This is an interesting beast, if the keyboard is actually usable for touch typing. Only half a kilo, and only $400. Kewl. (Update: almost a kilo, sorry. Imagine still getting confused by achaic units like pounds, after all these years.)
Update: Quote from this review: "The keyboard on the Eee PC is very, very compact. The first two days I spent typing on the Eee PC were quite frustrating as the small footprint and tiny keys require you to use a “hunt and peck” style of typing rather than traditional touch typing methods."
For me that is a deal breaker. To make a device almost big enough for touch typing, but not quite, is like having a girlfriend who will let you go to second base, but no further. The real fun only starts when you can use all your fingers. :)
Update: the more reviews I read, the more confused I get. Many say you can touch-type, many say you can't. In pictures the size of the keyboard looks similar to that of an Apple laptop, but I can't find any numbers.
... Well, I can find the outside dimensions: the Asus is apparently 22.5 centimeters wide. And the keyboard on my Macbook Pro (both the 15" model and the 12" model) is 27 centimeters, so this parity must be illusory.
What I really want it a laptop with a full sized keyboard, but weighing less than a kilo.
23 comments:
Eolake, I just checked it out at dabs.com - it is due in the new year. Just search for "Asustek eee". - mike
You're right, the pound is an archaic unit.
The UK should really switch to Euro.
This is only half off-topic and joking: I believe most of today's WORLD, not just Europe, could work with a single monetary unit.
The obstacle? As you said, moronic territorialism.
Plus the American deficit. I so wish Al Gore had won in 2000! I think we might even have avoided 9/11.
With a lot of wisdom and luck, this early Third Millenium period will be later known in History books as the last golden days of primitive barbary.
Here's a quick simplified conversion table, for those who want to get an estimated picture between units when you're listening to the news:
2 pounds = 1 kilogram
3 feet = 1 metre
1 inch = 2.5 centimetres
1 mile = 1.6 kilometre (1.5 + one tenth)
1 nautical mile = 1.8 kilometre (minus one tenth, then x2)
Now you just have to brush up on your basic mental calculating. :-)
There's another odd discrepancy related to the system of big numbers:
The european "billion" equals to the american TRILLION, while the american billion (1,000 millions) is in France "un milliard". Why? Because americans progress from nothing by a factor of a thousand each time: zero, thousand, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion...
While Europeans do the same by a factor of a million: zero, million, billion, trillion, etc...
For the big modern fortunes, they coined a term for the number 1,000,000,000
So, 1 american trillion = 1european billion = 10^12
1 european trillion = 1 american quintillion = 10^18
1 european quadrillion= 1 american septillion = 10^24
Whaddayamean, "it's complicated"? Hey, I don't make them, I only sell them! ;-)
The UK doesn't want to go to the Euro because they don't want to admit that the Empire is long gone. Of course, Denmark and Sweden don't have it either. I don't know what their problem is. Just bastards I guess.
It might make sense to have a single currency for North America, but the U.S. would only do it if that currency was theirs, not a new one; and they would be the only ones to print money, which would effectively make Mexico and Canada part of the U.S.
Actually, is there still a distinct UK billion? The making of the film of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has a segment where they are working out how to pronounce the large improbability figures. All the voice talent have some comment about how the US and UK billions used to be different - past tense!
You for got that
1 gal = 4 quarts
1qt = 2 pints
1 uk pint = 20floz
16fl oz = 1 us pint
You will see then that a us qt is not a uk qt!
Crazy?
In the UK beer is sold loose in UK pints, bottled in litres.
Milk doorstep delivery is in pints, grocery store in litres. Meat, loose in oz, packaged grammes.
Petrol in litres, roads in miles! Fuel consumption Mpl.
It's a crazy as AC frequncy for mains electricity.
I bet a Euro has different buy power throughout Europe. How much is a hotel room in Paris v's St Malo?
Back on the topic of the Asus contraption, make sure you actually see it before even considering to buy one.
