Since at least 3 members of the board already have one, another has tried one, and 4 more openly covet one, I think this toy deserves its own thread.

If you don't know what it is, Heavyboots posted this link to the Ars Technica in-depth review.

Is it the hottest thing since the last thing starting with a lower case I? Will it enable the geek revolution?

so its mostly an online machine?

I think it's the niche between a PDA and a full-blown laptop. As I have neither, I will probably pass on this too, but it is a cool toy--especially for the price point!

I only skimmed the review and couldn't find an actual quote of how much this thing costs. Unless it is mind blowingly cheap (<$300) I don't see why I would want one.

$400 is what they seem to average on dealnews.com. I am betting either a Black Friday sale or some other holiday sale could push it down to $350 or $300...

I like the idea, very much so.

I would be tempted to use this thing on my two one hour long train rides i'll be doing every day (now that i'm going to work nearly fulltime in brussels). I could see myself using it to do some (web)programming in that lost time.

On the other hand. I never was that good with Linux based systems, so maybe it's not that good an option for me afterall.

it will be interesting to see more hacks....

quote:

I would be tempted to use this thing on my two one hour long train rides i'll be doing every day (now that i'm going to work nearly fulltime in brussels). I could see myself using it to do some (web)programming in that lost time.

That's pretty much the use I was thinking for it. I'd be sold already if it had functional pen input. Did the prototype have that and why would they get rid of it?

What I'd really like is something where the keypad is made out of that stuff coating the iPhones and new iPods that can crack/bend in half to give me a traditional laptop format and then snap back to a slab for tablet usage.... Probably not cheap in the near-term but eventually....

That's going to make blogging soooo easy! I can picture Coachella being full of these next year: laptops are too heavy to carry and phone/PDA inputs are tedious.

Bought mine for travel, specifically for checking gmail, googlemaps (which I use an awful lot, away from home), and for looking up restaurants on yelp and for finding store hours and bus timetables and such.

I've taken it on a couple of light urban hikes already; it's nowhere near as heavy or as cumbersome as a traditional laptop. Forgot it was in the packsack. If the local WiFi's dense enough, it locks on and stays locked. But the thing seems easily fooled; last weekend, I was seeing all kinds of unsecured, 60%- 90% strength signals all around me, and the beast just couldn't latch on. Last night in Chinatown, though, no problems whatsoever.

I'm not gonna count on WiFi. With a cable, it's been flawless.

Only thing it needs for more than casual use is a small travel mouse- the friction pad's a bit tiring after ten minutes. For those late-night restaurant-research sessions for the next day, or for posting something mildly complicated to the board (pictures?), a mouse will be de rigueur.

$400. It was a no-brainer, for me; I decided to buy one the minute I saw a picture, dimensions, and weight. Well worth it.

It's a step up from posting to the board on your hand-cranked toaster oven, then?

If the hard drive was bigger (at least 20G), I would already own it.

For now, I can wait.
But I really really REALLY like the idea.

quote:

Originally posted by colin:

It's a step up from posting to the board on your hand-cranked toaster oven, then?

US CUSTOMS: "What's in this sack?"

OLDMAN: "Coal."

US CUSTOMS: "Coal! For your computer?"

OLDMAN: "Yes, for my compu- - H-How--?"

US CUSTOMS: "I processed you last year."

quote:

Only thing it needs for more than casual use is a small travel mouse- the friction pad's a bit tiring after ten minutes. For those late-night restaurant-research sessions for the next day, or for posting something mildly complicated to the board (pictures?), a mouse will be de rigueur.

are those usb ports i see in the photos?

if so, these are quite nice. i have the V450 for my laptop. nice, compact and comfortable.

SD cards are cheap, and getting bigger, and an iPod makes a handy hard drive, but I think I might wait for the 8G.

It's got more USB ports than a white shark has cloacas. I already bought a $29 infrared mouse for it; works fine, and I won't be too torqued if I leave it in a café or drop it on a concrete floor somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
If the hard drive was bigger (at least 20G), I would already own it.

For now, I can wait.
But I really really REALLY like the idea.

as far as hard drives are concerned, my brother has one of these:



It's really small and 120gb can take you a long way. all you need is a usb port to hook it up.

I'm seriously considering getting myself an Asus when I get to the big apple. Not that I travel much but as a second portable pc it would be really sweet. for hard drive extra space I have my iAudio (20gb) for now. and I really want to see/learn how it is to use a Linux based system. For me it's a plus.

I have one. To compare it to a PDA is a straight up insult. It's a mini-laptop -- it isn't meant to be a dumbed-down personal device, it is really honestly a full blown computer in a tiny package.

I use it to do work: I have TeX installed on it. I have a KDE desktop. I am going to install gcc and fortran tomorrow. It comes with open office and firefox and a bunch of other random things installed (flickr exporter!). I use it to do laptop stuff in places I don't want to haul my macbook around to. It was cheap as chips and just as portable, so it was an easy decision for me. Linux is a huge plus for me since all my work tools are either linux-native or have excellent unixy support.

As the memory is solid state, and not actually a hard drive at all, 4GB is fine for me. There's expansion ports all over the shop if I need more. If there was an actual hard drive in it, it would be more fragile and have shit battery life.

Basically, it rocks.

quote:

Originally posted by symmetry:


I have one. 101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010010101010101001010101010010100101010101001
010100101010101100100101001000101001001010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010
100101010101010010101010100101001010101010010101
00101010101100100101001000101001001010.

101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010100101010101010010101010100101001010101010
010101001010101011001001010010001010010010100101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101
010010101010101001010101010010100101010101001010
100101010101100100101001000101001001010101010101
010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010100
10101010101001010101010010100101010101001010100101010101100100101001000101001001010.

101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010010101001010101010100101010101001010010101010100
101010010101010110010010100100010100100101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010010101010101001010101010010100101010101001010100101010101100100101001000101001001010.

Basically, it rocks.

Yup.

Photos? No one asked, I'll share anyway...