Hacker News Reader

Comment by keltex | Hacker News Reader

I happen to be recovering from the flu and I spending part of the day hanging out on the couch. Instead of dragging my 15" notebook, I grabbed my recently purchased Acer (1810TZ- same form factor but slightly more powerful than the 1410 in the article).

It's an amazing machine. 11" screen. Dual Core. 3GB RAM. 300 GB HD. 8 hrs of battery life. Pretty good build quality. And I can really do my work on it. $550 shipped.

I really can't think of what Apple is going to deliver with their tablet that at twice the price and no keyboard is going to be any better than this machine.

View on HN

Jobs' comment about build quality certainly rang true with me: My 1st generation eeePC basically fell apart after a year.

My EeePc 701 from Nov. 2007 has been rock solid after daily use. I'm now putting it into service as a server. I only stopped using it when someone gave me a 9" Asus for free.

Of course this is just two data points...

My eeePC 701 from january 2008 has been dropped quite a few times (it has been used as a jukebok among bottles and glasses outdoor and fell on the floor, been used by children, and I regularly throw it away to my bed or couch when I'm done with it) and has no problem. It is rock solid, as written on the box. I actually spend more time on it than my powerful 17" laptop. openoffice + instant messaging + firefox + media player = ~80% of my needs. (posted from my netbook)

We have an eeePC at our house. It is one of the seashell models and only 3-4 months old. About two weeks ago, the power supply blew. Once we got a replacement power supply and were able to turn the eeePC back on, the screen had a large, wave-shaped swath of dead pixels at the bottom edge, so bad that the taskbar needed to be moved to the top, in order for Windows to still be usable. I've never had a laptop fail so hard, so soon.

Mine has spent 200,000 miles in my backpack, and it looks the same as the day it came out of the box. (Actually, I replaced the default stickers with some of my own. But you get the idea.)

Thanks for the tip on the 1810 - and hope you feel better.

I have a 17" MBP right now, and while it is one awesome machine.. it's too damn big to haul with me all the time. I'm looking for something small that I can take to meetings or to the coffee shop if I just need to do some surfing/take notes/write a few emails.

I bought a late-model eeePC recently, and one of the biggest behavior changes I've noticed is how willing I am to bring it to meetings. I can grab the thing by the bulging battery pack in the back, and because of its small size it doesn't cause any social awkwardness, as some bigger laptops do by creating a 'wall' between myself and the others in the meeting.

And because of its size, I carry it around like a small notepad. I think this is why netbooks do deserve their own category: they have a different set of use behaviors associated with them than I have ever done with regular laptops.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com