Even if the keyboard is usable, the screen's resolution is more suited to a PDA or phone than anything else. In terms of general-purpose computing, low resolutions like the advertised 800x480 have been gone for almost two decades, and I am far from sure that one would enjoy typing all day long on such a contraption. It certainly will be eye-straining, at the very least.
Also, from an engineer's standpoint, it appears that Asus made sure that the platform wouldn't be able to do too much, either (read between the lines of the info out there). Nobody would want to hurt the sales of the real things...
So you cannot expect to easily and cheaply increase memory or, more importantly, permanent storage. For example, it is said that plugging in an extra flash card into the expansion slot disables the built-in storage, rendering the device unable to operate unless you have an OS on the new storage device... kinda redefines "expansion slot" into "replacement slot", which is way less cool.
Anyway, I certainly will wait to see how this story evolves before I even bother to go and see one for myself.
"it is said that plugging in an extra flash card into the expansion slot disables the built-in storage, rendering the device unable to operate unless you have an OS on the new storage device."
Are you sure? That sounds nuts.
Just check the convenience of this laptop while really using it "on top of your lap".
The convenience of a keybord has a lot to do with the thickness of your fingers.
It's ridiculous but I can touch type fumbling with my thin long fingers (eeek) along on the tiny keyboard of my pristine Sharp PC 3000, if you can remember this beast.
A trillion greetings! (The only dimension which gives me a big rubbery one)
Have a good weekend with lots of photography - the only thing we live for.
I like it. It does seem to have USB connections, which would solve the storage issue for my purposes.
As to touch typing, measuring in our archaic U.S. inches, the keyboard seems to be a bit wider than my Tohiba Libretto. My own experience with the Libretto was that I could touch type on it when I was using it regularly, but it took me a while to adapt. As best I recall, people with long skinny fingers seemed to do pretty well on Librettos, people with sort thick fingers were out of luck. That may be what the testers are finding on the Eee.
The reason I have the Libretto out handy to measure is that I was hoping to revive it as a road-trip computer. However, if I can get something like the Eee for 400 bucks that would be a simpler and probably saner approach.
Alex helped...
"You forgot that
1 gal = 4 quarts etc."
That's not forgetfulness. First, I know nothing about quarts, pints and other typical volumes for ale. ;-)
Second and most importantly, I was giving hints for the metric system. Which is already complicated enough a "translation".
"I bet a Euro has different buy power throughout Europe."
Undoubtedly. But to be correct, it's the cost of life that's different throughout Europe. Always has been, it's not the currency it's the economy.
Bert informed:
"In terms of general-purpose computing, low resolutions like the advertised 800x480 have been gone for almost two decades"
Well, I for one love the 800x600 setting and still stick to it. But perhaps you meant the capabilities of the screen? My conventioal monitor could certainly handle more if I wanted to.
Eolake was surprised:
"Are you sure? That sounds nuts."
How much carats is one nut?
Monsieur Beep greeted:
"Have a good weekend with lots of photography - the only thing we live for."
What, you hate sex?
That's still no reason to spoil it for the rest of us!
And to think of all the feats your thin long fingers could accomplish, causing a loved one to REALLY go "eeek!"... ;-)
JR provoked:
"measuring in our archaic U.S. inches, the keyboard seems to be a bit wider than my Tohiba Libretto."
If it only seems wider because of the unit you use, then there's reason to start worrying about your standards, my friend!
;o)
(Pun intended, in all jokular units.)
erm, ale comes in yards for your 21st birthday.
A persons weight used to be in stones. In England a stone was 14lbs, in Scotland it was 12lbs. lbs is short for Libres, the French word for Pounds.
Some alcoholic drinks came in large barrels called hogsheads(63 gal), I think these were about 1/4 a tun (252 Gal), another larger barrel. Now you see the pub in Hogsmead is a double entendre!
The UK has finally adopted it's current weights and measures system, and I believe has stopped full metrification.
What's this?! The metric system's the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
"Now you see the pub in Hogsmead is a double entendre!"
Thanks, I had no idea about that.
In book 7, we find out a lot more about the pub's owner. I hadn't seen THAT one coming.
