I got mine today and I rike it a rot!
What colors are available?
Can it handle Office files?
Edit: Ok, looks like you could just throw Open Office onto this and there’s your answer. Takes SD cards, but not CF cards (pity). And wow, it carries neither WiFi nor Bluetooth. You could always add WiFi with an SD card, but of course you’d be stuck with that annoying lack of storage problem.
For those of you who are confused about changing the language to English, you can follow this relatively easy guide.
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:changelanguage
The available colors, IIRC, are white and black. In one week, it’s become widely avaiable, as low as T$1145. The eee would be a great gift for to a teen. Not enough MIPS for business use, IMO. I’m waiting for version 2 of the HTC Shift, which I hope will have full Win Mobile instead of the cripple, SnapVue.
I went to Nova in Taoyuan today and the poster showed White, Black, Greeny/Yellow, Blue, and Pink. The last three colors are typical awful pastel shades so popular in Asia, so personally Black looks best and is most practical.
The guy I talked to said it’s a one week waiting list and only the 4g White version is available at the moment.
Is that correct about the lack of wireless? That contradicts what I’ve been reading.
CF is dead, SD is the most popular flash media storage these days. Even my latest Canon (normally a die hard CF based manufacturer) is SD now.
Weird.
They had them in RT Mart in Jung Ho a few days ago.
I’d wait for the 8g.
Weird.
They had them in RT Mart in Zhonghe a few days ago.
I’d wait for the 8g.[/quote]
yeah, I’m waiting for the 8g in Black 
[quote=“frokky”]eh? sold out nationwide?
i see them everywhere! RT-Mart, Carrefour, Tpe Main Station Nova. Around 11000~~[/quote]
Um, did I say I was sold out?
Nope!
Still got plenty and mine are going for $11,600 w/ English Xandros
Pretty sure I can provide a few other languages as well.
Anyone looking for one of their own, please give me a call at 092 676 3664
or drop me a line at …
[quote=“Fortigurn”]Can it handle Office files?
Edit: Ok, looks like you could just throw Open Office onto this and there’s your answer. Takes SD cards, but not CF cards (pity). And wow, it carries neither WiFi nor Bluetooth. You could always add WiFi with an SD card, but of course you’d be stuck with that annoying lack of storage problem.[/quote]
Actually it comes with an Atheros WiFi chip. Dlink, Linksys and a few others use their chips frequently.
As for Open Office, I believe it comes with Open Office on it already installed and is capable of text editing and creating and editing Presentation files like Power Point. As for Compatibility, Xandros prides itself with being the most Microsoft friendly of all Linux builds.
Hey guys!
Just a quick edit on my current price for the eee PCs. Now $11,600.
…Carry on!
Yes you’re right, reviews I’ve read seem to quote only the basic specs, whereas the actual Asus Website promises built-in WiFi 802.11 b/g. That certainly sweetens the entire deal.
There are more reasons to have a CF slot than simply media storage, but even in that regard CF still provides superior storage sizes to SD. My PDA has both CF and SD slots, which I have filled with 8GB and 4GB cards respectively. Whilst with a 16GB CF card and a 16GB SD card in my PDA, I could have up to 32GB of flash memory storage. It’s clear I could never match that level of storage with an Eee PC.
Still, I’m not in the market for something in this form factor anyway, whereas this looks perfect for my friend who’s currently looking for an ultraportable.
Weird.
They had them in RT Mart in Zhonghe a few days ago.
I’d wait for the 8g.[/quote]
yeah, I’m waiting for the 8g in Black [/quote]Unless you guys are in a real hurry, why not wait for the lower consumption/longer battery life versions due to be released next spring? 3 hours for portable computing just doesn’t seem long to me.
Actually it comes with an Atheros WiFi chip. Dlink, Linksys and a few others use their chips frequently.[/quote]Right. It has wifi. Future versions may have Bluetooth and/or 3G as well, though, which is another reason I’m holding off buying for the moment.
[quote=“Nam”][quote=“Fortigurn”]Can it handle Office files?
Edit: Ok, looks like you could just throw Open Office onto this and there’s your answer. [/quote]…I believe it comes with Open Office on it already installed and is capable of text editing and creating and editing Presentation files like Power Point. As for Compatibility, Xandros prides itself with being the most Microsoft friendly of all Linux builds.[/quote]Yes, it comes with OpenOffice already installed. OpenOffice is fine for handling MS Office files. If all you want to do is open Office files, edit, then save in MS Office format for others to view, it’s fine. If you want to be doing a lot of transferring/editing back and forth of a document, it sometimes needs a little tweaking. But I’d say that on the whole OpenOffice is a better designed package than MS Office; simpler to use and just as powerful in terms of what it can do.
I believe eee PC may even run MS Office, though I’m sure that the Standard Xandros OS does support MS Office.
