Pondering a Netbook

October 24th, 2008
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Thought I’d toss this out there to the tech savvy community. I’m looking into the possibility of buying a cheap netbook (laptop without an optical drive, geared for portability and internet type stuff). I work at a bunch of different schools, and to date I’ve been taking a USB flash drive with me that has my browser on it. The only trouble is that I still wind up sitting at a shared teacher’s computer to do whatever it is I’m up to. I hate being a nuisance. Also, I’ve been toying around with the idea of learning Linux for years and years now. The open source nature of it, the recent improvements in eye candy and user friendliness, and my basic inner geek that wants to know how it works have drawn me toward it for a while.

I think I have a good way to go about doing it now. I’ve become enamored of the Asus Eee PC series, specifically the 901. (Click the image for a larger version.) It’s pretty small, and the solid state drives make it reasonably rugged. In short, I could cart it around in my school bag on my scooter without much worry. I’m not sure it’s the best fit for me yet, though. Anybody got any better ideas for a cheaper, better netbook? Made by Asus or any other company?

Since I’m leaning towards Ubuntu as the Linux distro I’d start with, the Asus Eee PC seems to be the logical choice. Ubuntu is pretty popular, and has pretty robust community support. In short – even though the installation process due to no optical drive looks like a pain, I think I stand a better chance of figuring it out than I do of figuring out other distros. There is even a customized version of Ubuntu for the Eee PC series.

So now my question (other than whether to go ahead with it or not) is where to get the best deal, and how to time it right. Scanning the Eee User forums, I found a pretty stellar deal at this place. (The price for an Eee PC 901 White running Linux was $399.99 when I posted this article. The black one used to be the same, but the price has jumped. Sad!) Now I’m wondering if there might be even better online deals available through Black Friday (Day After Thanksgiving) sales. I’m fairly sure that I’d want to buy it stateside and ship it over, because the Japanese Asus site only lists Windows XP models.

Thoughts? This is mostly a courage-building self-convincing post. Ha ha. But still, thoughts? Sorry about the double-tap of non-Japan posts. :-D

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  • Hey, good choice of computer! A friend of mine recently got that computer, and it's pretty nice. Easier adjusting to the computer, since it's not as cramped as the 8.9" versions. Hope it ,meets all your expectations though, heh. Sometimes I regret not getting a 10.2" netbook....
  • I've just ordered an Eee PC 1000HA, and I'm upgrading it to 2 GB of memory. It comes with Windows XP on it, so I'll just install Ubuntu next to it and have a dual boot machine. Easily done with GRUB. :-) I'm stoked. Now if it'd only get here...
  • Let me tell you why you want to try and run Windows Vista on one of these machines if possible.

    You will soon be able to buy one of these:
    http://www.penandfree.com/

    I went to an investor proposal here in Japan (my wife was translating from Korean to Japanese for the business presentation) and this was the product. What it does is turn any standard monitor into a touch screen. It only costs about $80 USD. Pair that with a cheap machine and you've got an affordable tablet PC! I got to play around with it at the meeting, and it's sweet. There's no delay on the input.

    (I should be practicing what I preach but, unfortunately, I don't have any free cash at the moment...) They told my wife and I that they'd send us the product free as a thank-you gift, so hopefully it'll get here soon and I can tell you more about it!

    <abbr>Alexs last blog post was: Dear FOX News,</abbr>
  • Thought you might like to see this link
    http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,4929...

    <abbr>Danielles last blog post was: Tagged! Five Things about me Meme</abbr>
  • I've been avoiding looking at these determined not to jumpin too early (my first generation tablet has been mostly in a drawer since MS screwed the tablet OS in '05) but now they really look like the perfect thing to have while traveling around and even just to have some portability in the house. Damn you, sir, damn you! hehe

    Btw I've tagged you for a meme in my latest post (Nick tagged me first so it's his fault lol)

    <abbr>Danielles last blog post was: Tagged! Five Things about me Meme</abbr>
  • I've not heard anything bad about Linpus Linux Lite, but I haven't heard anything good or neutral about it either. I've never heard of it at all. I keep myself fairly... acquainted... with the Linux community, so that probably means it's not a particularly well-known distro, and the size of the community may be limited.

    Then again, according to Wikipedia it's based on Fedora, which is quite well-known, so you may be able to get some help from the Fedora community if you run into stuff you don't understand. I haven't used Fedora myself (the last rpm-based distro I used was Mandrake 9), but Fedora is extremely common, a quite popular choice, with a large user community.