Pa Joe,
Rods always M.M.G.A.B.R.O.
But maybe I'm just a hopelessly horny hog head. (Aren't all men pigs anyway?)
P.S.: I thought TRIDENT FORKS were the tool of the Devil?...
Rods and stones may weigh my bones,
but Metric can never convert me!
Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but whips and chains
excite me
I thought the landlords brother would last into book 7, and that his protege would not apparently die several chapters before the end. I also thought the doe patronus was Ginny, not the HBP.
Give me two days and I'll have finished the book, and we can discuss it then...
The Apple subnotebook is expected to be announced on January 15th.
Granted it won't be a $400 thing. More like a $1500 thing.
But if it's just what I want, I'll happily pay that.
Amazing though how Asus can sell the Eee for $400. And even more how some people still see that as too expensive.
"but whips and chains
excite me"
Whips and chains, now *that* always makes me go a big rubbery one! :-)))
"Give me two days and I'll have finished the book, and we can discuss it then..."
What?!? You call yourself a true fan, and you still don't know that Lord Voldo... I mean Lord Voldemort is really Harry's father, who joined the Dark Side of the Moon of Endor after murdering Obi-Wan Dumbledore in that rigged Lightwand duel? ;-)
(Oh, and Ginny will turn out to be Ron's SISTER, incredible but true.)
I think you have my email, for the day you finally catch up on your Unforgivable Curses... I mean unforgivable ignorance!
I have a few non-spoilers already, though:
- It's not true that, as rumored, the last word of the book is "scar". It's not even in the last sentence. You'll see eventually why this is so amusing.
- JKR had announced on her site some revelations/explanations in the last book, which I never found. Like what unpleasantness spoiled Ickle Dudleykins could ever have seen near the Dementor. It's never told. Rats! (Hey, maybe he saw rats, precisely? :-)
- Also, it's never revealed WHY "Lily Potter's wand was great for enchantments, and that's very important". I wondered for a while whether the doe patronus might have been made by Lily's wand, and perhaps her ghost. But no, and not a single mention of the blasted matchstick. Surely it was never intended to turn out being the Elder Wand?
- Another non-mystery: why does it matter that "Ginny is the first female child to be born in the Weasley family for generations"? Nobody expected Hermidala to be her sister, anyway!
- I had figured out after reading book 6 who RAB was. Clever me. :-)
No relation with this blog's RAF, as it turned out. :oD
One of the problems with the books is that, because they're for children, some of the character names give away the character - like Lupin. You knew from the git go what he was.
There were many unanswered questions at the end, but I wonder if she left it that way in order to write more in the future?
I too figured out early who RAB was, but I was hoping it was something more interesting!
I looked on the Amazon reviews for this book and read some of the 1-star reviews. How could anyone dislike it enough to give it one star - I mean, after reading the entire series, and you disliked it that much?! Come on!
"Lupin. You knew from the git go what he was."
My own culture almost made me miss that one. I was thinking of Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar. :-)
Rowling said that she intended to end the story with the last book, and most probably won't write more of it.
"I too figured out early who RAB was, but I was hoping it was something more interesting!"
True. Even Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have been helped much by finding it out before book 7.
"I mean, after reading the entire series, and you disliked it that much?! Come on!"
Indeed. Even if they read the whole series out of masochism, the suffering must've given them a little more twisted pleasure than worth one meager star! :-D
Rowling said that she intended to end the story with the last book, and most probably won't write more of it.
It depends on how greedy she is, and how much she misses the spotlight. That whole outing of Dumbledore seemed like a desperate grab at...well, you can't really grab limelight, but you know what I mean.
I'm reminded of Krusty the Clown, defending how he could endorse a camp as crappy as Kamp Krusty - "They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house! I'm not made of stone!"
"It depends on how greedy she is, and how much she misses the spotlight. That whole outing of Dumbledore"...
Aren't you confusing Joanne Rowling with Rita Skeeter?
;-)
After you get your subnotebook, I recommend you also get this essential USB add-on.
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