it... I just add some storage with an SD card and use a thumb drive for programs, music, pictures, and video... I love it, it’s very portable and small, I use it at my work and all over my home and stream music and video to it... I bought it when it was $400 and I don’t regret a single penny.
I’m getting my son one of these for Christmas. He’s a glow-worm bubblehead (nuke submariner), so the quite operation (no fan) and small size are important considerations.
I got one for my daughter. It is a solid build, fairly quick (with Linux) and good for basic operations. Good battery life too.
The only drawback is the smaller screen size does take some getting used too.
My dad was going to buy one a few months ago, but they were back ordered something like 8 to 12 weeks, so he dropped more money and got an HP(?) palmtop instead.
It’s a great machine but you need to buy an abacus to go with it.
Ping
Ubuntu is the favorite Linux desktop and a special version of it exists for the Asus. I mention that only because I've been using Ubuntu for over a year now.
I've heard they actually have the Linux loaded on a chip so it boots up incredibly fast.
Any idea how to download files? I need to download a file, for a plug-in... It downloads, but when I click on the downloaded file, it goes nowhere. Any thoughts?
The features that made me decide on the Acer:
$399 price - best for the offered specs.
HD instead of solid state - HD performance is much better and so is capacity.
Windows OS, Linux doesn't offer everything I need for business.
Keyboard - 89% of “full size” laptop keyboard size, and also has white keys on the white model, easier for me to see and use at my age than black keys.
Battery life - the standard pack is, I think, 5400 mAH & advertises max runtime of about 7 hours, should easily do better than the 2 or 2-1/2 hours of most of the netbook class base battery packs.
Good range from onboard 802.11g card, Acer uses a proprietary antenna design that works very well.
Experience with Acer - my other laptop is an Acer and I have been very happy with it.
I have had it a couple weeks now and I just love it. The only con to me is that the BIOS is still sort of a work in progress and it often loses sync with connected USB devices when coming on from hibernate mode.
Weight of the Aspire One is 1.1 KG and it is thicker than the eee because of the 2.5" hard drive - but hey you can still toss it in a briefcase and have room for about five more.
Oh - one other thing, the Windows software package comes with McAfee internet security (just 90 day subscription) & while experimenting with the apps setup I'll use on the computer I found it very difficult to configure it to work with some of those apps that interact with the network. After nuking my connectivity a couple times I completely uninstalled the McAfee package and went to AVG, which I had been using for years, and the Aspire One works much better without McAfee IMHO. And the Office 2007 trialware, junk IMO even if it were free.
Sorry, no. Never downloaded files. I use mine to web surf and word processing, nothing more.
My wife has one with Linux and she’s really happy with it.
It’s perfect for basic web stuff (Freeping, email, etc.) and basic office work (Open Office Office Suite). It’s very portable and convenient.
The various Linux versions (distros) have ways that make programs easy to install but these don't all work with each other. Most Linux distros have lots of free stuff ready to go , enough to satisfy most needs but...
I hate to be the one to tell you this but loading programs in Linux can be rather cumbersome. Most distros have what is called a "program manager" . It lists all the free stuff out that which will self load. If you have some other program you'd like to install the process to do that is here.
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