Asus 3ePC

[mrgreen4242]

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9292516116.html

I'm having serious techlust over this thing... (preliminary) specs:

P4-M 600-1.2ghz CPU
512mb RAM (shared with GPU - unknown chip)
2/4/8 gb flash
802.11b/g
10/100 ethernet
USB2.0
7" LCD (probably 800x480)
1/3MP webcam
stereo speakers
microphone
~3 hours battery
$200-300 depending on drive size and whether you get Windows XP or Linux

Now, I know it's not a MacBook... but $200! For someone who only need a limited laptop, and who already has a, say, 30gb iPod for large file storage this would be excellent. There's also talk about it coming pre-configure for VoIP calling which would be a nice perk for travelers.

Anyways, depending on how the actual specs and features turn out when it goes on sale I'll seriously be looking at one of these to add to my Mac desktop.

 

[mkrishnan]

Sounds fun... if this thing had something reasonably like iTunes or Songbird to play songs, the "unspecified MS Office work-alike productivity suite" is the full OOo, and it has AV conferencing support at least for Skype and text IM for the three majors, it might be very nice! Particularly if they offer one for, say, $100 more with more Flash memory, or it ends up coming with a memory slot.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Sounds fun... if this thing had something reasonably like iTunes or Songbird to play songs, the "unspecified MS Office work-alike productivity suite" is the full OOo, and it has AV conferencing support at least for Skype and text IM for the three majors, it might be very nice! Particularly if they offer one for, say, $100 more with more Flash memory, or it ends up coming with a memory slot.

Well, it will apparently run a full versions of XP so iTunes should be no problem, and Skype should be available as well. I guess what I mean is that it's a regular Pentium M at 600-1200mhz and 512mb RAM which is potentially about the same speed as a G4 mini, so not too shabby at all.

 

[dmw007]

Looks pretty cool. The 15 second boot time is incredible in and of itself.

 

[mrgreen4242]

The more I look at this, the more I want one. I really hope that Apple gets on board with this concept... the switcher MacBook, kind of like the mini was.

Sure, it'd be an Apple so it'd be expensive, and packed with extra features, but it's be worth it for OSX. A sub $500 Apple laptop. Drool.

Since that's pretty unlikely (I'm guessing they would, rightly, assume it would leach MacBook sales) I hope that someone either hacks OSX onto it, or makes some nice OSX-ish windows manager plugin for Linux, or something.

Let's see, what else did I want to add to this... oh, co-worker and I were looking at some photos of it and it appears to have 4 USB ports which is nice, VGA out which is awesome (great presentation machine!), and a "mystery" port on the right hand side... looks a little like a CompactFlash or SD slot or something like that. As long as the screen doesn't suck, that slot is a memory upgrade slot, and it's not the 600mhz P-M on the sub-$200 model I'll get in line for this thing. Even if the screen is just OK, the CPU is 600mhz, and that slot isn't anything useful I'll be thinking long and hard about it...