We haven't had chance to try one yet, but the Asus Eee PC (be warned Asus's website is clunky and slow) has in our view, the potential to turn the portable computing world on its head.
Over the last few months we've begun to see manufacturers such as Apple directly integrating third-party web-based applications such as Google Maps into their devices and Asus have gone a step further by combining free (or advertising driven) applications such as Google Docs, with a free open source operating system (Linux) and low cost solid-state hardware into a cheap, portable device.
The inclusion of wifi, speakers and microphone also means that it's treading on the toes (a little) of Smartphones and the iPhone. Some bloggers (Seb Schmoller for example) see the emergence of low cost solid state devices that rely on the Web for much of their functionality as heralding a shift from a reliance on MS/Apple based operating systems, and given our experience with Windows Vista, that's no bad thing. 2008 is going to be an interesting year.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
You can read a short review of the Eee PC on the ESP Projects website (thanks to Morgan Killick for bringing this to my attention).
The Eee PC is also to be made available with MS Windows XP pre-installed, which suggests that Microsoft may be positioning XP as an etnry level OS for solid state devices.
According to The Register - Sony are concerned that the eee PC will force them to compete on price.
Post a Comment