Asus Eee PC 900 hits the US on May 12th
By Paul Miller 
posted April 19th 2008 11:40AM
posted April 19th 2008 11:40AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted April 19th 2008 11:40AM
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LoL! May 12th is my birthday! What a gift!
Honestly, at the price, Im going for an HP 2133 with Linux and the 120gb HDD.
Its got a better resolution, and it has higher specs.
I guess the one downside is that the battery life is a little lower, but Ill find a way to deal with that.
Don't get fooled by the processor specs, the VIA is a really bad processor, especially compared to the Celeron in the Eee.
16GB. Very nice.
$349 ... DONE
$549? .. KEEP DREAMING ASUS.
sheesh, they went from selling nice little cheap lappys to regular priced portable lappys.
here's more info on the eee pc competitor, the MSI Wind
http://gizmodo.com/381769/msi-wind-notebook-to-come-in-89-and-10+inch-flavors
7 hour battery life looks pretty tempting if it holds out...
lol on my birthday
ASUS needs to increase the screen's vertical resolution to at least 768 pixels.
But... then... wouldn't it be 4:3, and not 16:9?
That or you're going to force rectangular pixels.
No offense to notebookreview.com but I think I'll wait until I hear something official from ASUS before I begin complaining.
The price is ridiculous. I'd rather get a Jisus laptop with the almighty loongson CPU for
Okay, okay, there will be endless discussions about the speed of the processor (like most will notice on a subnotebook...) but at $549, ASUS has priced itself as that of the HP 2133 (KX869AT) - almost certainly guaranteeing comparison between the products.
Initially, potential users of the EeePC 700 4G were seen to compare this device with 'real' notebooks out there, but were reminded by many that the device wasn't meant to be a notebook replacement - and at $399, one would have been hard pressed to find one (especially in a small form factor) anyway.
Now the ASUS 900 has to be compared with the HP product - and it doesn't look good. From body shell to keyboard to available Linux OS (and its Support) to onboard storage the HP surpasses the rather weedy specs of the 900.
ASUS had, essentially, 100% market share and now seems to be simply handing it over - while pricing themselves out of all competition. Crazy.
If ASUS has any saving grace (at least in Canada) - I was speaking to a HP Rep visiting a local Best Buy today and queried the 2133, and he said it was his understanding that HP is still debating whether to ship the product here. Sounds like neither HP or Best Buy are dead keen about offering an inexpensive subnotebook in 'competition' with their other more expensive products. As it is, Best Buy doesn't sell the ASUS eeePC here, but there are enough other computer stores that do to cover that lapse.
So ASUS may have the Canadian market all to itself for awhile yet.
(Oh,and a sight digression - I was into my local Apple Store yesterday and I and a couple of clerks were having a good laugh about the Air. Then I pulled my EeePC out of my bag. By the time it had booted, I had quite a number of the staff and customers around me - it does look vaguely Apple'ish - and may have sold many on the 4G in lieu of the stuff in the store. Sorry, Stevo...)
Okay, okay, there will be endless discussions about the speed of the processor (like most will notice on a subnotebook...) but at $549, ASUS has priced itself as that of the HP 2133 (KX869AT) - almost certainly guaranteeing comparison between the products.
Initially, potential users of the EeePC 700 4G were seen to compare this device with 'real' notebooks out there, but were reminded by many that the device wasn't meant to be a notebook replacement - and at $399, one would have been hard pressed to find one (especially in a small form factor) anyway.
Now the ASUS 900 has to be compared with the HP product - and it doesn't look good. From body shell to keyboard to available Linux OS (and its Support) to onboard storage the HP surpasses the rather weedy specs of the 900.
ASUS had, essentially, 100% market share and now seems to be simply handing it over - while pricing themselves out of all competition. Crazy.
If ASUS has any saving grace (at least in Canada) - I was speaking to a HP Rep visiting a local Best Buy today and queried the 2133, and he said it was his understanding that HP is still debating whether to ship the product here. Sounds like neither HP or Best Buy are dead keen about offering an inexpensive subnotebook in 'competition' with their other more expensive products. As it is, Best Buy doesn't sell the ASUS eeePC here, but there are enough other computer stores that do to cover that lapse.
