Asus Eee PC priced: $299 to $399

Yeah, we hear your moans and feel your pain: $299 for an Eee PC with 2GB SSD, 256MB RAM, Linux (presumably), and no camera. It's certainly not our (admittedly too-hopeful) expectation following the June announcement. If you're still with us, the fully-spec'd 8GB model with 1GB of memory, camera, and 3.5-hour battery will sell for $399 when Best Buy and NewEgg receive their stock at the end of the month. Well, there's always Eee PC version 2.

[riggs @ Oct 17th 2007 8:49AM]

im going to wait for version 2, because those "high-end" specs doesnt really justify US$399

[n1tul @ Oct 17th 2007 8:53AM]

These were supposed to be around the $199 mark, imagin how much the next version will be!?

[TonyB @ Oct 17th 2007 2:36PM]

$300-400 isn't bad... The way I see it, these are "extra" PC's. And If you can afford an extra PC, why grumble about a few Benjamins? Looks like a perfect solution to vacation travel... IM/ Mail with the peeps back home, a place to dump pix when the memory card is full, some tunes, and a few movies... And small enough for a daybag... I travel alot, and even trouping my old 15" lappy gets old. With this and my Sony reader....I might have to take an extra vacation this year!

[Brad Linder @ Oct 17th 2007 9:03AM]

Actually, $299 will probably get you a 4GB model with 512MB of RAM. The lowest end model won't be available in the US and is selling for around $259. Companies/countries that order in bulk will be picking the 2GB version for $199.

[Marko @ Oct 17th 2007 9:06AM]

When you look at it more realistically, it is not a bad computer for the money. Hell, I know of phones that cost as much!

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 17th 2007 9:09AM]

It's the first time I've ever considered owning a piece of white consumer electronics.

[shamrock593 @ Oct 17th 2007 10:03AM]

Be careful now, you might get low-ranked if you don't own an Apple product.

Hehe, just kiddin'. =)

[shamrock593 @ Oct 17th 2007 9:09AM]

Liars!

*cries*

[David @ Oct 17th 2007 9:26AM]

The higher end model now seems to be the one with the best value.

Does anyone know if this thing is even coming to Europe? And in that case when and where?

When you need more memory (yes, you will need it) I reckon the price of the 8gb SD-cards will be low enough not to ruin your budget ($60-70?).

With 16gb SSD you'll get pretty far in terms of needed portable files. And lord, this thing really IS portable.

[Argot @ Oct 17th 2007 9:31AM]

It's almost as big as an iBrick! :)

[Tim Behnken @ Oct 17th 2007 9:46AM]

Well, thanks ASUS...you have effectively killed EVERY SINGLE SELLING POINT of this machine. I was going to buy one, but at 300 and 400 dollars, I'll go buy a REAL notebook. Were you guys AIMING to fail? I mean, come on. You might as well make this thing vaporware, because you've priced it right out of most people's desire to give a s**t

[Eric @ Oct 17th 2007 9:49AM]

It will appeal to most people as an ultra portable, a market with a usually much higher price range.

[perfectionist @ Oct 17th 2007 10:39AM]

Umm. Laptops are rarely this cheap unless it's Black Friday. Ultraportables tend to be in excess of $2,000 and UMPCs >$1000.

[bob e @ Oct 17th 2007 9:47AM]

Will Vista Basic run on this baby?
I hate to revert back to XP...

[PsychoPingu @ Oct 17th 2007 10:16AM]

Shurely you mean upgrade?

[melloncollie @ Oct 17th 2007 10:25AM]

You shouldn't be allowed to even touch a computer.

[tiuk @ Oct 17th 2007 10:18AM]

Ugh. Disappointed, Asus. I was really looking forward to this.

[Rick @ Oct 17th 2007 10:37AM]

Why not just buy a real laptop used on ebay or similar?

[eM @ Oct 17th 2007 10:44AM]

Because any "real" laptop you get for that price is going to be at *least* twice as bulky and noisy as the Eee.

[Rick @ Oct 17th 2007 7:14PM]

Worthy trade off for HDD space, memory, graphics card, etc. You know, things that make the computer more efficient.

