Eee PC-like Deep Blue H1 mini laptop hits the Philippines

There's certainly no shortage of Eee PC competitors these days, and it looks like another one recently snuck its way into the Philippines, where Blue Digital's diminutive Deep Blue H1 is apparently now on sale. Unlike the Eee PC, this one packs a 1.0GHz VIA Esther processor, though it boasts a similar 7-inch 800 x 480 display, along with 1GB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and the LinPus Linux distro as the standard OS, with Windows XP available as an option. Our tipster in Manilla also informs us that while it's only available in basic black at the moment, you'll apparently soon be able to get your choice of white or sky blue models as well. No word on a release anywhere else, unfortunately, but those in the Philippines can snag one for Php 16,995, or just over $400.

[Thanks, Alan]

[Rob @ Apr 18th 2008 11:24AM]

What's this fever with toyish looking laptops? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind having a pc that's easier to carry. But, not at the expense of such low resolution and performance. And, it looks like a toy with the huge vertical bars to both sides of the screen. Don't cheat me here. And on top of that an astronomical price of $400. No way. You can get a better laptop, in all aspects, for less than $100 more. But, I guess you get what you pay for.

[Deed @ Apr 18th 2008 12:14PM]

Obviously you're going to have to pay around $2,000 if you want a UMPC that still looks sleek and performs well. No way you're eeking that kind of technology out of $400 I'm afraid--even with minimal performance, this kind of notebook is always going to be proportionally expensive compared to an average to chunky notebook.

[Wisam @ Apr 18th 2008 2:01PM]

I wonder what is laptop used for nowadays. For me, I usually do some Office work using Words, Excel or PowerPoints for my classes. I surf the web, use skype to talk to my friends and watch videos or listen to music

I have Lenovo R61 14" Laptop as it was mandatory to buy one by my school. First of all, it is too heavy with its 7 cells battery to be carried everyday on my backpack, so I ended up leaving it at home. Second, it doesn't run games and I don't think it should! So why do I still hear so many people complain about processor speed. I'd rather have something very light with long battery life with decent screen size rather than a horse power. Those laptops were meant to be ultra portable. I still think that 8.9" is the way to go as 7" is rather small with the current resolution settings. This laptop at least offers 40GB of storage space for those who have a lot of stuff on their HDD.
Paying 2000$ is silly and seriously what are you planning to work on 8.9 or less screen? 3D modeling!?

[Mark @ Apr 18th 2008 3:45PM]

There are different markets we're looking at here. One is the US market, with plentiful computers, and the EEE is perfect for selling yet another computer to those who already have a desktop and a laptop. I fully support Asus and HP's efforts to do that.

However, in the Philippines and other low-income countries, I think they would be better served by the gargantuan 15" 6lb laptops because they have much more usable specs and bigger screens. These mini computers are barely usable thanks to the small screen, ultra low resolution and crap processors.

The problem, of course, is that computer manufacturers are not able to sell the volumes that make cheap 15" laptops a possibility in the US.

[darkstar @ Apr 18th 2008 8:38PM]

wisam,
i agree! i had the idea of eee a loooong time ago. its about time companies reallize what people want. nobody is gonna waste their time/money on 2lbs laptops costing $2000 with all the bells and whistles. we just need something simple for writing docs, listening to music, surfing... last i remmember, my 200mhz pentium with 1gb ram is more than enough! im still waiting for a laptop weighting 1 lbs. that hp 2133 is kinda disapointing, still not light enough for me.

[gaforces @ Apr 18th 2008 11:25AM]

I dunno if I could use an OS with the word Pus in it ...

[RJCA @ Apr 18th 2008 11:32AM]

that's not so bad, it's like the cloudbook but with more RAM

[RJCA @ Apr 18th 2008 11:33AM]

same price as the 2g EEE in the Philippines

[Down @ Apr 18th 2008 11:33AM]

So much for the 'Blue' in its name.

[Fizzl @ Apr 18th 2008 12:39PM]

I don't care about weight, i care about battery life, overall size vs screen size and how usable the keyboard is.

