The Asus Eee PC currently faces some competition with various similar-sized alternatives like the XO, the Intel Classmate PC, the Everex Cloudbook and (for some) even the Apple Macbook Air. And recently rumors have it that Acer is planning an ultraportable release.
Here’s another rumor: MSI might come out with an ultraportable of its own. Via HLWT:
MSI looks like it is going to utilize Intels new 45nm Diamondville processor for its rumored ultraportable. The new Intel processor has been specifically engineered for low power portables but it looks like MSI may be the first out of the gate with an actual product with this new chip inside. The Diamondville will be officially announced in April yet but MSI has already gave word that when the chip is “ready” then their own project will be “ready”, too. Expect the new MSI ultraportables to be in the market by July or August this year.
Smallest MSI notebooks I’ve seen so far are sized 11-plus inches. So I think they won’t be far behind in developing an ulraportable close to the size and specs of the Eee. Question is–how soon?
The LG KU250 is touted as the “3G for all” phone, being the cheapest 3G-enabled phone around. It usually retails for just over $100 (bought mine for about $142).
In my country 3G / GPRS rates are not really cheap, but one of the operators–Smart–offers unlimited connectivity for PhP 10 per 30 minutes. That’s approximately 48 cents per hour. That’s using a prepaid SIM card that costs less than a dollar to purchase.
That’s cheap enough for backup connectivity, i.e., when there’s no WiFi hotspot around, or when your home DSL or cable connection is down.
There is one other option–a Huawei 220 3G modem. Smart also offers a postpaid plan, which includes this device, for PhP 799 per month, plus an initial PhP 2,000 for the modem (about $20 per month, plus $48 initial for the modem). This is for 60 hours of connectivity. You pay an added PhP 10 per 30mins in excess, which is same as the prepaid rate.
However, I already bought myself an LG KU250 for this purpose a few months back, and I didn’t want to spend unnecessarily. Also, my 3G connectivity only serves as backup, and when I’m mobile. So no point in paying for a plan I might not be able to consume.
I wracked my brains trying to figure out how to connect the KU250 to the Eee via bluetooth. But that seems to be complicated on the default Xandros installation that comes with the Eee. BT is easy enough on Ubuntu, but not on Xandros, since various essential Bluez utilities are not pre-installed and/or incompatible and/or difficult to set up.
So I tried another option–connecting the KU250 with the supplied data cable. Following the instructions on this Eeeuser forum page, I was able to successfully connect over a 3G connection. Actually, I attempted this after I saw that Xandros detected the KU250 as a modem under Control Center. I was a bit surprised that this worked.
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One thing I loved about my old PowerBook (and any Mac laptop in general) was that the sleep times were very long. For some reason, the OS or the architecture of Apple notebooks was so power-efficient that you can actually leave it on standby mode (called sleep by Mac users) for days, but the drain would be very minimal (about 2 % per day or so).
One of my other laptops, a Compaq V2000, wasn’t so great with standby times. It would eat about 5% per hour. So leaving the laptop sleeping in my bag all day would cause it to drain 1/3 of its battery juice. I’m not so sure if it’s because of the operating system, or simply because of the architecture. I noticed that having the laptop sleep under Windows XP ate a little less power than when it was sleeping under Linux (Ubuntu Feisty Fawn).
Same with the Asus Eee. I’m running the default Xandros OS, and whenever I put the Eee to sleep, it would eat up about 10% of the battery’s remaining capacity every two hours.
Frankly, that sucks. For me, one purpose of having a long sleep mode battery life is so I could just close the lid, stick the laptop in my bag, and go my way. Sleep and recovery times are usually very quick–just under 5 seconds on the Eee. Two seconds to sleep, and about 5 seconds to wake up.
However, do consider that booting up the Eee from a powered-off state only takes about 30 seconds. So there’s no question that booting up is almost as quick as waking up on some other laptops (usually those that run Windows). Still, the point behind sleeping instead of shutting down a laptop is that all your applications and documents are still in the state you left them.
Well, one solution could be auto-startup of your favorite apps. But that’s for another post.
It’s my first time to bring my Asus Eee PC out of the house. I went for a quick cup of coffee at a nearby cafe with the wife and kids. So it’s a field test so to speak.
I got a couple of curious glances from other patrons and passers by. Looks like the Galaxy black Asus Eee PC has that wow factor!
