Glad you went for the Inspiron instead. From the looks of the Eee, I think I would rather put my hands in a vice and clamp down with a cheater bar than type a dissertation on that thing. I use an Inspiron 700m which is already small-ish and I avoid using its keyboard if I have a normal-sized USB board handy. On another note, I think it's now time for a thread on how exactly one would clamp their own hands in a vice without help.
Nah... no need for a separate thread. All you gotta do is use the quick release to wedge your fingers in there or set the vice wide enough to stick your fingers in snugly. Now to tighten, just bash your head on the lever, use your teeth to re-position the lever so you can bash your head on it again... repeat until fingernails pop off or crack!
The Eee has only just been released here in Australia and we bought one a few days ago for our son just starting Year 11 at high school. At AUD$475 its cheaper than almost any other laptop - those real laptops that are around this price are doorstops and not much better powered. The attraction for our son was that the Eee is smaller and lighter than most of the text books he has to cart around in his school bag. He's tried a full size lap top (too big and heavy, slow to boot) and PDA's (too small and not very functional in the classroom), whereas the Eee is just right... For him it will act as bridging device between school and home. At home he has a full desktop PC and he will take notes and do work at school which he will then transfer to the PC at home. For that this device is great. It runs Xandros Linux and boots in about 30 seconds. It comes with a lot of software and looks and feels like Windows XP to use. The system is tied down tight so that he can't go adding lots of games and abusing the use of a laptop at school. The 4GB solid state drive might sound small but the OS and heaps of software only take up about half the drive. That leaves heaps of space just to put schoolwork on. To that can be added USB keys and/or SD/MMC cards. The SSD drive is also very fast - seems faster than a hard drive. Its very funny reading the negative arguments in this thread. They sound oh so familiar along these lines... What do you want to buy a Prius for.... tiny micro car xxx is much more economical... performance car yyy is much faster.... they're ugly.... diesels are better.... the Prius is too expensive... the Prius is too cheap... the Prius is too small compared with zzz.... the Prius it too big compared with.... hybrids aren't real cars... only alternative lifestyle tree huggers buy a prius... only movie stars buy a Prius... So the Eee pc has its place; its a little unusual; its odd too look at; its not super fast; its smallish and economical but was designed with a specific purpose in mind. Sound familiar? And in the long run, if our son decides he doesn't like it, I'll nab it for an in-car PC that's fits in just about any glove compartment. Our Eee colour seems to be the same as the 070 Prius colour in Japan, a white that glows with a silvery sheen.
I looked at the Asus site and it doesn't list any ports or specs for the processor. XP on my laptop with 1GB of RAM consumes 2.38GB and ~1.5GB for the paging file. No specs & a closed system doesn't instill confidence in me. This unit may be fine for school work but the college student will want more capability for entertainment.
Then the college student can buy their own computer. Particularly when said student already has a history of destroying laptops.
