Asus' own Eee-beater spied on web

Asus' Eee-beater mini laptop, the N series, has made its first appearance online after it emerged the Taiwanese manufacturer had decided to compete with itself. French-language site Blogeee.net has posted a stack of piccies of the 10.2in machine, all of which have clearly come direct from inside Asus' marketing department. …

[Daniel]

Mmmmm

Yep, I'll have one of those.

And before peeps start banging on about how you could have "a 15.4" la di da for that money" IT'S FREAKING TINY, ALRIGHT? And as we all know, in electronics terms, less really does cost more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista ?

I were interested, saw the price..so far so good.. then saw the V word, man, even Microsoft is secretly admitting this is a dead dog, I suppose MS must be paying them commissions to stick the crap on.

[paul brain]

Ruined

As soon as the Vi$ta word was mentioned I felt depressed. Kind of makes this a good looking downgrade.

Looks nice though, a cross between the HP Mini note base and the new Acer Aspire One screen ( which I tried to buy today in blue to replace my eeeeeeeee 701 - but failed ).

[Jeroen Braamhaar]

Shiny but ...

.... I won't buy one because it comes with Windows ME2 rather than XP.

[David Hixson-Ward]

ShinEee

Just got hold of a eee 1000H (WinXP) this morning - lovely little bit of gear - this look even better - although would prefer it to be WinXP Pro as well!

I see what people say about the touchpad keys being a bit stiff - they weren't joking. Can honestly say that IMHO its a nice bit a gear and wouldn't mind one for myself (this one was for the Boss's daughter!)

[Anonymous Coward]

@mmmmmm

Hear hear.

Still, it'll only be a matter of hours before there are 24 idiots commenting on how you can buy a 'proper' powerful (and heavy, ugly, with poor battery life) machine for the same price..

I sure as hell won't be taking one on the daily commute, you can stuff your £200 behemoth, so-called Netbooks are a fantastic addition to the laptop market.

[b]

totally agree Nathan Hobbs!

you're bang on with that comment..

they do it with cars as well atm, it's just looks craaaap!

:)

[Will]

OS X

Just stick OS X on it, job done :-)

Looking forward to Apple's netbook, of course it will cost £500 but us Apple users are loaded and we don't care ;-)

[b]

goozay munanos!

wowsa!

sexy lookin', but STILL only 600 verticle res? (hence the thumbs down!)

320Gb is good for a laptop, but not relevant for this space, imo.

it should be an SSD driven platform, these things should be SSD based with ext HD if necessary..

still think, for now, the msi wind is 'the one' (with the HP mini note a close 2nd), but we need to see what michael dell has up his sleeve ;)

check this and more and the "baby laptop" thread!

http://www.eupeople.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487

cheers,

bill

[Andus McCoatover]

Daft buggers...

What's wrong with my 701? More acurately what's wrong with my coat? 'Cos the 701 fits in my coat pocket, but the 900 won't. New coat I guess. Nah. Costs more.

What'll it do that (701 vs 900) I don't need? NOWT. €10 per month for Internet access, or free (PAN-OULU) Tata, big 'puters. This is the way to go.

Mine's the one with the '701 in the pocket...(Obvious, innit)

(PS 701=€250, 900=€300 - 3G modem included)

[Christian Berger]

Nice shaving mirror

Seriously, if it has one of those ultra glare displays it's not really usefull for anything except for a shaving mirror.

[dek]

LMAO

ha ha, ho ho, he he, after the madness of almost competing models within the same range we now have competing ranges... all from the same company. Mad! Maybe marketing hope that when deciding you will mentally climb the price ladder in small increments until you have convinced yourself than you need the highest priced machine... but then it's such a small step to the biggie notebooks... hmmm.

On another point: I was dismayed to discover only recently that the Acer Aspire One, that I aspired to owning one day soon, only supports cloned display from the vga port. If I'm reading that right then you only get the same rez on an external monitor? Not only do I think that the gfx chips in the One and other SCC's support higher rez's but should also support proper dual monitor configs. Anyone know for sure?

[MrM]

Gutted!

Makes my 701 look like a steaming shat pile!

Vista's as good as you make it - if you expect it to be rubbish then it will be!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I lived in Slough I'd buy it.

What an dull-looking machine. Instantly forgettable.

If I lived in Slough I'd buy it, 'cos then I'd have a camo laptop.

[david]

Any indication of battery life?

That's what's holding me back with the competition...

[Anonymous Coward]

Girl on the Beach substitute

So, instead of the girl on the beach, we'll get Derek from Accounts, posing with a stapler.

Paris, because she'd never have let this happen.

j

[Arnold Lieberman]

Fista

Don't know why you guys ar so down because it comes with a stinky OS. Simply plug in an external CD and kiss that SOB goodbye! The hardware sounds generic enough to be usable with any standard drivers. Not that I'll be buying one until the screen res is 1280x720 (at least).

[fishman]

Vista?

With things like a fingerprint reader, it looks like Asus is expecting sales to business users - but since most business are holding off on Vista, you would think they would have an XP version. Of course, they may sell it with a Vista License, with XP installed like Dell does now.

[Humph]

If Only ...

... there was a Linux option.

