Re: Lasptop virtually pefrect for the road
 

"Asus have just released the EeePC 900, bigger screen, bigger flash drive, choice of Windows or Linux."

I am posting this from my new eee 900 that I got just over a week ago from a UK supplier. I deliberatly waited for thye 900 because of the screen size more than the other changes to spec over the 7 inch machine. The RRP is £329 for either a 16 GB XP box or a 20GB Xandros box. As a windoze user who has gone for the Linux box I am both enjoying and hating the learning experience of both getting to grips with Linix and working out what apps I want to run. It is a bit time consuming for a Linux newbee but hopefully it will be worth it in the end because SWMBO has a Vista machine and I hate it, so Linux might be a good thing to get to grips with ready for when XP is obsolete.

Tonight I am going to try to sort out an e-mail client, possibly Evolution.

As a general comment, most peeps who have seen it thing it is a really cool bit of kit. As far as I am concerned i will be happy if it turns out to be better than the Acer Aspire that decided to expire (mobo) just out of warranty.

I (so far) give it a thumbs up for both functionality and portability so far. I know I will never be able to use it as, say, an AutoCAD box but it is horses for courses and if you want to take a laptop travelling, be it on two, four or no wheels, then this machine will be hard to beat as long as it turns out to be fairly robust.

Nice one dude :-)

I said I was going to wait for the 900 but when I saw it at the airport just couldn't hang on!

From what I've seen the extra dosh is well worth it for the extra HD size and more importantly the better screen.

I can't praise my little 4gb one enough - absolutely perfect for what I need.

BTW - a little trick for when you break it (because if you play and you don't know very much about linux...) when you hit the power on button keep hitting F9 - this brings up the 'reinstall factory defaults' option - which is essentially a wipe of the HD and a re-install of xandros.

I'd highly recommend keeping all your files on an external SD card rather than the internal memory - that way you don't lose anything..

Software wise - the only extra thing I'd say to install is VLC player as the bundled movie / music players are not up to much.

hello,

i'm pretty enthousiastic about the eee 900 too. in two weeks i leave on a pan americana trip and i think i will buy a eee 900 in the us. has anyone tried to connect an ipod to it for external storage/backup? and what capacity SD cards can be used? Also 8 Gb?

cheers,
Sander

8gb AND 16gb Here
 

8 and 16gb cards (especially for Asus, gotta have matching white) :=) available here!
A-Data 16GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Eee PC Edition - Retail [Turbo SDHC 16GB With Eee PC] | EXcaliberPC.com

HOW MUCH!!!!

Dear me... sorry they can match as much as they like but I'll be paying 14.99 at play.com

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec...d/Product.html

running this in the eee at the moment - works like a charm.

m

Didn't buy one there! ;=}
 

I didn't say I would EVER buy one there just giving him a place to go
"if money was no object and you REALLY needed a matching one). :=)
I hear there are those out there!!!!! Just got an 8gb at Frys (USA)
yesterday for $19.99.

Review at Play
 

Matt - I don't know what set up your working with and can't be bothered rereading this marathon thread, but the review at the bottom of that memory card on play said:

'brought the card for my eee pc (7" laptop)
Using the internal SD slot I can read data and write files from programs on the laptop but when trying to download off the internet it gave me I/O errors.
switched to a SD card reader and downloads went great.
Then internal SD reader would read the information fine for hours!
So i suggest not buying this card for your eee pc unless you can put it with carry a card reader with you when wanting to download files off the internet.
read and write speeds are fast as expected and overall its a good card, but it is not 100% effective for what i need it for.
(file i was trying to download that gave me errors were two 100mb files. might be ok with less sized files.)'

How strange - I have 2 from play - both work fine.... have done from the get go.

Rick - wow that is a deal!

And here's a great way to match your cheap card to your Asus

http://www.emodels.co.uk/plastic-kits/images/hum34.jpg

At least till the dollar goes down a bit more.

lol... I'm trying to dig out more info on the problems with HC cards - it appears in the first version of the xandros OS there was a problem with the internal card reader - but that was fixed some time ago - which if you think about it is fairly important given the lack of internal storage on the little 2,4 and 8gb machines.

I must admit I thought I was going to miss the 160gb HD on my computer - but actually I'm getting along with the internal 4gb and 8gb SD card just fine - I've forced myself to chose just 1gb of music from my 40gb collection (no bad thing trust me) and I'm deleting videos as I watch them (they're online when I want them again anyway).

For photos, whilst I'm using the ASUS to upload them to flickr etc, I'm actually storing them on folders on the cameras SD card (another 8gb) - according to the display on the camera I can take just over 5000 photos on the card, 2500 if the setting is 'fine' - that should just about do me for four weeks I think!

Rick - sorry dude just re-read my post and it came across a bit harsh.... not what I intended... sorry.

Battery
 

I bought mine at the weekend, a 900 xp thing. You need to whittle windows down and get rid of a load of crap to free up some space, i run most of my apps from portable apps on an sd card.

The battery is a contentious issue in the uk where it has been shipped with a 4400 mah one which is pants, gives a couple of hours only. Theres talk of upgrading existing uk customers with the 5800 it 'should' have sipped with for the princely sum of a tenner. Me? i just spent the extra 20 quid and got a 6600 one from ebay, i got 5 hours out of it today...

Runs mapsource (with maps installed) and memorymap (maps on an sd) perfectly.

Oh and the wireless range is crap too... Apart form that, very pleased bunny.

Ive read on the eeeuser forums alot of stuff on sdhc cards that do and done work, save your money, buy a fat memory stick or two, i did..

Garmin Problem?
 

My problem is, I don't know what crap :=) I can "cut" out without "hurting" it. Although, based on some other reading about Garmin Mapsource "Updates", I am NEVER going to be able to do it. It seems that Mapsource updates require TWICE the space of the actual update (1.4gb X 2 = 2.8) on the boot drive for the install even if the install is being done to another drive. I hope I am wrong cause I don't see being able to get down to 1gb for the OS. Otherwise I love the Eee 900 for everything.

The Eee ships with a CD to help you cut down XP. I haven't used it maybe someone else has. I'm enjoying using Linux for everything else but it would be nice to take mapsource with me on my travels.

I'm using my Eee now, in a hotel in monument valley. It organises my photo's and e-mails like a demon. a great bit of kit. Like you say the battery only lasts 2 hours but I've got a 12v charger now for on the bike. I'm waiting to see how long it takes to charge it from flat.

So I couldn't resist the new 900. I owned both the 900 and the 700 at for a couple of days (just sold the 700 today!!!). I took some pics to compare the sizes.

As you can see, the 900 20G (same size as the 900 12G) screen has 1024×600 as opposed to 800×600 in a case that is about the same size. Those 224 pixels in height really matter!

The Black one is 700 the white one is the new 900.
http://gsomething.com/pics/eee/resized.side_open.png http://gsomething.com/pics/eee/resized.stacked_side.png
http://gsomething.com/pics/eee/resized.top.png
http://gsomething.com/pics/eee/resized.top_closed.png
http://gsomething.com/pics/eee/resized.piled.png
http://gsomething.com/pics/eee/resized.side.png

There's hardly any size difference at all is there.... and that extra screen and HD size will make all the difference.

There are so many new ultra small, ultra light, ultra cheap machines appearing now - but the Asus is still the one everyone compares everything too - have you seen they've announced the 1000?

Photos: Asus Eee PC 1000 and 901 revealed - Crave at CNET.co.uk

http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/la...1000_black.jpg