Asus EEE PC

[bork]

Hey guys, quick question...I was thinking about buying one of these for my wife to use (and me to play with! ) as her main computer.  Just wondering if this PC is able to be hooked up to an external monitor and have an external DVD-RW drive hooked up, and if there's any performance issues or anything.  She doesn't really need anything other than something for internet browsing and excel/word.

[Flannel Boy]

Hey guys, quick question...I was thinking about buying one of these for my wife to use (and me to play with! ) as her main computer.  Just wondering if this PC is able to be hooked up to an external monitor and have an external DVD-RW drive hooked up, and if there's any performance issues or anything.  She doesn't really need anything other than something for internet browsing and excel/word.

Why must you ignore my MSI Wind thread.

[MrSingh]

Yes. There's an external VGA port and you can upgrade the RAM up to 2GB.

You can also connect an external USB DVDRW drive. There are 3 USB 2.0 ports.

It's great, except the keys are too small, even for my tiny petite asian fingers.

[pilonv1]

Are you getting the 900 model? Let me know what it's like, I'm very interested

[bork]

Hey guys, quick question...I was thinking about buying one of these for my wife to use (and me to play with! ) as her main computer.  Just wondering if this PC is able to be hooked up to an external monitor and have an external DVD-RW drive hooked up, and if there's any performance issues or anything.  She doesn't really need anything other than something for internet browsing and excel/word.

Why must you ignore my MSI Wind thread.

I didn't see it!  That looks cool, but I want to get something now.  My MacBook is fuck awesome for me, but my wife needs something to use and my old Alienware is just chugging along (freezes all the time), plus I don't want to spend a lot and the EEE is only a little over $400.  I see they have Windows XP now, so there will be no problems putting MS Office on there.

Yes. There's an external VGA port and you can upgrade the RAM up to 2GB.

You can also connect an external USB DVDRW drive. There are 3 USB 2.0 ports.

It's great, except the keys are too small, even for my tiny petite asian fingers.

Where is the best place to buy one?  I'd like to just be able to go to a Joshin and pick one up in-store, but I don't know if they'd have them with 2GB of RAM.

I have an extra monitor and extra external HD, so I figure I could just hook the EEE up to all that and maybe get a cheap keyboard and mouse if need be.  Although if my wife really doesn't care about having a laptop, perhaps a Mac Mini might be a better buy.  Then again, I think that's like another 20,000 yen.

Are you getting the 900 model? Let me know what it's like, I'm very interested

I'd get whatever model it is that has XP. That's what I see in the stores around here.

[pilonv1]

The standard XP one only has 1gb of RAM, and 12gb on board. The Linux one has 20gb on board but is the same.

[bork]

Do ALL the XP models have 12gb?  If the earlier 4gb ones also have XP, I bet the stores here have that one.   

[Flannel Boy]

The Wind has 80 gigs

* Malek: King of Kings whistles

[MrSingh]

The XP version in Japan comes with 512MB RAM (I got mine from Yodobashi with the e-mobile 2 year contract for 20,000 yen), and a 4GB SD memory card. (it has 4GB flash onboard). It also comes bundled with a soft protective case and tiny mouse.

The screen resolution is 800x480 (my P905iTV Vierra keitai has the same screen resolution  ), which is barely good enough for general web surfing. Since you're planning to connect it to an external monitor, it should be fine.

[bork]

Hmm...do they not sell the 12gb model here yet?  It just hit me that my wife would probably want to throw her MP3 collection on there.  It's small (like maybe 1-2 gigs), but I suppose the external HD would be fine for that anyway.  Just seems like a lot of memory would be used up by programs like iTunes, MS Word/Excel, and anti-virus software. 

Still, I think even the 4gb would probably be enough for her.  I assume the SD cards are hot swappable with no problems?

[bork]

The Wind has 80 gigs

* Malek: King of Kings whistles

That's great, but I want to spend as little as possible.  Plus whenever that notebook hits Japan, it will be higher-priced than the States.  Shit here always is. 

[BlueTsunami]

Whats the best Laptop for heavy Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture work? I really want to get a Macbook or something

[bork]

Whats the best Laptop for heavy Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture work? I really want to get a Macbook or something

MacBook rocks, but for that stuff you might want to step up and get a Pro.

[MrSingh]

Still, I think even the 4gb would probably be enough for her.  I assume the SD cards are hot swappable with no problems?

I haven't checked if the 12GB flash version is available.

However, you can pick up an 8GB SDHC card for about 6000 yen. SD cards are hot swappable.