[Jonathan Badger @ Apr 18th 2008 2:18PM]

Then a laptop isn't what you want -- use a desktop; you can have a giant screen and keyboard and never have to worry about battery life except in blackouts (and even then you can have a UPS)

The whole point of a laptop is to be as small and light as possible.

[SGAg07 @ Apr 18th 2008 12:51PM]

Is it wrong that I get a chuckle to myself every time I see the word Linpus?

[0megapart!cle @ Apr 18th 2008 1:20PM]

esther = c7 = insanely low performance

just an FYI.

[Sam Zebian @ Apr 18th 2008 1:47PM]

this seems like a better deal than the 7" eee, right?

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 2:17PM]

can you say LinPus on a family blog?

[GTinSD @ Apr 18th 2008 3:03PM]

Manila only has one "l".

[sotec_productions @ Apr 18th 2008 4:05PM]

You know what really irk's me? (I'm all done talking about these junktops) Mispellings on the local news here. Every night there is a mispelling in the visible word graphics that they display to expand or highlight the story in question. They actually spelled BLAME as such: BLAIM. Are you fucking kidding me? Blaim? Ugh. If it's not mispellings, it's something much worse: mispronouncing foreign names. The name of the Arab or Albanian or French peoples are posted on the damn screen, obviously posted in the teleprompter, and hello! Spellcheck! Even Trillian has spellcheck plugins. Everything has spellcheck plugins these days. It's a simple mistake that makes your whole organization look STUPID. Not ignorant, just flat out stupid. stupid stupid stupid. So yea, I second GTinSD's comment, because it's just silly to mispell a word like Manila. It's not an envelope.


Fine, once again, I'll spell out my distaste for these laptops.


I understand that a lot of people think that this is the perfect cutsie solution for their moderate computing needs, but slow, small, feature-lacking, and cute does not equal a reason to drop $400 at a whim. This is a recurring comment on these articles, and that's that for $100-$200 more, you can get a laptop that is full featured, carries a respectable monitor size/resolution, and won't be an obsolete paperweight once Microsoft destroys every copy of XP in existence with tactical military precision. Because seriously, Vista on one of these micro machines? HA! Talk about a sludge factory...

But alas, do what you wish. I'm holding out for a Matrix plug in my head.

Where are the Japanese on this one?
Slackers...

[LarryLarryLarry @ Apr 18th 2008 7:39PM]

USOD

[Rem @ Apr 18th 2008 8:57PM]

I saw that at Gilmore yesterday!

[Schfelzerberg @ Apr 19th 2008 3:42AM]

You'll see the EEE PC on nearly every computer shop here in Manila. Usually it's the 12" and 13" laptops that get sold here the most though I've seen a lot of people with EEE PCs recently. I hardly see anyone using 15" laptops except for me. And gaming laptops aren't at all common here. The fastest mainstream (not imported) gaming laptops available here is the ASUS G-series and the MSI GX600 which are priced at 80-120K which is over $2000. The G2 is the only 17" gaming laptop I know that is actually marketed here. Other shops just import 17" Alienwares and other boutique shop brands here and sell it at exorbitant prices.

Besides, the income level here is low and the EEE PC and similar laptops are decent for first time computer owners especially since a telecom company here is aggressively marketing a prepaid wireless broadband service for the masses. They're using UMTS and HSDPA for it, I believe.

It still might be a struggle though for the ultra-cheap UMPC market, the 12" to 14" laptops are priced really close. EEE PC and friends cost 17-25K while the entry-level 12-14 inchers cost 25-35K. Those entry-level lappies usually have either a Pentium Dual Core (rebranded Core Duo) or a Turion X2 @ 1.6 to 1.8 Ghz, 120-160 GB hard drives, glossy WXGA LCD, DVD-RW drives, Intel X3100s/ATI X200s/Nvidia Geforce 7000s. If you ask me, I'd rather get a 12" laptop instead. Anything less than 11" feels like novelty to me.

[Schfelzerberg @ Apr 19th 2008 3:50AM]

BTW, just noticed it was actually rebranded by Blue. My laptop right now is a Blue Cobalt XTRM I bought in 2006. LOL. It's actually a rebranded Uniwill 259EN, which is the same as the Rock Pegasus 650 and the Alienware M5500.

