
I love netbooks but Asus is blowing it - brilliant
http://scripting.com/stories/2010/08/18/iLoveNetbooksButAsusIsBlow.html
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archangel_one
I think Asus had blown it already with no assistance from the iPad. They've
been moving away from their core market for some time - the original 7" Eee
was a hit, but now it seems to have been entirely replaced by larger, more
expensive models.

They've diluted their brand significantly too; originally they were quite
distinct from laptops but now there's a lot of crossover. And far too many
models - a local comparison site pulls up 35 different Asus netbook models -
how am I meant to know the difference between a 1000HA, 1008HA, 1000HE...

I doubt it's such a big deal to most people, but their move towards Windows
really puts me off too. Having the original Eee run Linux was a big draw to
me.

~~~
sliverstorm
The bigger screen size is useful. The 7" was, admittedly, a little too small.

However, you're totally right on everything else. If they could offer $200-250
models again, I might even buy one on impulse.

They really need to compete hard and drive the price down; the Kindle, iPad,
cell phones and new Android tablets are making the market more competitive.

~~~
robryan
The 9inch that I had might be the sweet spot for me. Although it was the
keyboard that killed it for me, slightly small and the tilde key was removed
an all the numbers pushed left as a consequence. Could never really get used
to it.

If they could somehow get a bit more key space on the 9inch that would be good
but otherwise I'd probably need a 10inch. That said very happy with the
mobility vs size tradeoff that my 13inch bmp has.

~~~
pyre
My biggest complaint is that no one is designing a netbook with TrackPoint
rather than a trackpad. (Lenovo doesn't count, b/c their netbook offerings
have been horrid.)

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ja27
Nothing's changing at the low end of the netbook lines because they're all
still shipping with Windows XP or Windows 7 Starter, so the hardware has to be
nearly crippled. Thanks, Microsoft.

But at the higher end there are some neat ones. I got an Asus 1201N, which has
a dual-core Atom, real Windows 7, and HDMI out. Makes a decent travelling
machine and can handle almost any media needs.

~~~
nanairo
Isn't that just an ultra-portable PC, rather than a netbook? I thought the
whole point of a netbook is that it was very cheap but underpowered (though
more than enough for the internet, hence its name).

~~~
zephyrfalcon
That does seem to be the point of netbooks, although I never really understood
the reasoning behind it. It's underpowered but you are supposed to surf the
net with it? If there's one program that is a performance and memory hog, it's
a web browser.

~~~
elblanco
They actually make pretty decent MS-Office machines and super portable dev
boxes.

Or if you want to put together a cheapo NAS, a netbook, a couple USB hubs and
a half dozen 1TB external HD's will serve as a pretty decent NAS for a
fraction of the price with tons more capability.

Or as a little print server or cheapo box to test network junk on

Or a super portable slide presentation machine (with one of those pocket
projectors) for doing pitches (bonus, you can also edit the slides on it!)

They're also small enough to open up all the way in coach on a plane, with
space left over for a mouse and your drink so you can get some work done on a
long flight (whether that be writing documentation, putting together
presentations, hacking some code, or whatever else you want).

On vacations I use mine to offload photos from my camera, then I can go and
sort and edit them while watching TV that night, and it's small enough to fit
in every tiny hotel safe I've ever come across. Being able to do this has
saved more than one traveling companion from disaster...folks who had left
their laptops behind in lieu of a portable HD for offloading their pictures.

They're fast enough to play some old games (I like to play Sim City 4k on
mine), but it plays lots of casual games like plants vs. zombies ok.

or watch some ripped movies, pretty much any ripped DVD will play fine on it
(I also have an external drive I can hook up, but I usually leave that at
home). I have usually a dozen or so movies on mine at any one time. I rarely
turn the hotel TV on when I travel.

I also have about 10GB of old 78s ripped to mp3 on it for background music
when I can't get on the web (<http://78records.cdbpdx.com/>).

It's fast enough to run emulators for anything <= SNES. For a while I had mine
running as a portable Amiga, which was hot.

It's small enough I literally can't tell if it's in my backpack or not, and
it's so small it takes up the same space as a book.

Oh, and I have a few thousand e-books on mine (and comics CBZ, CBRs).