[pilonv1]

The XP version in Japan comes with 512MB RAM (I got mine from Yodobashi with the e-mobile 2 year contract for 20,000 yen), and a 4GB SD memory card. (it has 4GB flash onboard). It also comes bundled with a soft protective case and tiny mouse.

The screen resolution is 800x480 (my P905iTV Vierra keitai has the same screen resolution  ), which is barely good enough for general web surfing. Since you're planning to connect it to an external monitor, it should be fine.

That's the 700/701 model.

900 model is 1000x640 or something, 1gb RAM, 12gb with Win Xp, 20 with Linux. It was released in HK/US/UK in April/Early May. It's coming out here in a week or two.

[bork]

The XP version in Japan comes with 512MB RAM (I got mine from Yodobashi with the e-mobile 2 year contract for 20,000 yen), and a 4GB SD memory card. (it has 4GB flash onboard). It also comes bundled with a soft protective case and tiny mouse.

The screen resolution is 800x480 (my P905iTV Vierra keitai has the same screen resolution  ), which is barely good enough for general web surfing. Since you're planning to connect it to an external monitor, it should be fine.

That's the 700/701 model.

900 model is 1000x640 or something, 1gb RAM, 12gb with Win Xp, 20 with Linux. It was released in HK/US/UK in April/Early May. It's coming out here in a week or two.

Australia next week or the week after.  Hmmm...

What about Japan? 

[pilonv1]

no idea.

www.eeeuser.com may have something, its a good side for EEE PC news/reviews

[Van Cruncheon]

the msi wind is terribly tempting

[Flannel Boy]

the msi wind is terribly tempting

And MicroStar International thought they were wasting their money with Evilbore viral marketing. It's working already!

[bork]

The screen resolution is 800x480 (my P905iTV Vierra keitai has the same screen resolution  ), which is barely good enough for general web surfing. Since you're planning to connect it to an external monitor, it should be fine.

Hey, check out that eeeuser.com site that pilonv1 posted...there's a fix to bump the resolution up to 1024x768!   

[crimsondynamics]

The Wind looks way too "placticky". It's borderline tacky in my book. 

[MrSingh]

Australia next week or the week after.  Hmmm...

What about Japan? 

Even the 700/701 model seems to have taken a while to get here. No idea when the 900 series is coming out in Japan.

[Tauntaun]

the msi wind is terribly tempting

Prole

He says what we were thinking.

[bork]

Australia next week or the week after.  Hmmm...

What about Japan? 

Even the 700/701 model seems to have taken a while to get here. No idea when the 900 series is coming out in Japan.

I think the 700 series will be fine, especially since it's likely going to be mainly used with external devices anyway.  I'm going to go back to the store and mess around with the display model tomorrow.  The price is so good I'm really not too concerned about it.  Just need to buy some extra RAM and a big enough SD card.

Even my ultra-pro Mac anti-anything-PC Father was impressed by it when I told him about it.  THAT was a shock.   

[bork]

Hmm...now I don't know.  I went back to the store and checked out the EEE again, and it's going to cost me more than what I originally expected to pay.  The EEE is 46,000 yen.  2gb ram is 12,800 yen, and an 8gb SD SDHD card is also around 12,800 yen.  I suppose I could hold off on the SD card since the EEE comes with a 4gb SD card, but that's still kinda getting up there to the point that I might as well just buy my wife a Mac Mini instead.  I dunno though....need to bring her to the store and let her see if she thinks she would REALLY care about using this. 

I also saw another small PC that was from a Japanese maker I've never heard of.  They didn't have a display model of the XP version, but they did have the newer Vista version and it was quite impressive.  The XP model is 80,000 yen, although there's no solid state drive, which is why I like the EEE. 

Maybe I'll just wait a while longer.

[Van Cruncheon]

you don't need 2gb ram for it unless yer planning to have a LOT of xp apps open. 1 gb is great, and 512 mb will suffice for xp

[pilonv1]

900 model has 1gb ram

[bork]

That's true, huh?  If 1gb ram sticks are a lot cheaper than 2gb sticks here, I could just get that with the 6000 yen point bonus the store gives for buying the EEE there.

[TVC15]

That's true, huh?  If 1gb ram sticks are a lot cheaper than 2gb sticks here, I could just get that with the 6000 yen point bonus the store gives for buying the EEE there.

I think people forget the good ol days of XP.  2 gigs of RAM in XP wasn't a must unless you wanted to run, like BF2 at full settings.  Fuck, my very last XP exclusive box only had 768 megs of ram, and it STILL ran BF2.  It was like, not pretty, but it ran.

[Van Cruncheon]

when xp came out, 256mb was standard!

