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EDIT: P16,000 for the ASUS eee

ASUS eee

* There has been a price drop in the ASUS eee. It now costs P16,000.00.

Hello ASUS eee. You’re finally here in the Philippines. Your proud owner allowed me to fiddle around with your real estate for the better part of the evening and here are some of the notes I took down:

  • P17,000.00 flat for the mini laptop. The eee runs on a 533MHz processor with 4GB of hard disk space and 512MB of RAM. If you add P1,200.00, you get the RAM bumped up to 1GB
  • Available colors are in white, black, pink and light blue
  • Mouse buttons are a bit hard to press and the mouse pad is a little small
  • Ultra light and ultra small

The best thing about the eee is that it doesn’t feel cheap for P17,000.00. The elegant exterior reminds me of my black MacBook and it comes packed with everything that makes a laptop a great blogging machine. For less than P20,000.00 you get a portable computer with a mic, webcam (with recording capability), WiFi, three USB ports and a SD/MMC card reader. It comes built in with Google Docs, Open Office, Mozilla Firefox 2 and a bunch of other open source applications like the game Mr. Potato Head.

Should I buy this even if I already have a laptop?
Wasn’t this what the Palm Foleo wanted to address? The niche market that allegedly existed between the PDA and laptop converges here to the ultra light ASUS eee. Though the keyboard takes some time to get used to, it is still pretty decent and relatively comfortable to use for typing long documents. You may want to buy an external USB mouse than use the track pad as it feels a little small.

If you already own a notebook computer yet you feel that you can do away with the optical drive and settle for a smaller screen in exchange for portability, I encourage you to give this a try.

Verdict
The ASUS eee is not powerful but it sure is hella convenient for getting your dailies done. The no brainer price is one of its biggest selling points especially if you are a casual computer user.

By Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast and sitting Techbology Editor for The Philippine STAR.

He is also an EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.

42 replies on “EDIT: P16,000 for the ASUS eee”

I wanted to buy this for my daughter but it wasn’t available in Singapore. So I bought something else. I won’t buy anymore. It’s something I like not something I need.

I also read that eee can run OS X which is pretty cool in my opinion. It’s really cheap, even cheaper than an iPhone. I guess it can be considered as a smart buy after all. Does it last as long as it looks and feels?

It’s integrated into the board to save space.
Its storage is its biggest drawback. The OS occupies almost 3gigs so you’re left with just over 1gig of free space. I think it’s actually overpowered for what it can do. You can’t really install a lot of useful programs on it. It may be ok for writing but it can’t really replace a regular laptop

definitely it cant. if you already own a laptop, id suggest using your christmas bonus on something else. what makes the eee shine is that it doesnt look like an el cheap-o.

🙂

The major letdown is the storage space. A measly 4GB of SS drive just doesn’t cut it if you want a real road companion. But as they say, it can’t really replace the laptop.

On the other hand, you can always buy an external drive to compliment its dearth, only that it defeats mobility.

The Eee can run any OS that can fit in the SSD and supported by the specs, actually. You can plug in optical media via USB, and the BIOS supports booting from this drive. So far, I’ve read that Ubuntu and Windows XP can be installed on the Eee.

The cooltoyz demo unit actually runs Windows XP. Problem, though, is that XP, Office and all the MS bloat will eat up about 3 GB of space on the Eee.

My solution is to plug in an SD card for extra storage.

The pre-installed XandrOS is good enough for me, though. I’ve activated the “advanced mode” so I can switch between the “easy” interface and the “advanced” one. When all else fails, the terminal is your friend. 🙂

So now I have two laptops running on linux – Ubuntu and XandrOS

ASUS just announced a more expensive model out with higher storage space. i think this is why there was a price drop. nonetheless, i think the specs vis a vis price for this unit is the sweet spot.

“The cooltoyz demo unit actually runs Windows XP. Problem, though, is that XP, Office and all the MS bloat will eat up about 3 GB of space on the Eee.”