Still waiting for a 14 or 15 incher with a Geforce 9600M GT that will actually be sold here with local warranty. Afterservice for imported products are crap.

[The Goalkeeper @ Apr 19th 2008 6:25AM]

it's manila not "manilla"

[kenzi @ Apr 22nd 2008 5:36PM]

Saw this a few times already but just an FYI, it's Manila not Manilla.

[Ronnie Of Christchurch @ Apr 24th 2008 7:40AM]

I think it looks more like a portable Radio than a laptop. Only more costly. And I have to agree with the above. Though I still run Windows XP, and at the moment is slightly better than Vista.Though Vista is getting more up market. And more qualified in the technical field as time goes on.

[Lucien Tiojanco @ Apr 25th 2008 6:00PM]

I really hope they'd consider using VIA's newest processor- Isaiah a.k.a. CN. Preliminary tests show that for roughly the same power, CN performs 30% better than Intel's Atom processor despite the lower price tag.

I also like the fact that VIA is promoting Carbon-Free computing, which basically means they plant trees that would "cover" how much carbon dioxide is needed to run C7-D processors they've sold.

And I think Intel needs more competition to push their development teams harder. Hehehe.

[tang @ May 19th 2008 9:21PM]

I tested this camera for a client. I didn’t have the light running for more than 15 minutes. The battery lasted approximately 6 hours before recharging. The LCD, however, had a few dead pixels - never saw this before. Tried returning for exchange and had to put up quite a fight. Anyone else seen this? http://www.batterylaptoppower.com

[gun @ Jun 3rd 2008 11:44PM]

http://podph.com/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=d3a3d88a33634fc9c1058c1d723f108e

someone made a users forum for this.

[Jngoi @ Jul 9th 2008 11:12AM]

My two cents worth, if you don't think that this kinds of devices are worth buying and there are obviously millions of buyers who do not agree with you then maybe your just not part of the market for this device. Not everybody buys a high performance supercharged V8 musclecar but there are a lot of honda civics running around, getcha my point? And another thing, the Philippines and other third world countries may be nowhere near the economic status that you have but having 2-4 cellphones ( high end ) and 2-4 laptops and desktop combination is not so out of the ordinary here. And also Japan has had mini notebooks for a long, long time. What Asus and all the others have done is simply make it cheaper, simple and effective (for what it was designed to do), It happens to every piece of technology. Do you remember when computers were the size of a small house and cost about the same? If not then you have much to learn young man.

[Jngoi @ Jul 30th 2008 11:07AM]

My two cents worth, if you don't think that this kinds of devices are worth buying and there are obviously millions of buyers who do not agree with you then maybe your just not part of the market for this device. Not everybody buys a high performance supercharged V8 musclecar but there are a lot of honda civics running around, getcha my point? And another thing, the Philippines and other third world countries may be nowhere near the economic status that you have but having 2-4 cellphones ( high end ) and 2-4 laptops and desktop combination is not so out of the ordinary here. And also Japan has had mini notebooks for a long, long time. What Asus and all the others have done is simply make it cheaper, simple and effective (for what it was designed to do), It happens to every piece of technology. Do you remember when computers were the size of a small house and cost about the same? If not then you have much to learn young man.

[erwin @ Sep 19th 2008 8:15AM]

update: the Linux based version of the BLUE H1 is now being sold in manila for php9,999 (US$223) & php11,499 (US$256) for the XP home version.

[Edwin allan B. Prado @ Oct 23rd 2008 1:06AM]

Where exactly in Manila is the Blue H1 available? I'm thinking of getting one for my daughter.

[erwin @ Oct 24th 2008 1:00AM]

try pc corner. pccorner.com.ph

[john red @ Nov 9th 2008 1:38AM]

hi i bought the h1 bluemini laptop. my problem is that the resolution is only 800 x 480. is there any driver that can push it to 1024x etc...?

[Vincent Lao @ Nov 10th 2008 3:54AM]

Blue H1 also supports 1024x768 but it is interpolated. In this mode, I can still read the text but it is miniscule.