And I have some music production software on it, it's good for most things so
long as I don't rely on too many real-time effects or push the multi-channel
stuff too hard. But I've cranked out a couple decent tunes on it.

It can, in a pinch, act as an emergency swap out for a main computer. My
wife's computer died in an electrical storm, and for a couple weeks, she just
hooked my netbook up to her monitor and ran it at 1680x1050 to get some MS-
Office work done. She plugged a USB keyboard and mouse into the available
slots and still had another left over for her thumb drive she drags back and
forth to work. That basically saved her job over one particularly grueling
project. It wasn't super speedy, but she got her work done.

I'd imagine taking it to school would be perfect because it's so small it fits
on a regular student desk with space left over for a mouse.

You could probably travel with one of these
<https://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/c609/> and get some multi-
monitor goodness from it while on the road.

Overall, I'd say it's probably the best $300 I've ever spent on a piece of
consumer hardware. I do a ton of traveling and my netbook has literally been
around the world with me half a dozen times. I've entirely stopped taking my
regular laptop with me as I found I simply didn't use it and it felt super
bulky in comparison (plus I couldn't figure out what to do with it when I was
out of the hotel room since I couldn't fit it into a safe).

~~~
patrickk
Wow, what a great, comprehensive overview of what can be done with a netbook.
I may have to look into utilising mine more.

I mainly use mine for web surfing when I can't be bothered using my main
machine (duh) and also to download large files overnight. Sometimes I leave it
on for a week at a time. Tip: put your netbook on top of a radiator, which
draws the excess heat away from the underside of the netbook. (Obviously the
radiator has to be turned off.) My Dell Mini 10V tends to get really hot if I
don't.

Here's a great list of classic old PC games you can play on a netbook:

[http://gamingbolt.com/100-games-to-play-on-your-netbook-
or-h...](http://gamingbolt.com/100-games-to-play-on-your-netbook-or-home-
computer)

Google "netbook games" for further inspiration.

~~~
elblanco
> download large files overnight

Yeah, they draw really little power, especially with the screens turned off.
If you need to transfer files, or have a system up sending keep-alive pings or
something that doesn't require a bunch of computation, they're really ideal.

Great link btw!

~~~
patrickk
You're welcome ;-)

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rodh257
If you want to improve a netbook try this:
[http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKPQ...](http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKPQ01)

You can now buy the Pixel Qi (read: replacement for e-ink that does colour and
video) screen and put it in a number of netbooks yourself.

Perhaps Asus are looking at making their own official models with it in there?

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PStamatiou
On the contrary I have been rather impressed with Asus's netbook offerings.
They recently released the Eee 1005PR.. a tiny netbook with a massive 1366x768
resolution in addition to their already ridiculous battery life. I only just
started playing with netbooks recently and have an older Eee and have been
rather happy with it:

[http://paulstamatiou.com/thoughts-on-netbooks-part-2-asus-
ee...](http://paulstamatiou.com/thoughts-on-netbooks-part-2-asus-eee-pc-
edition)

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jrockway
Oh yes, Dave Whiner #.

I like Asus' netbook. I needed an extra Windows box at work, so I picked up a
$300 eeepc. Very useful, and the battery lasts forever. It's like an iPad,
except that I can do whatever I want with it, and it's cheaper.

If this is "failure", I like failure.

~~~
ohashi
I like my Asus too. I had an EEE, now I am on something a bit bigger (UL30V).
It's nice having the performance and battery life (2 graphics cards and
settings that change with 2 keys).

~~~
JeffL
I love my UL30V like no laptop I've ever had. Two dual graphics cards and 12
hours battery are so great, I don't know how other laptops can compete.

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usaar333
"What possible reason would anyone who has one have for buying a new one?"

A low-cost ultra-portable computer?

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jsz0
What could Asus really do to make a netbook better? This is a problem of
working within the constraints of x86/Windows. They can't make them faster
because they're relying on Intel for parts. They can't do a whole lot on the
software side because they're relying on Microsoft for software. I know they
blamed the iPad for poor sales but I think it has more to do with better
competition from Dell, HP and overall saturation of the market. One thing that
is always overlooked with netbooks is that they are a usability nightmare for
a lot of people with the small keyboards, postage stamp sized touchpads, and
super tiny text on a small high resolution display. Those people don't want
netbooks.

