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Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET)
CNET has a review of the Asus Eee laptop, which is a small, lightweight system running Linux. "The Eee PC doesn't use a Microsoft operating system, which is part of the reason it's so inexpensive. Instead, Asus supplies its own Linux-based graphical user interface. The laptop also ships with some 40 applications, which is arguably more than you'd get with a standard Windows laptop. It includes Firefox for browsing the Web, Skype, OpenOffice and SMPlayer for video playback."
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Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 29, 2007 15:13 UTC (Mon) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link] Ohoho... Now I am aware about too many further ASUS models to pay for this one. I would pay for a next model with 16..32 GB of flash. I would even rather pay for fanless model. And in 2008 there should come a model with 10" screen. Don't know why jump into this right now.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 10:21 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] > Don't know why jump into this right now. Because if someone doesn't, there will be no 10" screen, 32GB flash fanless in 2008??
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Nov 1, 2007 12:38 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] I thought Adam Osborne had taught the industry about the dangers of preannouncement?
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Nov 1, 2007 16:20 UTC (Thu) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] Personally, I've got to get something. I want cheap, light. I could get cheap, $486 canadian at the local walmart for an Acer luggable. Or I could get light, spend over $2G for a Sony. I need something soon. So I should see mine show up by courier in the next couple of days. Consider this. One user is having people come up to him asking about his Eee. This little thing is creating buzz. It doesn't run windows. It has a mixture of Kde, Firefox, Openoffice. In a cute package that makes people say 'I want one. How much? Only $399!'. An interesting thing is happening among those drawn to this machine. People are asking questions with interest. Does it support 'x' usb device? Surprise. Linux has very good hardware support, without having to even load a driver. How can I install new software? Introduction to what I consider the killer app of linux, the distribution and packaging structures. Next year will see better units, more memory, storage, quicker, maybe cheaper. I'll buy another one. Derek
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Nov 5, 2007 20:59 UTC (Mon) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] Nitpick: the Linux kernel still has to load the driver, it's just that Linux distributions ship with a lot of drivers so you don't have to install the necessary driver yourself.
What is the operating system? Posted Oct 29, 2007 15:23 UTC (Mon) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] The review makes it sound as though Asus has made its own Linux distro with a selection of applications and dumped that on there. Surely this is not the case. Anyone can get a copy of Fedora and change the logos, and such a system would be usable, but how are you going to get security and bug fixes? What distribution is this thing running, exactly, and is it configured out of the box to auto-update?
What is the operating system? Posted Oct 29, 2007 15:44 UTC (Mon) by dennisk (guest, #12308) [Link] I've read that it runs Xandros and that Ubuntu installs rather easily. Dennisk -- Phoenix Linux Users Group "Penguins in the desert"
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 29, 2007 15:49 UTC (Mon) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] Hmm, no Bluetooth? Ie. no wireless network access via phone + Bluetooth. Even though the article hints on the 3G possibility in the Eee PC, I wouldn't want to get another SIM for data, since I already got a subscription with unlimited 2G/3G data transfers (10/month) and would like to use that same data connection with every laptop / device I happen to carry around. GPRS/EDGE works everywhere around here and 3G also in most places I visit, WLAN is much, much more limited and usually not available eg. in vehicles. Other than that, a very interesting device. The Linux distribution in Eee PC is Xandros.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 29, 2007 16:33 UTC (Mon) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] i would hazard a guess that any bluetooth dongle will do fine. hell, not to long ago there was news about a dongle that was not much bigger then the usb port itself. sure, it will take up a port. but this thing has 4 of them, and if you really need many of them you roll out a hub, no?
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 14:21 UTC (Tue) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] Very true, I guess I had a shortcut in my brain. I mean, it's unfortunate if it doesn't have integrated Bluetooth, but with 4 usb ports and miniscule Bluetooth dongles available it's really not a showstopper.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 29, 2007 16:37 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] That name really makes me think that they ought to be using CONFIG_NO_HZ or at least max_cstate=2.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 2:30 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] There's a common problem with laptops where entering and leaving low-power mode at 1000 Hz causes motherboard components to make an audible "eee" sound. This can be avoided by having no scheduler tick (and therefore leaving low-power mode at no regular interval), having a 100 Hz tick (less noticeable), or not using those low-power modes.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 3:18 UTC (Tue) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link] It's a great pity that they omitted digital video out - DVI or HDMI. A DVI port with a bundled DVI->VGA adapter would've been a lot nicer, and with one these would actually make marvellous thin clients.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 15:11 UTC (Tue) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] could be that the chipsets that support dvi costs more?
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 19:49 UTC (Tue) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link] That's a fair enough assumption, but I doubt it's the reason. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of portable chipsets with video have had DVI support for quite some time. This machine uses the 915GM (GMA900) chipset, which implements all ports as an Intel specific "SDVO" interface that's then converted to LVDS (for an internal panel), DVI, VGA, etc as required. DVI isn't going to cost much more than the connector. I think the real reason most manufacturers just don't bother with DVI is users. Most users don't care (and in fact can't tell the difference) when it comes to selecting a digital or analogue video output. In fact, many-thousand-dollar ultraportables often still omit DVI because most data projectors, especially large installed ones, only provide a VGA interface, and it's very slightly easier not to have to use a DVI adapter. Of course, if you like high quality text and good colour at high display resolutions on anything but the very top quality LCDs (Eizo panels, etc) you're SOL without DVI. But I guess they assume most users won't be using 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 panels and thus don't care as much. Personally this bewilders me. (in->out) DVI->DVI and DVI->VGA both look much better than VGA->DVI . DVI connectors cost very slightly more than VGA connectors, if anything at all, and the same is true for the rather minimal interface electronics. Chipsets practically all support DVI and VGA (which are actually very similar in many ways) and provide LVDS for the internal panel. It's more than using a different connector, but not by very much. In this case, those small differences may matter in cost terms, since this laptop really is on the extreme. That's fair enough. What astounds me is that nobody seems to think that a high performance 11"/12"/13" laptop user might want to hook their machine up to a nice big external panel when they're using it in one place, and might want good display quality for that. The prevalence of "ultraportable" machines with only VGA is amazing. I do think it'd be nice to see the top-end version of this little machine with DVI. That'd make it a lot more useful and should add practically nothing to the price.
Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 20:05 UTC (Tue) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link] A bit of a better look at the 915GM, specifically the datasheet, suggests that VGA and TV out might be implemented directly in the GMA900, rather than through SVDO and a transciever. That might in fact make it significantly cheaper - certainly cheaper enough to matter for a laptop like this, though not I imagine cheaper enough to justify omitting it from a several thousand dollar ultraportable. That also means, though, that adding it to the top end model of the eeePC wouldn't be hard. They'll have plenty of PCI-E channels to spare, and since SVDO borrows a PCI-E channel you could just route one to a normally unused area. On the DVI model, you mount the SVDO<>DVI-D transciever there instead of leaving it unused. I'd be amazed if you had to build motherboards that were different beyond the inclusion of the SVDO<>DVI transciever chip and the physical DVI connector. For that matter, you could build all of them with DVI-I (using only the DVI-A signalling) and enable DVI-D in the top-end using SVDO. Even easier, since you use the same case etc for every build. Can a DVI-I connector cost that much more than a D-Sub connector?
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Asus Eee PC 701 review (CNET) Posted Oct 30, 2007 23:18 UTC (Tue) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link] For Australians like me who're interested in these, apparently they're only available here in bulk, and at about AU$500 each at that. Not particularly impressive. It's a real pity, since especially with their free mini-PC-E slot the machines have some interesting potential.
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