    <abbr>Jonadab the Unsightly Ones last blog post was: The economy: near death, or cuts and scrapes?</abbr>
  • Nevermind what I said, I seemed to miss that in your original post. Great reading skills huh?

    If you pick one of these up, do please post a review on your website. I'd love to hear more about the EeePC.
  • I thought about getting one of these when I had some plans for traveling at one time. It looks like the perfect type of computer for light computing on the go.

    I think you're going to have to buy outside of Japan though. When I looked into this back in May, the higher-end models were the only thing available, and there was no Linux model available in Japan either. That may have changed, but definitely verifiy that.

    I did read reports that it isn't a very rugged machine. But then again, for that price, what would you expect?
  • Alfred - Thanks! I will take a look at the Acer Aspire One series. Looks pretty similar, here. The only difference I can spot immediately is that the Acer has 16 GB, while the Eee 901 would be 20 (granted, split between 2 SSDs). And the Eee PCs have SD support, as well. That memory expansion thing isn't hugely important to me - space is space, no matter what it's recognized as. Ha ha. But this is great information - I'll definitely follow up on it. And cheers for adding me to your reader! :-)
  • Alfred
    I have your blog on my Google reader, and couldn't pass up putting a comment (or advice, whichever way you take it) about which computer to get.

    Take a look at the Acer Aspire One series. They have SSD and HDD versions, but you're leaning towards the SSD version, as it seems. They run Linpus Linux Lite, which I haven't really heard anything bad about. A good part is that it has "memory expansion," which is, if you insert an SD card into the memory expansion slot, the computer recognizes it as additional space, and adds it towards your total memory. If anything, here's a link at newegg, you can always check it for yourself.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item...

    I hope this helps!
  • Ubuntu is a reasonably good choice of Linux distribution for someone moving over from the Windows world.

    As far as approaching the school tech guy, I would say the best way to do it is to go to him *beforehand* and pitch it like you pitched it here: you've been carrying your data around in a USB 2.0 MSD, but then you have to sit at a teacher's computer, and you don't like being a bother like that, so you're thinking of getting a notebook...

    I'm afraid I can't offer advice about specific models of subnotebook, though. I'm a desktop/tower man myself.

    Jonadab the Unsightly Ones last blog post was: The economy: near death, or cuts and scrapes?
  • Ken - I think a 3G card is out of the question for me. I may be moving back to the states before that 2 year contract would be up, and I basically stay online for as long as possible... A persistent connection is my friend... Plus, I don't believe e-Mobile is even available in my area... (Middle of the Seto Inland Sea, remember?)

    On the other hand - which netbooks draw your eye? If the Eee PC is slow, are there any in the same price range that you think I should take a look at?

    Update: Oh yeah - and JKKMobile got Vista Ultimate running on an Eee PC 901... It can do HD video too...to the degree that a 1024x600 screen can be "high definition," anyway. And I've seen a few people with recent games installed. Granted, they look like crap, and probably run even worse, but I don't really plan on gaming anyway. I have a desktop for that. :-)
  • The Eee PC is a bit slow as Netbooks go, so I hear, but as long as you're not planning playing the latest and greatest games or running Vista you'll be OK, I think.

    What is a good deal, however, is e-Mobile offering it for 100 yen along with a two-year contract for a 3G data card, which would also solve your problem about being not allowed on the school network, and if you've got a good signal at home, you could even ditch your home net connection!

    I can't find a link, but it used to be at Yodobashi Camera. However, they are offering USB modems for 1 yen and other nice deals right now...

    Ken Y-Ns last blog post was: Murdering curry in Japan
  • Aaron - I've heard the same thing from some other folks, but I have talked to a few teachers. It would seem that if I registered it with each school's tech person (I've seen forms at my base school), that it might fly. That is a valid concern, though. Hmmm. Do you have any recommendations for how to go about approaching the situation so that I would have the best chance of getting a go-ahead?

    By the way - your advice last year when I was talking about it was well received. I tried it out and liked it. Thanks!
  • Aaron
    Ubuntu is great. The EeePC is something I've been interested in as well.

    But I don't think you'll have an easy time getting on the internet with that thing at your schools. At least in my town they had somewhat strict rules about not allowing outside machines on the networks.
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