~~~
rwmj
You've answered your own question: Use ARM and install a reasonable Linux
Netbook distro (not the lame rubbish they install at the moment).

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sorbus
"Maybe the battery lasts longer, but they maxed out that spec when they hit 7
hours use per charge."

My 1005HA was rated for 10+ hours; running linux I generally got 8-9, but
another person on HN reported 16 hours with Windows 7. It's not like Asus has
been hiding the 10+ hours figure, either; looking through their product
information, it's pretty clearly advertised. Does it take too much effort to
do the basic research to make sure that a statement is correct before claiming
it as truth?

~~~
ent
I understood the maxing out to mean "more than enough" so that increasing it
won't add more value. Of course, that is also quite an arguable point but for
most people it's valid.

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maguay
What's interesting is Asus netbooks have almost disappeared from stores I
regularly shop at, but there's more netbooks in stock than ever. HP + Dell
minis, Acer Aspire One's, and Samsung's nice lineup of netbooks they have this
year. The category is definitely still there, and current-gen netbooks are
actually fairly nice computers, but Asus really isn't the one leading here
anymore...

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EvilDuck1
I don't think Asus's sales drop has anything to do with the iPad - they're in
quite different markets. Look at the price difference of the machines, for
starters, and also the demographics of iPad purchasers - these are mainly
well-off people and I think if they wanted a netbook style machine they'd buy
one as well as an iPad. There may be a small overlap of people who were
looking for a netbook and would/could pay the extra money to buy an iPad
instead, but at about a £300+ price hike I would think that these would be in
the minority - most people who aren't buying Asus are buying other company's
netbooks instead. Asus have had a period of being the dominant seller over
netbooks, but I think a lot of other people are producing more competitive
machines and so Asus are losing share/sales to them, rather than Apple

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neeson
Am I missing something, or is Winer unaware of the EP101TC? My uneducated bet
is that at <$399 it will be the non-iPad iPad to beat.

~~~
brilliant
You're missing something -- the EP101TC isn't something you or I can buy.

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fcmartins
There is no netbook with the fun chips the phone makers added to their
products.

Imagine the cool stuff you could do with a small computer packed with GPS/FM
radio/phone reception/accelerometer/gyroscope.

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abalashov
Just about any netbook is infinitely more useful and usable than an iPad; in
that sense, Asus is not blowing anything.

~~~
ffg
I’m on the road this week for work. The office where I’m working is about a
mile from my hotel, and there’s a cluster of restaurants around, all of which
have wifi. I’m here alone, so no meal companions. I’ve been eating at the
various places, carrying my iPad around and catching up on blogs, Twitter,
Facebook, and the rest while I wait for my meals. I’d never do that with any
laptop, not even the netbook I left at home this week. Why? The iPad starts
instantly, weighs a pound and a half, and doesn’t need sysadmining.

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vaksel
from Asus I imagine they'll end up releasing a $200-300 iPad clone. They have
everything already parts wise.

~~~
potatolicious
... and no software. I'm fairly certain that the iPad's success is 80%
software and 20% hardware.

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maeon3
Maybe Asus does have something in the pipe, but you don't know about it
because they actually keep their secrets and not leak them on purpose.

~~~
lamnk
Maybe this one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_Keyboard> ? I think
they tried but this product didn't gain enough traction as they expected (due
to higher price, lower specs, ...)

Otherwise i must agree with the article. After successfully introducing
netbook concept the EeePC 700 serie, all Asus has done was just milking the
product line with god know how many variations. I mean they have dozens of
models, all has the same configuration: Intel Atom, 1-2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, with
little difference in screen sizes, keyboards layout.

~~~
nanairo
To be honest it's not like Asus was doing so great before the netbook. I am
happy for them 'cause it shows that there is a reward out there for PC makers
that try to innovate (ASUS went up in market share a lot), but I think that
expecting a series of home-runs was a bit optimistic given the company hasn't
changed (or has it?).

Here is to Asus and the hope that they didn't give up after the Eee Keyboard:
some you win, and some you lose, Asus! Keep trying!!! :)