[bork]

I went back and bought it.  They were out of stock and probably won't get any more until Monday, so in the mean time imma do some shoppin' and see where I can get an 8gb SD SDHC card and RAM the cheapest, but since I got points to use at the store, might as well get them there I suppose.  1gb of RAM is 7800 yen there. 

This all came as an easy decision when I remembered that my Grandfather is sending me $500 for my birthday in a few days.   

[MrSingh]

Where are you looking? The prices for the 2GB RAM and SDHC card are kind of high...

[bork]

Where are you looking? The prices for the 2GB RAM and SDHC card are kind of high...

Locally, at the Joshin I purchased the EEE at.  There's several electronic shops and also a nice little independently-owned PC shop I'm going to go and check out, but the prices all tend to be the same at the big electronic shops around here.  In Kanazawa they only have Yamada Denki, Joshin, and Kojima Denki.

[bork]

I found an 8gb SDHC card at a smaller store for 9200 yen.  They actually had some for only 4300 yen each, but they were slower and made by some Chinese company I've never heard of. 

What is the best type of RAM I should get?  The Joshin I got the EEE at had 667mhz ddr RAM.  2gb was 12,800 yen.  (Not sure how much 1gb was)

This smaller shop had RAM DIRT CHEAP, but it was different...listed as "DDRII PC 5300 Memory."  1gb was only 3,180 yen, and 2gb was 5,380. 

What is the difference in these two?

They also had in the EEEs in stock, and 1000 yen cheaper to boot.   :'(  Fuck the big stores, I'm going there for PC stuff from now on.

[bork]

 

[Van Cruncheon]

PC5300 is 667 mHz DDR2. they are the same.

[bork]

PC5300 is 667 mHz DDR2. they are the same.

So any reason for the HUGE difference in price at the two stores?  For $50 U.S., I might as well buy 2gb just for the hell of it!  Don't know who makes the RAM sold at that small shop though.

[Van Cruncheon]

different manufacturers, probably.

[bork]

different manufacturers, probably.

Bought the 2gb RAM...I thought the 9200 yen Sandisk card was faster, but it turns out that it was class 4 and the other one, made by Transcent, is class 6.  So I returned the Sandisk card and used the credit left over on the Transcent.

[bork]

Another heads-up: I keep reading that a lot of SDHC cards have a high failure rate on the EEE.     Including the brand I just bought.    :'(

[Powerslave]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PC

[pilonv1]

a reported 7-hour battery life

whut whut whut ?

can any registered wind pimp please confirm?!

I'm going to CeBIT here on Tuesday, I'll see if I can find someone there. It probably runs at 200degrees though

[Flannel Boy]

a reported 7-hour battery life

whut whut whut ?

can any registered wind pimp please confirm?!

That was what they claimed a month ago. Now they are claiming 5.5 hours on a 6-cell; it would have been seven if they used solid state storage.

[Flannel Boy]

5.5 is not to sniffed at!

wallet it twitching.

when would this thing hit shelves?

Sometime in June. But like I said in another thread, there will be a lot of eee PC clones hitting the market in the next few months. So if the MSI Wind isn't your thing, there will still be other options. As far as I'm concerned, the eee PC is the wii of the computer world. Asus is making a gaint profit on each gimped machine. The Intel Atom version of the eeePC will be $650, a far cry from the $200 they promised the machine would be when it first hit market.

[bork]

a reported 7-hour battery life

whut whut whut ?

can any registered wind pimp please confirm?!

Don't do it man...don't do it!  Wait for more solid state!

[Van Cruncheon]

Another heads-up: I keep reading that a lot of SDHC cards have a high failure rate on the EEE.     Including the brand I just bought.    :'(

that's because most sdhc cards are crap. the sandisk is at least a reliable brand -- a lot of these off-brands use really cheap parts, aren't totally conformant to the spec, or are just rebadged sd cards.

[MrAngryFace]

I wouldnt recommend gaming on a subnotebook unless youre talking 1999 era stuff

[TVC15]

5.5 is not to sniffed at!

wallet it twitching.

when would this thing hit shelves?

Sometime in June. But like I said in another thread, there will be a lot of eee PC clones hitting the market in the next few months. So if the MSI Wind isn't your thing, there will still be other options. As far as I'm concerned, the eee PC is the wii of the computer world. Asus is making a gaint profit on each gimped machine. The Intel Atom version of the eeePC will be $650, a far cry from the $200 they promised the machine would be when it first hit market.

But both the HP clone and the MSI Wind are zzzzzzz.  The EEE pc is still the best over all.  It's more like the eee is the 360, the MSI Wind is the PS3, and the HP Mini Note is the Wii.  Except the mini note isn't selling.

