The Asus EEE PC.. ever heard of it?

I was talking to a buddy of mine while he was on dorm-guard duty a few hours back, and he’s typing away on his strangely smaller-than-usual laptop, when a guy pulled out his… hell, I don’t know the exact name for it, portable-PC-tablet thing? (Like, it’s between an iPhone and a Laptop… ), and said he got it for a little under 900 bones. It containing a mini-keyboard on the side and a built-in thumb mouse for on-the-go portability and screen size, etc. shit like that.

Well, friend of mine says his was $300.

And I flip my wig a little. $300 for a laptop??

Then he tells me it’s an Asus EEE PC. Asus, being a company that makes a lot of computers, or at least computing parts. Small, lightweight, very inexpensive, relatively powerful, etc. He told me it was only on sale when he got it, but nowandays for the same model, it would run about $350 which is still nothing to sneeze at.

He then goes on to say it’s an older model and newer ones are being built with a slightly bigger screen, more capability, and whatnot running around $450 to a little under $600.

I’d be totally down for one for on-the-go music writing/sampling/editting and would think it’d help TREMENDOUSLY in Grad. School.

My question: What do ya’ll know about it, your experiences with it, and is it just too good to be true?

Apologies in advance if the topic title starts spamming EEE PC adverts

What rock have you been hiding underneath? Netbooks are the latest craze. Everyone makes them. HP, Dell, Asus, Samsung.

They’re no performance monsters by any measure, but they’re great for surfing the Internet. I’m not sure how they’d perform in the music making department. As reflected in the cost, they haven’t exactly got the greatest latest sound card.

I’d personally recommend you have a look at the Samsung NC10.

I’ve got an Eee and absolutely love it, it’s portable, fully functional and cheap as anything. It may be a little underpowered but it’s not meant to be a hog. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone but if you want a small laptop that gets the job done, you could do a lot worse.

I’ve been wanting to get an inexpensive laptop to use when I’m travelling for awhile. Something that’s just good enough to run a browser, an IM client or two, and maybe an SNES emulator. Might something like this be just the thing I’m looking for?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Nulani
Yes.

Seconded.

I have an EEE 1000H - best damn laptop I’ve ever had. Takes a bit to get used to the small screen & keyboard and it won’t run the latest and greatest games but the cost / performance ratio is completely unmatched - runs XP and Openoffice just fine, can run older games if I’m bored (I play EvE and old SNES games on it regularly), and it’s cheap enough to be totally expendable - even with the upgrade I gave it (2GB RAM upgrade) it still came in at less than $500. And it’s small enough to really portable. I mean, like, throw it in a bag and take around with you everywhere portable - the footprint is tiny and it fits just fine on airplane trays and those tiny student desks.

I got a Samsung NC-10 two month ago, because it’s pretty much the best netbook out there right now and costs as much/less than an Asus EEE.

Honestly? If I could have sex with it and produce terrible Samsung NC-11 babies, I would. It’s the single most productive way I’ve spent my money in years, battery lasts for fucking ever (6-7 hours, depending on usage), keyboard is comfy as hell, and basically I can do actual work now no matter where I go.

I still end up procastrinating on fucking everything, but hey.

Yeah, 300 sounds like the right price. I might point out that they (or some models, who knows?) don’t have a dvd drive.

No netbooks have optical drives. Not that you really need one.

And if you do you can buy an external.

Starcraft ISOs are small, so the bare necessities are covered.