So ASUS may have the Canadian market all to itself for awhile yet.
(Oh,and a slight digression - I was into my local Apple Store yesterday and I and a couple of clerks were having a good laugh about the Air. Then I pulled my EeePC out of my bag. By the time it had booted, I had quite a number of the staff and customers around me - it does look vaguely Apple'ish - and may have sold many on the 4G in lieu of the stuff in the store. Sorry, Stevo...)
the only reason I'd get an Eee over an HP 2133 at this price point, is because I wouldn't feel as bad if the Eee's case got all beat up.
That's like saying you would marry an ugly woman so you wouldn't care when she got old. Because you never really desired her in the first place.
well I'm not going to get either right now...but for me that's really the only thing that the Eee has over the 2133, IMO.
I really can't see what the big deal is about this laptop, Apart from the price, But even that's not that cheap now.
The big deal for me is the weight. I'm tired of carrying a 6lb laptop with 2 books. I goto school in a very hilly school so weight is such a big deal for me :(.
Count me out, when it ships with Atom, i will jump, but thats to high for such little battery life. I will wait for the Eee with Atom, or the MSI wind
So what made this $250 retail laptop double in price?
I might have paid 250 but 500 plus?
No way
So, uh, with the Mini Note being $500 ($550 for what I think is the most economical and reasonable one, I guess) and this 900 still using essentially the same processor as its predecessor...
That's really taken all the bite out of the EEE for me. I see virtually no reason to get this 900. The $300-$400 700 series still pack a price punch, especially if you put the effort into customizing them a little. But, not this one.
I might be wrong, but seems like the Celeron would be faster than the Atom, although Atom would have longer battery life. Anyone know any better?
It's all a question of efficiency. You could have an atom processor at the same clock speed/performance as a celeron but have much nicer power consumption. Plus, the atom stands to be cheaper and capable of faster speeds.
Someone should tell the Sony CEO that the "race to the bottom" has been officially cancelled.
Still not seeing anything on the market which is meeting my realtively modest requirements. It really starts with battery life, doesn't it? Maybe ATOM will save that.
Maybe not.
Nobody has seemed to mention the issues already brought up about the mini note. Apparently the fan is pretty loud and it runs really hot. I don't know about others, but that is a deal breaker for me. The eee still represents a better option.
My friend has an earlier model of this, and I agree that $499 would excite more people, but it's still a rad machine. Of course there's a niche market for such a machine. For example, traveling Europe while working on an online graduate degree. That would be a machine to take on such a trip.
I wonder if this can do emulation very well :-) Also, I assume it could be powered by quite a small solar array
Fifty($50) Dollars!!! Its only $50 Dollars. Gonna spend that in a couple
minutes on dinner and a drink. GOTTA LIVE!!! Go on people live a little.
This will not sell.
I'm sorry; maybe it's totally mean and judgmental of me to say this, but...
Why the fuck would such a "fisher-price" laptop be so hotly anticipated? For $700 ($150 more), one could actually get a fully-featured laptop with decent battery life & performance that you can install any goddamn OS you like on. This thing (the 900) doesn't have the upgrades necessary to differentiate it from its predecessor to justify being a new model. Even then, it's so damn small I doubt many would be able to read on that screen without sending themselves to a premature date with LensCrafters.
I agree, a battery life of around two hours, even though it has no moving parts inside, christ, I think Eee PC mania is on borrowed time.
I've commented about this before, but I'll say it again:
Why don't these laptops include a GPU capable of 30 fps WVGA h.264 playback? The cost can't be that significant... many phones, PDAs, and PMPs can do it.
Price way too high! What do they think their selling,, oil???
I'll hold on to my Eee PC 7
may 12th my ass! i'm searching online retail and still i don't see any!
There will be some as#^!?*^ that'll buy the new Eee's at these prices. Probably the same people that stood in line for the i-phones..