Asus makes optical-endowed Eee PC 1004DN official
By Tim Stevens 
posted Mar 30th 2009 8:42AM
posted Mar 30th 2009 8:42AM
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That doesn't look like a netbook anymore. If it's
under $400 then I'm definitely getting it!
I agree about the it not being a netbook anymore. This was the Averatec 1000 series al la 2005.
I can't wait for this to release. Not to buy it, as I have no use for optical drives anymore, but to buy the 1000HE after the price drop it'll get.
RIP netbooks 2007-2009
Put an optical drive in an 12 inch netbook and what you'll have is an
underpowered laptop at a ridiculous price.
Besides that non-bluray optical media is dead. With online movie rentals and any software and games available online, there are few uses for an optical drive in a computer that will see its battery drained quickly from spinning a DVD movie.
Hey Homeboy, maybe the rest of your hood believes that non-bluray media is dead, but ask a typical consumer if they've adopted blu yet and you'll find that most people haven't, and some never will.
Totally agree with you ProfessorDex, but do you think, that it really will be possible, not to ever use blu ray? I wonder how long "normal" dvd's are gonna last...
In all honesty, I don't see blu becoming adopted as much as DVDs were......and I really blame it on the HD-DVD vs BluRay war which really left a bad taste in the mouth of consumers.
I think consumers will adopt whatever the next technology is and just hold on to their DVD collection until then.
yeah dvds will last for a LONG time to come, its going to be at least a year before the PC burners are even cheap enough to be affordable, and then you have to wait for the media, and then you have to wait for the drives to get a faster rear/write speed
hey man dvd's are dead? are you out of your mind? cd aren't even dead yet, I use them all the time at work to back up autocad files, dvd's will die after the optical drive does, and oviously it isn't dying because eee is selling a netbook with one in it, they're doing that to turn a profit, in other words they expect people to buy it enough times to cover the cost of them research and developing it into a functioning computer
I carry about 24 DVDs of data with me in my laptop case.
Formerly the "Super Ultra Mega Major Turbo Big Time Optical Disc Hyper Drive."
The original labels wouldn't fit.
It doesn't support the Multi-thingy?
Does the Eee moniker really mean anything anymore? This has almost nothing in common with the original Eee, but hey, just keep on beatin' that dead horse. Maybe some more money will fall out of it.
What`s with the negative comments? Netbooks just keep getting better.
I can't understand it either.
Before netbooks, your options were:
1. big, cheap, standard laptop
2. small, expensive, ultra-portable laptop.
Netbooks provided a third option:
3. small, cheap laptops.
Sure, they were less powerful, but they were powerful enough for 99% of users.
As for sticking a DVD in a netbook, why not? I personally can live without optical drives, but for others, it may be of use. Since when is more choice bad?
i have to agree, this really doesnt seem like a netbook anymore. hey, why not put a 20 inch screen on it and a 500mhz celeron.
Because that would be almost as stupid as your comment.
congratulations, you've become a pro at stating the obvious. good job there buckey
BSG, eh? Fitting, as that finale jumped the shark just like this "netbook."
Asus is killing the netbook that they created back with the original EeePC. Now this is just an underpowered, overpriced laptop.
I hope other netbook manufacturers don't feel obligated to follow. Please don't kill the netbook.
How is it underpowered compared to the original EeePC? It's actually got more power, more storage, and a bigger screen. Sounds like a real improvement to me!
It's not like the Eee 901 has ceased to exist because this came out. They're setting up a continuum between the likes of the Eee 700 (which really did need to be put out of its misery) and "real" subnotebooks which weigh in at $1500+
Except netbooks aren't supposed to be big, fast and powerful. A netbook is about being small, compact, and do just what you need it to do as a supplement to a larger full sized machine. I don't need a 6lb 14" notebook to browse the net from the couch. I don't need a 6lb 14" notebook hanging off my back when I'm walking from the train to my office. I use my MSI Wind. When I need to do something computationally intensive, I use my desktop machine thats a quadcore with 2 24" screens. Thats not what a netbook is supposed to be.
Its like taking an iPod shuffle, making it bigger than a touch, giving it 32gb of memory, making it more expensive than a 32gb touch, and calling it a revolution. The iPod shuffle isn't supposed to be big, and memory heavy. Its supposed to be a 'plug it in and go' player. Does it make it a bad product? No. But it begets the mantra of the Shuffle in the first place.
GN40, at long last.
Galactica boxsets? Never! The ending ruined the whole series for me. If you haven't seen it, don't!
on topic: How did Asus think that consumers want opticals? How about 720p displays first...
Oh and OSX drivers for their hardware, just like MSI released for their wifi cards.
10" 720p displays sounds ridiculous
it's only 30% higher resolution. i'd love a 720p display, you can always turn up your text size.