I disagree. With tweaks and all, i was able to install windows XP Pro, MS Office (excel, word, ppt), Ym, AVG Anti virus, Firefox, WMP 11, XPize, Winzip, ccleaner, Acrobat Reader, Xp Codec pack with 400MB Virtual Memory and still have 2.29GB space left. Out of 3.7GB (it’s not exactly 4GB), only 1.4Gb was used.

as mentioned by DL1, will it still be 1.4Gb consummed disc space if your MS Ofc is 2007?

also, is the SSD upgradeable?

hi! i need help. im planning to buy an eee. but i have a few questions in mind?
is it easy to install xp?
and will you encounter problems like “driver issues” for its webcam, touchpad and speakers??
plus, is it true that only 1.4gb is consumed after installing windows XP Pro, MS Office (excel, word, ppt), Ym, AVG Anti virus, Firefox, WMP 11, XPize, Winzip? are you using lite versions?

hey im planning to buy one. but im wondering if this is already available in the philippines. and if there is, do you have any suggestion on where i can find one?

ok pls help me im planing to buy a laptop and this small baby is perfect for me i think since im only a student

but i do have a lot of pictures
is it practical if i buy this 1? and if so should i chose the 8gb w/512 mb memory or am i ok w/ the 4gb?

bought one first week of december. installed windows xp and ms office. had a little over 1.3 gigs left in the memory. bought western digital passport 120 gig external HD which was on sale for around 3k in greenhills and 8 gig SD card and presto! storage problems gone! hehehe

some advice

do not install XP or any windows operating system. the reason why this ships with 512MB ram is because when you run it on a linux based OS like xandros (that it comes with) or ubuntu, 512MB is MORE than enough. xandros is quite good. why would you want a (likely) pirated copy of XP all gimpy and slow, chocked down w/ viruses?

don’t worry about the size of the HD. unless you need to lug around thousands of pictures and full res videos, you will not need much for this. keep all your pics on your regular desktop at home. pick and chose the pics you want to take with you, and be sure to resize them to 640X480. I am always laughing at people who fill their HD with hundreds 6-10MB each pictures that if viewed on a regular res, would take up a 50 inch monitor… why? also, get a DVD shrink program if you like vids, and compress them to 1/6 the size. at this size monitor, it will look clear enough…

when you need to upgrade your memory, say in a year or so, just buy a 8gig SD card when you need one. by then, the price of those will be about half of what they cost now (even now they are not that expensive) or as someone said, a portable 120gig HD would be fine as well. and they are nice and cheap already. (relatively speaking)

the camera is of a good enough quality for “webcam” style pics.

repeat, DONT WASTE THE BEAUTY OF THIS MACHINE WITH XP!!

joaquin

I wonder if this is the same ASUS Mini Notebook that is being offered on a 90 Day Peso Time Deposit currently?

I was reading discussion on PMT Forum that some 12 x Rural banks offering this as a ‘Freebie’ if you place Php250,000 into a 90 Day Peso Time Deposit. If you dont want the ASUS Mini-NMotebook, they offer Php15,000 CASH, so the price looks about right for this model?

The Interest on said 90 Day CTD is 12%pa.

Compared to say BPI, that offers only 3.375% for 91 Day CTD for 200k – < 500k, the Bank seems to be offering very good Interest rate as well as uch ASUS Notebook PC.

Alternatively you could drop to 10%pa on their other 90 Day CTD ‘Promo’ and get an 8GB iPhone (or Php25K CASH alternative, which would probably buy a better Mini-Notebook than this probably?)

I was searching for what Model ASUS Notebook might be offered and came across this website, so thought you guys might like to know it is avilable for FREE?

Bitster

I hope its still available. Its really small and the color pink will definitely suit my personality. haha. its only 15k less so i’ll really purchase one. i just need it for my blogging. ;] really cheap haha. suitable for teens like me 🙂 i’ll buy external hd nalang para sa extra space. :]

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