The only other upcoming contender is whatever Dell is making, and although that MIGHT offer SSD, it's coming at a higher pricepoint, and Dell is including a GPU, which makes me think they are missing the point.

[pilonv1]

The big thing against the MSI Wind is that it's not solid state. EEE PC is still the best option right now.

[bork]

Another heads-up: I keep reading that a lot of SDHC cards have a high failure rate on the EEE.     Including the brand I just bought.    :'(

that's because most sdhc cards are crap. the sandisk is at least a reliable brand -- a lot of these off-brands use really cheap parts, aren't totally conformant to the spec, or are just rebadged sd cards.

There's a number of different brands people are saying die out, including ones from more well-known companies like Kingston.  It seems to be an overheating issue.  I'm going to stick with the one I got, and if it dies within a day or two like others have said, I'll just return it and pay the extra cash to get the Sandisk brand back again.

[bork]

I wouldnt recommend gaming on a subnotebook unless youre talking 1999 era stuff

It is amazing to see what people have managed to get running on the EEE.  There's vids on Youtube of games like Grand Theft Auto III/Vice City, WoW, and even UT2004 (the guy is running it off of his iPod!) running.  The frame rates leave a lot to be desired though.  I can't see how the hell someone could play an MMORPG on such a tiny machine.  Pretty much anyone playing these games decently has 2gb of ram installed and is running the machine "overclocked" at 900mhz.

I'm just interested in throwing MAME on there.  People also say CPS3 emulation works well, and it would be pretty cool to see SF3 running.

But if you want portable gaming, get a PSP or DS. 

The big thing against the MSI Wind is that it's not solid state. EEE PC is still the best option right now.

Yes, this 1000 times over.  If the EEE isn't appealing enough yet, I say wait another year or two.  Or get the 701 series because of how damn inexpensive it is, and get something better later on.

[Van Cruncheon]

hope it's not an overheating issue, since this 15MB/sec 16GB sandisk card i bought was $120

[MrAngryFace]

I wouldnt recommend gaming on a subnotebook unless youre talking 1999 era stuff

It is amazing to see what people have managed to get running on the EEE.  There's vids on Youtube of games like Grand Theft Auto III/Vice City, WoW, and even UT2004 (the guy is running it off of his iPod!) running.  The frame rates leave a lot to be desired though.  I can't see how the hell someone could play an MMORPG on such a tiny machine.  Pretty much anyone playing these games decently has 2gb of ram installed and is running the machine "overclocked" at 900mhz.

I'm just interested in throwing MAME on there.  People also say CPS3 emulation works well, and it would be pretty cool to see SF3 running.

But if you want portable gaming, get a PSP or DS. 

The big thing against the MSI Wind is that it's not solid state. EEE PC is still the best option right now.

Yes, this 1000 times over.  If the EEE isn't appealing enough yet, I say wait another year or two.  Or get the 701 series because of how damn inexpensive it is, and get something better later on.

well diablo 2!

[pilonv1]

im looking at putting Fallout 1+2 on mine when I get it.

[TVC15]

The only games I'd even try to put on it are D2 and some of the Infinity Engine games (I never beat IWD2 or the BG2 expansion).  Not saying I'd even put games on it, but that'd be all I'd try.  Those 2d games would look like buttsex on that tiny screen.

[bork]

It came in!  It's here in front of me...about to turn it on for the first time!   

Hopefully popping in the ram is as easy as it sounds...

EDIT: That was easy.  HOLY SHIT at how quiet this thing runs-- not a sound!  The fans haven't kicked in yet...

[bork]

Size comparison.  It really is small, and I am extremely impressed with the screen quality.  The web cam, too!

[MrAngryFace]

SF3 > Garou, sorry

[bork]

Forget 3D stuff. Just forget that it exists. Just for kicks get the Quake 3 Arena demo (48 MB, HERE). Turn all options on and to the highest level. Open console (~) and type: timedemo 1. Then run DEMO0001 from the main menu. See the result. If you get anything < 40 fps then FORGET 3D GAMING EVER EXISTED.

Emulators should run like a breeze on it. Even NeoRageX or WinKawaks.

How can I check the number of frames it's outputting?

Running at 900mhz, that Quake III demo was buttery smooth.

[bork]

LOL is that a canned coffee??? (WTF?)

And SF3? Play Garou instead!

I tried SF3 because that's something I still can't play on my PSP.  I like Garou more than Strike Three myself, too.     The emulator I used stuttered a little bit here and there (but was quite playable) with SF3, but going to 900mhz solves that problem.

The coffee (and pink phone) is my wife's.