Personally I've been looking for something like this for a long while, slap a usb DVB-T tuner on it and you've got the perfect entertainment device when your on the move, or camping out. Once bluetooth'ed to mobile phone you'll be able to check email, browse web, watch TV, go to any corner shop and buy a movie to watch, and even record TV as well with Vista home premium.
The low power processor means you'll get better battery life or be able to run in all night off the Cigarette lighter and still be able to start the car in the morning.
When can I buy one????
Good luck running a Tv card with an Atom
It's not an issue in the slightest. The decoding's all done in the TV card hardware so the CPU speed is pretty much irrelevant, all you need is a sufficient graphics adaptor fill rate and VRAM to fit each frame into memory and paint it on the screen. Back in the day you could run an SD TV card on a machine with maybe a quarter of the clock speed of the Atom and a tenth of the computational performance.
Wait... Isn't a Netbook with an optical drive just an underpowered laptop?
Wait... Is it hot swappable? Will they make an extra battery to sit into the slot? Now THAT would be a good use for the drive bay.
And you could drop in the drive when you need to install something.
Best of both worlds!
It sounds on their website like it has no USB ports...
'An Express Card expansion slot provides compatibility with USB2.0...'
Oh dear.
No, they're just referring to the kind of Expresscard connection it uses. The spec allows for both PCI-E-and-USB2.0 or USB-only flavours.
1. Asus never said it's a netbook
2. More options(choices) for the consumer is a bad thing?
3. Where can I find clear specification criterias you must meet for a small laptop to be classified as a netbook? Is it written that it shall not bear an optic drive or big screens, or else I will be very angry?
Where did all the Netbook Nazis crawl out from ?
There is a small collection of things that makes a netbook
Atom/Nano CPU
Flash memory
small screen (10" and smaller)
What is with the pigeon hole ? Netbooks describes a collection of small laptops on sale, it is not the law of netbooks where any small cheap laptop must conform to the netbook law or become illegal.
Calm down people.
I don't think that Flash memory makes a netbook, there are probably more netbooks with HDDs than SSDs anyway.
I would have one with an SSD... but i need more than 16-20gb, so i got a 120gb MSI Wind.
I just bought my girlfriend an "old" IBM Thinkpad from 2002...it has an 800 Mhz P3 and a small form factor...a wireless G card gives it internet, and I threw in 512 more megs of ram...it's TINY and does everything a netbook does...
http://www.ud-pc.com/up_files/image/2007-4-18/x22_0.jpg
I bought it for 100 bucks on craigslist. How are these netbooks better in any way?
This looks like the perfect ultraportable (if it had/has a 12" screen) to buy your kids for college. It's cheap, has just enough juice for document creation, not enough juice for gaming and the thing is easy to port around to classes. Now I just need kids.
you do know they managed to run san andreas on firs eeepc's back in the days, do you? and if i remember well, even crysis was playable. that was the celeron period, however, but maybe the atom is able to run some old games on low specks and settings.
AUGH WHY DO YOU DO THIS
Here's the problem, Asus. You truly introduced the netbook concept as we see it now into the market. You astounded us with small, cheap laptops that, even though they weren't very fast, made up for it in price.
Now you've fucked it up.
You have just created a just-barely-not-an-ultraportable "netbook" (mind the quotes) that completely shatters the original concept.
Don't get me wrong, I love new, fast technology. It's just that through creating this behemoth, you've further diluted your brand.
Let's take a look.
This Eee has:
A DVD burner,
A 1.66GHz Atom N280 processor,
120GB of storage,
and a fingerprint scanner.
Why, I ask you? Why?
This machine will pray for death when that DVD drive spins up.
I'm fine with including the 120GB of storage, and the 1.66Ghz Atom, but with a 9 inch screen.
Did you hear me? A 10 inch screen is TOO BIG.
Once you get past 9 it's uncomfortable to carry.
Stop what you are doing to this brand. Go back to the Eee 900 and start from there. Redesign it to fit to the original ideals of the product.
By the way, as to the cost; How much is this turd going to run us? A $500 netbook is TOO EXPENSIVE in this economic climate.
can they keep it under 3 lb
is it a netbook
or is it an eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?
what they really should have added first is:
1) Higher resolution (even use OLED screen)
2) Standard HDSP card slot for internet on the go without worry about snaping those dam usb keys when ever you move your netbook.
3) Nvidia grafix instead of intel crap.
Then worry about a optical drive. By the way LG makes a great USB powerred DVD super multi...... drive any way.
i find the optical drive very handy, especially when it comes to reinstalling the sistem and all. i consider myself a newbye, so "by disc" is the only way i know how to install a OS. i wanted to buy myself such a gadget, but the lack of optical drive was a minus to me.
i agree about the resolution, at least 768/800 on the height it would be reccomended, and the hdsp card too. i hate plugging usb sticks in a lappy. as for nvidia vs intel, well, since nvidia is a graphics producer by tradition then maybe you are right here too. but for serious gaming i have a rig at home, as for solitaire i think it runs just fine on this one.
cheers :)