I really can't see Vistard running (or should that be stumbling?) at anything approaching a usable speed, which can only negatively impact Asus's sales.

[Steve]

pricing

If that pricing is correct they're going to undercut the 901, 1000 and 1001... Why would they do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista on atom?

That ought to run about as well as a dead dog. in cement.

[Jared Vanderbilt]

That's NOT small.

Look at the width of the frame around the display. It will easily fit the 12" widescreen that I have in my Inspiron 700m. On the plus size it has a keyboard that can actually be typed on. Why not include a normal sized display too?

[Steve Evans]

careful...

..about guessing features from LEDs and Ports... The original Eee had an RJ11 and no modem (an oversight that lost them 4 sales that I know of).

You try finding a USB modem that works with Linux!

[Philip Bune]

It's got the looks

Compared to the other small laptops this one has been well designed & looks much more professional ,sleek compared to the others about.

[Anonymous Coward]

HDMI...

And would this be capable of playing 720p video?

[Andy Jones]

Vista??

The Vista is probably Vista Home Basic. I saw a thread on the Acer Aspire One (AAO) where someone actually installed it and they said that it run fine. They hadn't installed anything else on it though.

I have just had my AAO delivered today. I have a blue Linux one (120Gb HD & 1GB RAM) and I am impressed. I have shown a few people at work it and a couple are already planning to get one. What surpised me is that they are planning to get the Linux one because they like the Linpus Linux interface, and cannot be arsed about the Windows one, + the fact the Linux one is cheaper helped although the price was not critical.

I, however, will be looking at removing Linpus Linux and putting Fedora 9 on it. I know that Linus is based on Fedora 8 but the interface is a little too simple for me so I will get it the same as my other 3 machines - Fedora'd out. :o)

[Kimo]

Will they launch...

...competing beach girls? Maybe in a mud-filled wrestling ring? Or Jell-o. Everyone likes Jello.

Paris, cause she could kick that Eee beach-girls ***

[Anonymous Coward]

Aspire One inspired?

Is it just me or does the style of this new machine owe a lot to the Aspire One?

[Pete]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

Oh no boo hoo it comes with Vista installed.

Big deal, install XP or Lunix if you're a nerd. If you care enough to hate Vista you'll certainly have the technical ability to do the job I'm sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

Yes, putting Linux on it is not hard. Problem is, I don't want to pay for Vista if I won't be using it.

Oh, well, it does jack up the resale value for when I trade it in after 2 years for a newer machine.

[Henry Wertz]

No.

"Oh no boo hoo it comes with Vista installed.

Big deal, install XP or Lunix if you're a nerd."

No, I refuse to pay the Microsoft tax on any more products. I luckily got a nice $90 check from the state of Iowa's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. But, I run Ubuntu, I will not pay for Vista, AND EVEN WORSE then be counted by Microsoft as a "Vista sale".

[Anonymous Coward]

Box don't fit anywhere

Looks like an oil slick on the inside and is running my Sister - no thanks - i'll wait - there are better things coming - leave it 12 months and see what you get for your money then - it will be a revelation!

h p swymm

[heystoopid]

And of course

And of course if it had a nice sexy alloy case and powered by the more energy efficient but faster AMD CPU up coming chip due to be released in November '08 just in time for the primaries , it would make a nice replacement for the old turn of the century P3 Portege that be for sure , forget the Vista crap though as Windows 7 sounds a lot sexier !

[Steve Wright]

Nice Laptop but why Vista

Hi Guys, nice looking machine, I would rather have Linux and a SSD in there maybe that will happen when the intel SSD's are out later this year. Also to heystoopid, I wouldn't hold out much hope for Win 7, its based on the Vista Kernel and theres nothing to prove that MS has learned its lesson at all.

Steve.

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/08/14/welcome.aspx#comments

Paris, because she thinks Penguins are cute, and everyone should have one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I keeping trying these netbooks but keep coming back to my M100

The best all rounder pc laptop ever made and I know it will sound like a sales plug but hey they don't make them any more is an (well upgraded) Toshiba Portege M100, preferably the 1.3/1.4Ghz with the Centrino Ultra low voltage (ULV) Processor. It has a real screen 12.1'' 1024x768 (4x3 Aspect Ratio), built in DVD-RW which I added Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7633A slot loading drive (NEC provide the software to change to cable select/Master/Slave), an Hitachi 5k160 (160GB) Hard disk and 2GB of PC2700 Ram.

Its damn robust - (metal alloy casing) I've pulled it off my desk at least twice, still working fine.

Its biggest 'marketing failure' was the mouse pointer rather than pad, but I find the pointer quicker (less movement of the hands if your touch typng)

Note they did a 1.2Ghz version, but this only had 802.11a rather than 54Mb/s 802.11g on the 1.3/1.4 Models.

People still comment on what a smart little laptop it is - it also has sd card slot, bluetooth, proper wheel volume control, external wireless switch, infra-red, usb 2.0, ext vga, Network, built in modem (sadly not a broadband modem), PCMCIA/PC Card slot.

It never gets hot, and the fan is whisper quiet and very rarely on. XP works a treat on it.

[Stuart Halliday]

3G we want 3G

When will they put a 3G interface on these babies?