Opinions: EeeBox, EeePC?

[Fabricated]

A voter came in with an EeePC the other day and it was pretty fucking cool. Super tiny but all of the necessary outputs/inputs, alright screen, booted up pretty quick. It's also priced really, really low.

Anyone here have one? Is it a competent/enjoyable toy for people who wanna be forum warriors/writing/media addicted everywhere but not limited to using their PSP/Ipod Touch/Cellphone/whatever?

There's a desktop version called the EeeBox, which I was looking at maybe using as a media server/squidbox/general bitchbox.

http://eeepc.asus.com/global/products.html
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=165&l3=0&l4=0&model=2289&modelmenu=2

So, any good?

[Soln]

I got one and I got my wife one.  It sucks for wireless connection in that it won't read WAP.  Keyboard is hard.  Otherwise, if WAP worked my wife would never put it down.

[Fabricated]

I got one and I got my wife one.  It sucks for wireless connection in that it won't read WAP.  Keyboard is hard.  Otherwise, if WAP worked my wife would never put it down.

I'd like to get one with an Atom processor in it since I'm interested in seeing the performance, but it seems that it's only in the more expensive models.

Did you get a Linux or Windows one? I'm leaning Windows for emulation and familiarity but a pared-down version of Linux is probably a lot more responsive.

[Soln]

Linux (Xandros).  It's good, but extra memory is a must. I wouldn't entertain Windows -- XP SP2 maybe with everything stripped out, but I still wouldn't try.   My wife's was the smaller version and it's been a pain so get as full memory as possible.   But seriously if the thing had WAP we'd carry it everywhere.  It's a serious oversight it can't do WAP and the forums are full of complaints about it (we found out later).

[FatuousTwat]

I've heard the other Asus line of netbooks is pretty damn good... N10?

[Engels]

Ya, that N10 is looking pretty awsome. If budget allows, they have one with a dedicated vid card for $800 too. Probably won't let you do Conan, but TF2 or WoW probably wouldn't be an issue.

[Tale]

The EeePC keyboard is the turn-off for me. I write for a living so I'm quite a hardcore touch typist, and without a full-sized keyboard I can't work fast enough. They had a model coming out with a bigger keyboard and HP's equivalent has a full-sized keys, but is apparently not as good in other ways. So as much as I'd love to use one of these things, there isn't one suited to me yet.

[Trippy]

Bring back the butterfly keyboard!

[fuser]

Over an Eee Box I'd seriously look at the new studio hybrids. It's a bit more cash $150 vs an XP Eee Box but you get a dual core laptop processor, better chipset with an x3100 video card and HDMI out :)

There's quite a few of the new netbooks out the inspiron 9, lenovo s10 just came out, and probably HP.

Personally I really like the Inspiron 9 it feels solid and a nice looking netbook...


(edit: me spellll bad... impassible)

[Soln]

you can hook up peripherals and monitor to an Asus no problem at all. 

[Fordel]

Question: What is WAP?

[Fabricated]

Hmm, the Lenovo book looks good. I was hoping for something that really falls into that "netbook" category though. If I wanted to pay $1000 or more for a laptop I'd just get...a goddamn regular laptop. The attraction of the Eee PC was that it was something really small but still bigger and more functional than a PDA/iPhone/etc for browsing/typing/media/etc, and priced less than $450.

When you get past the $750ish range regular laptops come into view and even if they aren't really small and practically capable of being put in a pocket they're way more powerful.

[Trippy]

Question: What is WAP?

WAP is "Wireless Access Protocol" but I don't think that's what they mean since that's meant for things like cell phones. I think they meant to say "WPA" which is an authentication protocol for Wi-Fi.

[Fordel]

Thank you!

[squirrel]

Question: What is WAP?

WAP is "Wireless Access Protocol" but I don't think that's what they mean since that's meant for things like cell phones. I think they meant to say "WPA" which is an authentication protocol for Wi-Fi.

Or even Wireless Access Point. But yeah, i think it was WPA that was the issue.

[fuser]

Hmm, the Lenovo book looks good. I was hoping for something that really falls into that "netbook" category though. If I wanted to pay $1000 or more for a laptop I'd just get...a goddamn regular laptop. The attraction of the Eee PC was that it was something really small but still bigger and more functional than a PDA/iPhone/etc for browsing/typing/media/etc, and priced less than $450.

Lenovo S10 is $399/$429
Dell Inspirion Mini 9 starts at $349 without XP, or $399 with XP to $449 with options.

[Fabricated]

Hmm, the Lenovo book looks good. I was hoping for something that really falls into that "netbook" category though. If I wanted to pay $1000 or more for a laptop I'd just get...a goddamn regular laptop. The attraction of the Eee PC was that it was something really small but still bigger and more functional than a PDA/iPhone/etc for browsing/typing/media/etc, and priced less than $450.

Lenovo S10 is $399/$429
Dell Inspirion Mini 9 starts at $349 without XP, or $399 with XP to $449 with options.

The Lenovo only comes with 512mb of RAM at that price? Damn. The Inspiron looks good however. Time to start reading reviews I guess.

[schild]

The Inspiron also has an solid state drive. It's really quite the bang for the buck.

[fuser]

The Inspiron also has an solid state drive. It's really quite the bang for the buck.

Yeah the price is really great for the included options, plus they have a cheap bluetooth ($20).


Is what sold me on them, two screws and easily serviceable vs some of the other netbooks which you have to strip the keyboard down.

source/review

[FatuousTwat]

Question: What is WAP?

Well Jimmy, at a certain age, young men start to grow hair in funny places, and... Oh it's already been answered.

[NowhereMan]

I'm actually posting from one right now, one of the nice atom processor ones. It's got Windows and doesn't run too badly, everything's fairly speedy but it does lack some memory space compared to the Linux model. The keyboard things is a bit of an issue if you're going to be doing lots of writing. Fine for board warrioring but I spent a few days while on holiday doing serious thesis editing/writing and really started to hate simply because the keys need to be firmly pressed to register and when typing in a hurry it's very easy to just half push them.

Aside from that I think it's great and am more than happy to keep using it for internet shennanigans until I fix my desktop to actually connect to the wireless network where I'm living at the moment.