Downtown Memphis Blog

The EeePC is Asus’s ultraportable, supercheap ($300 for the base model), laptop. It’s basically an email and web machine.

It’s essentially supposed to fill the niche between something like a PocketPC or Nokia’s internet tablet and a “real” laptop, with it’s added cost and bulk.

Lacking both a hard drive and an optical drive, it uses solid state memory (flash) for everything. You can choose between 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB with RAM from 512Mb to 1Gb and a 900mhz processor. They run a 7″ screen with built in speakers and a webcam (except on surf models). The ram is upgradable to 2GB, and there’s support for SDHC card, available up to 32GB if you just like throwing away money on the latest and greatest in flash memory that will be $20 in a year, or 16GB for a lot less money. Basically it means you can combine the 4Gb model and the 16Gb card and have a 20Gb laptop for $475ish, $450 if you’re good at checking coupon sites. The ram can be upgraded as well, and there are quite a few windows builds that are… ahem, available on the internet.

Seems pretty ideal to me if you just need something for writing, blogging, email, light web browsing, etc. It should cover most needs while being really really small.

(Picture stolen from google image search)

Anyway, the point of this whole lot of babble is that Asus has recently announced a 9″ screen version, and it’s rumored to be available with XP from the factory.

Read more about it at engadget

I guess I’ll wait it out. Even if I don’t find the larger screen, and the upgrades that go with it, enticing enough to spend the extra coin, there’s going to be a floor of used 7″ models.