[bethel03 @ Oct 17th 2007 11:24AM]

Maybe newegg will have it for 289-389...lol

Its still not a bad deal for what you are getting, a good SSD alone will cost 100-200 dollars alone. But it can always be cheaper!! Just wait it out for 6 months, prices will drop once all the ordering has settled down.

[Andrew @ Oct 17th 2007 5:31PM]

Well I'm going to go out on alimb here and say no, no even $50 is a bad price for a 2GB SSD and if your paying more than $100 for a 4GB, something is wrong.

I'm not dissing the Eee PC because I plan to be the first in line when it comes out, but as far as saying $100-200 for the SSD in this thing, I just bought a 2GB Secure Digital (SSD) for my camera for $35 (at Radio Shack of all places, the most gimmicky store in my area IMO).

But as long as it doesn't break $500, I plan to throw down the cash. This will complement my hacked Fonera quite nicely, and bam, now I have wireless at friends houses, all by plugging in one network jack. (9V battery and resistor for the win!), all for under 5 lbs. Try that from any other laptop/router/battery combo.

This thing has so many uses! It's sad it keeps getting delayed.

[dj-kenpo @ Oct 17th 2007 7:00PM]

andrew SSD IS NOT an sd card.
they are not the same, and thus they are very different in price. an sd card as a harddrive would be dead within 2 weeks. it can't read/write that many times.

[bethel03 @ Oct 17th 2007 8:43PM]

@Andrew
As dj-kenpo stated, an SSD is different than an SD card. Newegg does have SSD's for under $100 but you get what you pay for on the technology right now. A somewhat good 8GB SSD will run around 200 dollars. (I wonder what brand SSD is in the eeePC, and how difficult it would be to swap in a bigger drive when the prices come down more). But other than the SSD, and the open source software, the other items that are included in this deal is not a bad price. Although I would still LOVE for it to be cheaper. I also wonder how XP would install without an optical drive...

[Andrew @ Oct 20th 2007 2:33PM]

My bad, brain fart :-/

I do remember reading about the fact that flash drives only have so many read/writes.

I guess the concept of readyboost blurred the line for me (not that I use vista), but wouldn't that kill a flash drive in a similar fashion? I guess I assumed that that technical limitation had somehow automagically been overcome. Or am I speaking out my ass (again) and thumbdrives are different?

[bachviet @ Oct 17th 2007 12:06PM]

That's way too much money for the low-end version.

[shifuimam @ Oct 17th 2007 12:26PM]

This is still hearsay - I'm hoping the official prices (which don't appear to have been actually released yet) will be lower.

Otherwise, I'm going to have to pass on this. I was really looking forward to it, too...

[EdMercer @ Oct 17th 2007 12:29PM]

The low-end version has way too little RAM/"disk". I hope the 4GB/512 has a decent price :(

[Alexander @ Oct 17th 2007 1:24PM]

my nephew can use it not me (he's ten)

[dellll @ Oct 17th 2007 1:36PM]

I am crossing my fingers that asus will drop $200 off of this eeepc within two months....

[Brandson @ Oct 17th 2007 2:18PM]

Asus is on to something here. If they can fit a bit more power in there, the next version could be great.

Alternatively, hook up a big (but quiet) usb hd on to this and you've got yourself quite the nice NAS device. Its price is around the same as other high-end NAS devices like the Qnap TS-109, but the Eee PC is obviously much more versatile.

[Fred @ Oct 17th 2007 2:35PM]

I'll be getting the $399 version.

Don't even compare this to other similar priced notebooks. If you do, first ask:

Does it have 1GB of RAM?
Does it have SSD that allows it to boot Linux in less than 15 seconds and be more durable than some slow 4k rpm HD?
Does it have a full keyboard?
Does it have a webcam?

Most importantly, does it weigh 2 lbs. or less? That is the biggest attraction of this computer for me, a true ultraportable that doesn't cost $1000 or more. And when I say ultraportable, I don't mean those 4 lb. pretenders.