[quote]Productivity
Create, open and edit MS Office files with Openoffice.org. Run important Windows applications including MS Office.[/quote]
http://www.xandros.com/products/business/dsk_professional.html
I’ll try it later tonight and post my findings.[/i]
[quote=“Nam”]I believe eee PC may even run MS Office, though I’m sure that the Standard Xandros OS does support MS Office.
[quote]Productivity
Create, open and edit MS Office files with Openoffice.org. Run important Windows applications including MS Office.[/quote]
http://www.xandros.com/products/business/dsk_professional.html
I’ll try it later tonight and post my findings.[/i][/quote]I’ll be interested to hear about that. My guess is that although you could run it, it probably wouldn’t run as quickly or as smoothly as OpenOffice, which is a much smaller and I believe better designed package.
By the way, any thoughts on using XP on the eee? I’ve heard that it’s doable but not great.
Agreed.
It runs well enough, but it depends on what you’re doing with it.
For example, flash memory can post some really fast read times, but it’s relatively slow with write times.
If you’re going to use it to do what it was meant to do; check email, web surfing, text editing, presentations or just preparing for them, general connectivity, skype, chatting(msn/Yahoo/AOL/etc…) with a relative level of mobility, you’ll be elated with it’s performance.
It’s not a P2P client/server.
Bittorrent is out of the question.
XP has to be installed in it’s most compact format with minimal services running. Essentially as “Ultralite” as you can get it.
This being said, once XP, MS Office and all your essentials like AVG, Ghostwall, (All) Media Players & Codecs, are installed and updated, you’re not really left with much in the way of storage capacity. An additional USB Flash/ External Drive is an absolute essential. But again, I believe this is mostly the purpose of the device.
Point of Note
I’ll be hiring on a few field techs in the coming months and aside from standard tools and gear, I will be sure to provide them with 1 cell phone, 1 eee PC each and a $500 Starbucks WiFly card each.
I believe they can be an invaluable field tool for professionals that are short on time and are in need of efficiency.
I tried out XP on the store model… not good. You can read my full comments on my blog. Let’s say, though: I loved the familiarity and ease that it had, but I hated the fact that it’s really bad for a number of reasons. Of course, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t or shouldn’t improve. I think it will. But I will likely buy a Linux machine just for the thrill!
Kenneth
Edit: I forgot to add: a Cruzer USB Key works beautifully, on the XP model! I surreptitiously checked that ‘feature’ out when I was in the store… Sh!
Mine is in English, but I got mine through Nam of nationwide.com.tw I don’t have the windows installed - I’m using the Linux - and I’m really loving it. I’m not much for touchpads, but I have a wireless mouse that I use, so that isn’t a problem. The keyboard is small, but to be honest, I’ve never liked laptop keyboards anyway, so that doesn’t disappoint me more than any other laptop would.
I think openoffice is fine. I use it on my pc.
If you are really hard up for MS office you could try some software called Crossover Office. It supports office 2003. I use Crossover for running various apps including WenLin, which works great.
With regards to English language, if you look at a previous post, its darn easy to change this yourself.http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:changelanguage
That website also has some nicely laid-out guides for various functions.
I think googledocs would be enough for me. It’s really just a ultra mobile solution, and my work stuff involving the proper MS office stuff, Visio, MS Project etc would be done on another machine.
“For instance, the 2- to 8-gigabyte memory cards can be upgraded to 32 gigabytes and the RAM from 256 megabyte to 1 gigabyte by simply taking out two screws on the back of the machine, something that Shen demonstrates but isn’t including in the marketing materials. Asustek is also linking with mobile telecom companies to provide a 3g attachment, so users can be connected when Wi-Fi isn’t available.”
From the Forbes article, link at eeeuser.
WinXP version of eee 701 with 8 GB SSD to be released in Dec. 2007. Looks like a screwdriver and zipzoomfly.com or ewiz.com will turn it into a 32GB SSD and 1 GB RAM. The XP version is going to eat the lunch of the US$2500 Sony Vaio Type G, among others. When MS refused to reduce the price of XP from $120 per unit, Asus walked, did the 701 prototype in ONE MONTH, went into production, and MS caved. XP to be licensed for $40 per unit. Hmmm good. XP that boots almost as fast as Win Mobile.
HSPDA module for eee is also in the works. An eee 1001 with a 10" LCD has been shown, but not announced. Asustek is delaying release of the 701 in 12 Asian countries because they can’t meet demand. I saw the 701 in Taoyuan for T$1145 (Linux).
I tried out the XP 4gig/512mb version in a store last night. I did a shut down, and boot. To me, the boot process took as long as my normal Asus notebook at home. I guess about 40-60 seconds.
I’m really not sure why the XP version is necessary, apart from a familiarity decision for a purchaser.
A couple of things I noted. 3 USB2.0 slots, and a VGA out socket. I’m not sure what the graphics resolution is out of the VGA socket, but it looks to be useful plugged into a Projector or even into a LCD TV as a cheap media PC solution streaming movies over a home network.