Mar 16 2008
El cheapo sub-notebook thoughts.
I’m currently sitting in the corner of the room, typing on my computer. I’m listening to The Reindeer Section’s brilliantly morose second album, but the speakers are behind me and pointing away from me. I’d much rather be sitting over there, on the sofa.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about laptops. And I honestly have to say I’m being quite tempted by the Asus eee-by-gum-lad. It’s cheap (+1), it runs Linux (+1), it has a small screen (-1), it has a Flash hard disk (+1), it has WiFi and Ethernet (+2, I’m looking at you Apple).
My only reticence is with the keyboard. I’d like a chance to play with one for a while but I can’t find any stockists that are likely to have them on display. (Apparently Toys R Us sell them, but probably locked in boxes if they have any in stock north of the Watford Gap.) If I can happily type on it then it looks like a winner.
A thought just occurs — does it have a hash key?
Edit: Naw, I’ve completely changed my mind. This is what the Dixons website says: “916 kg This is the weight of the appliance in KG”. I’ll never fit that in my bag! ;-)
yeah, cos honestly what kind of second rate notebook wouldn’t have a hash key?
Last time I checked, ideal computing in bruntsfield allegedly had eeeeeeees.
Good to know, Lawrence, cheers! :-)
The Toys ‘R’ Us up at Kinnaird Park had an Eee out on a display thing that you can play with the last time I was there. I have one and I have to say that the keyboard isn’t actually too bad to use after a few hours getting used to it. I can almost type normally on it now.
It does have a hash key (I’m not aware of any key it doesn’t have, although there’s an extra “Fn” modifier you need to use for some); it’s above the return key. I took a picture of the keyboard layout on my mobile but it appears I’ve done something to offend my computer’s USB so I’ll have to boot and post that from the Eee itself…
Actually it was the cable having a bent pin. Fixed now!
Keyboard shot.
It should be noted that I love my Eee very much. It’s an excellent little device.
I’m selling my laptop :) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150226472339
@Calum:
Very interesting to hear. Would you be interested in coming round to show it off some Sunday night if we offered Nigella pudding? ;-)
@Rob:
Also interesting! I may now have to set up an ebay account…
:-)
If you’re really interested (and wanted to do things that way) we could work something out without ebay…
I should add that I had no end of trouble getting the proprietary graphics chipset to work in Ubuntu :(
Of course a greater geek than I may have no trouble…
Nigella pudding would be most acceptable. :)