[geeks] Whee! The EEE is available in the US

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net>
>Date: 2007/10/31 Wed AM 11:01:10 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Whee! The EEE is available in the US

>On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 11:09:08AM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> The Asus $400 flash-based laptop is available from Directron starting
tomorrow (they claim an ETA of 11/1/2007):
>>
>> http://directron.com/eeepc4g.html
>>
>> Thinking hard...
>>
>> Maybe if I sell my unused Libretto...
>
>That seems to be about double the cost they were saying previously.
>
>I wonder in what way this is a better idea than getting a XO at this point.

Not to argue, but...

This is a more conventional laptop, it can run WinXP, the RAM can be upped to
1 Gig, and is not so "iBook toilet seat" looking...

The XO can run WinXP (or will, MS is working on it), and while the XO has some
neat features, the ASUS has a more mainstream appeal...

The XO has a more basic design:

"The generation-one machineC"BBs core electronics begin with the 433Mhz AMD
Geode processor. There are 256MB of dynamic RAM and 1GB of SLC NAND flash
memory on board."

(from http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO:_The_Children%27s_Machine)

The EEE has a 900 MHz Celeron w/512K cache, 512 Meg RAM, and 4 Gig FLASH disk.
The 900 MHz Celeron is reasonably feature-full with 400 MHz FSB, and
supporting MMX, SSE, and SSE2 and XD (see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Celeron_microprocessors)

Also, the as-supplied design for the XO is to be part of a community, the EEE
is geared towards the "coffee shop" crowd (IMHO)...

Lionel