back to article Asus: $200 netbooks next year

Asus is to take on the $199 OLPC XO laptop with a $200 Small, Cheap Computer for the developing world. The company's keeping mum about the details of the machine, saying only that it'll debut in Q1 2009 for $200 (£134/€159). Asus' old Eee girl Asus Eee PC and friend: even cheaper next year Asus is scheduled to once again …

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  1. GrantK
    Black Helicopters

    Icon Time

    Pretty sure it is time that the picture is made into an icon...

    Black helicopter coz there is no eepc icon

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Can I be one to say....

    ....can we have the other ee-babe please. All that sunshine is making her wrinkly...

  3. Andy Moore

    Keyboard Size

    I admit to only having played with an original 701 for a week but they keys were so small I found it almost impossible to type on.

    Are the new generation i.e. the 9 and 10 series better in this department ? I can put up with springy keys and do not expect it to be of Thinkpad quality but I could type faster on my Palm Treo than the 701.

    Everything else though was really great.

    Anyone got any side by side user experience.

    TIA

  4. Viet
    Linux

    re: keyboard size

    I'm the proud owner of a 900A (that's a cut-down 901 in a 701 form factor) ; I had a 701 for some months before. IMHO, while the size of the keys remained the same, the keyboard itself has been massively improved. It won't help you if your fingers qualify in the saussage range, but the feeling is really better. The original eee keyboard has an obvious defect on the left of the space bar, all those I've seen exhibit a slight rise of the key in that place. On those keyboards, if you don't hit the spacebar exactly in the middle, it's more than likely that no space will appear on the screen. But most keys require a bull's eye strike too. The new keyboard has all its keys flat at the same height, its feeling is less chicklet-type, and it is overall much more forgiving to out-of-center strikes.

    But honestly, what really mattered to me was the form factor. I'm just in love with the 701 size, and wouldn't consider going back to something bigger. The 900A is all you drool about the 901 (except bluetooth and wifi n), but fitted in the 701 skin.

  5. Robert Moore
    Linux

    Right price.

    Finally someone remembered that the first "C" in SCC is for cheep.

    At that price I will be standing in line outside the store the day they come out.

  6. John Ridley

    Almost there already

    I just bought an MSI Wind for $299 (admittedly, after rebate), but that was actually a pretty usable computer with 1G RAM, 120G HD and a 1.6 GHz CPU. And these machines were > $600 6 months ago. I wouldn't be surprised to see just normal price reductions to get what's already on the market down within spitting distance of $200 in the next year anyway, even without any innovations or cost-cutting measures.

  7. Dave Bell

    Eee 701 keyboard

    I just wrote a novel on my Eee, and the keyboard problem with the space bar started after about 40,000 words.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Which or both?

    "Asus Eee PC and friend: even cheaper next year" caption.

  9. Nuno
    Stop

    OLPC price

    Does this mean that OLPC is making a profit, instead of helping 3rd world children?

  10. Dave

    AA1

    For those that don't like the 701, the Acer Aspire One is worth looking it. It's what the 900 series probably should have been.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what do I know?

    Like most contributors, I will now raise an oppinion based upon nothing else other than a gut feeling or emotional response!

    I imagine that the OLPC is a inefficient and poor use of resources and too proporiatry and was designed from the wrong end of the the engineering and product spectrum.

    The eepc based upon razersharp chinese logic and perception used more standardised components, beating Henry T Ford at his own game of stacking it high and selling it cheap and letting the customer, economy of scale etc to drive the unit cost and production costs down.

    Wether the eepc works in the middle of congo after 6 months who can say?

    were as I suppose, your eepc will happily motor along in starbucks (other coffe shops are available) for some time to come?

    I'd also wager OLPC is not making major profits (is it actaully a charity?)

    ALthough there is a whole other discussion to be had about "profits" and "Charitable" organisations..., in essence charitbale organisations still need to make some profit or have thier losses underwritten by a benfactor, charities do make profits although in theory they put these profits (after "costs", "Expenses" and "Salaries" ) back into the organsiation rather than return it to the shareholders. There have been ongoing debate in the UK regarding htis as many larger charities now pay "commerical levels" of salry to attract "hig performers" on the basis the need to compete, and the way the labour government has hived off core services in health and education to "charitable" organisations.

    Whilst I do not detract from local and minor good casues, a number of the big charities ... like Natioanl Trust, Imperial Cancer, RSPCA are actaully big corporations with tax breaks

  12. Andus McCoatover
    Coat

    €200? My latest '701 cost €99...

    Yep, but I did have to buy an internet 3G connection, with a USB modem. Modem cost nothing, connection's €9.90/month - 2 year contract. 384Kb, but all the data you can eat. One of these machines is bugger all use without it, but - that's why it's sooo useful. Fits my coat pocket, but not my G/F's coat, so when we go out I have 'em both. We love 'em!

    Incidentally, my G/F's machine has more programmes on it - first screen full of icons - her machine's disks are version 1.3 (and an 8G machine to boot, I have 4G), whereas mine are 1.0. I'd better upgrade, but it's in Finnish...

    - Viet - absolutely right on the keyboard 'bulge'. Both mine and my girlfriend's have it. Think my first one from UK did, too, but it's now doing sterling service in a Kenyan orphanage.

    Mine's the one with an eeepc701's in each pocket (I joke not!!)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Once Upon a Time

    Yeah I am old enough when there once was a brief fad of digital watches that had pen operated calculator key pads.

    In terms of BASIC simple stuff - yeah these are great - cheap too.

    But a 4Gig HDD or is that FDD (FLASH disk drive) no make that FCD - Flash Chip Drive...

    Fuck me - you can buy 4Gig pen / USB / memory sticks for about $16...

    I'd be thinking fuck - for these bucks and the state of technology - at least a 20 or 40G drive would be the go.

    The rest thp' I dunno about trying to live in Bumfuck Botswana with one... and the cattle, the dirt and the flies - all in the mud huts, but perhaps being in a family from birth to death is not really 3rd world after all, it's first world.

    As the script writers told to the actor who played the chief in Out of Africa - to say to the actor (Meryl Streep) who played the wife and tutor of the village kids - when she said it was essential to give them an education - he replied, "And what good did it do you?" (the westernised english people).

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