[iSleek @ Oct 17th 2007 3:04PM]

I totally agree with you.

[iSleek @ Oct 17th 2007 3:01PM]

um.. okay guys.. i don't think you're getting the point here.
it's a 7inch laptop that runs LINUX. now.. it's an ultra portable laptop, again, RUNING LINUX.
1) why would you need more than 512mb of ram to run LINUX on an ultra portable pc? i mean, seriously, how many apps can you run at the same time.. let's be realistic here..

I mean seriously, I have a desktop pc running XP, celeron 733mhz, 512 of ram.. and it works. imagine if i put linux on that puppy..

I still think it should be a little cheaper, but it's still a good price for what it is.

Here's the real question: why would you buy a 300-400 phone running WM6, when you can pay about the same price for an ultra-portable computer runing LINUX, with way more processor speed/RAM (obviously), AND a bigger screen?

I guess if you really reflect on it, financially it makes sense. Still, I'm not arguing that it should be cheaper :P

[BiddleBubbly @ Oct 17th 2007 4:38PM]

There's a deal for a regular laptop at about $400 every week at one retailer or another. For black friday I expect to see them for $250-300.

I'll wait for the EEE V.2, 2gb or 4gb really isn't enough space for XP. I'd expect a baseline 8gb model with a decent Merom setup and 512mb of RAM in V.2 for about $300.

And hopefully, an 8" or 9" 1024x600 screen. My nokia 770 from 2005 has an 800x480 screen and it's tolerable, but I can't imagine it would be fun in windows.

[melloncollie @ Oct 17th 2007 7:47PM]

Every hear of TinyXP Beast Edition?

[mirpois @ Oct 17th 2007 6:08PM]

http://www.laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml

similar spec, runs linux, and has a camera -- it's cheaper than the asus.

[Knatt @ Oct 18th 2007 12:22AM]

The OLPC weighs 1.5x as much (yes, that's quite a difference), has half the clock speed, better resolution, and less ram and permanent storage.
And it won't be available until Nov. 12, and then only for the $400 buy-two-get-one deal. How is that better for anything besides the screen?

[BiddleBubbly @ Oct 17th 2007 8:19PM]

Something tells me installing XP on an EEE will be pretty involved, what with no optical drive. Plus that's illegal.

2gb still won't hold much, in any case.

[Andrew H. @ Oct 17th 2007 7:50PM]

no 300-400 is not a bad price... the problem is they promised us 200-300.

[ThePete @ Oct 18th 2007 1:28AM]

Meh, http://xogiving.org

$400 gets you a cool little lappie AND a 3rd world kid gets one, too...

[snesgirl @ Oct 18th 2007 6:22AM]

STOP TEASING US WITH THIS!?!?!?!

The site PLAINLY states that it's for educational purchase only, and the majority of engadget readers probably aren't bulk buyers for educational establishments

gah!

(otehrwise for what amounts to £150 sterling it would be snapped up apolenty over here.)

[RIFRAF @ Oct 18th 2007 4:50PM]

Anyone know if you can upgrade the SSD with the new 16 and 32's out now? The reason why I would buy one is for the small form factor. I still have and use and ol Toshiba Libretto 110 and the EeePc would be a great travel bag replacement.

[Andrew Spence @ Oct 27th 2007 8:23PM]

Obviously Asus' marketing guys have talked senior management into believing that a machine with this spec can be flogged at 299 dollars and up. But why bother with this low-end gadget when you can get a regular laptop for a bit more and have it run Windows, any distro of Unix you like and maybe another couple of OS into the bargain. The EEE is set to fail miserably at this price.

[JBrown @ Oct 31st 2007 12:16AM]

HEY everyone, I've been hanging out at eeeuser.com following this little beauty.

A couple users uploaded pictures of the interface on the Eee and I built a little Online Test Drive for the Eee.

Check it out at: http://www.honeypothack.com/eee/internet.htm

-Josh

[Bad_German @ Nov 16th 2007 6:33AM]

jee... I wish i could get one for 399$.
yet here in South Africa they want R3999 (650$)
Even with the dollar being so low atm.