Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Michael Dell gave a quick look of this tiny shiny notebook at the D6 conference today. Gizmodo editor Brian Lam snapped a few pics of the notebook that’ll compete with the ASUS Eee PCs and the HP Mini-note 2133. Dell’s not releasing the details on this one yet, but the Dell blog did have a couple of more pics. The shiny lid looks nice, but the keyboard/palm rests looks too budget for my taste."


Awfully pretty when it is closed, not so much when it is open. I'd like to see someone go in the opposite direction though. No, I don't necessarily want an ugly machine, but since these are lightweight and portable, why not put a little bit into making them rugged rather than pretty. I carry my Asus in my bag all the time, so I'd like to see it be able to take a beating. Seems that for models using an SSD, it would just be a matter of rubberizing the case and perhaps adding some protection for the screen.

"When we first saw the diminutive Asus Eee PC back in the fall of 2007, we were duly impressed by its capability to mix small size with a small price, and rightly predicted it would be popular with consumers and influential with other PC makers (although, to be fair, the OLPC XO and Intel Classmate first blazed the same trail in the education space). Just as the original Eee PC started to feel a bit dated, Asus comes out with an updated version, called the Eee PC 900. Although it occupies only a marginally larger footprint than the original, this new model finds room for a 9-inch screen, accomplished by moving the tiny speakers away from the sides of the lid, leaving more room for the display. With a much more reasonable 1,024x600 resolution (the 7-inch screen was a paltry 800x480), the new Eee PC 900 feels more like a laptop and less like a portable Internet appliance."

I like what they have done with the new model, but unfortunately by doing so, they got rid of one of the best features, the price point. I love the original Asus Eee and the only thing I wanted changed was the screen. They could even keep the smaller screen size and just bump up the resolution and I would be happy and would have upgraded in a minute if that could have been done with just adding say $50 to the price. Unfortunately, at $550, I'll just stick with the current model.