I love netbooks but Asus is blowing it | Hacker News Reader

I love netbooks but Asus is blowing it

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46 pointsbrilliant56 comments

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.

Asus wanted. Some time ago Asus had preparations to introduce non-x86 (but ARM) based netbook. It would be cheap, use less power, you name it (iPad is also ARM based). But Microsoft and Intel twisted Asus' arm, and Asus even had to publicly apologize for mentioning "the product that is not going to be."

It still boggles me that ARM is everywhere and Intel still gets to call the shots in the market. I hope that doesn't last much longer.

MS calls the shots.

Asus can ship a linux machine, but then they will have to go and buy the copies of Windows for all their other machines from BestBuy

Considering that Microsoft just announced they're going to be licensing ARM cores, maybe they're realizing Intel isn't going to work for future mobile devices.

The different model numbers has put me off from purchasing a product as there is no clear way for me to figure out which one has higher specs, not only that but based on just the model number I can't tell the difference apart.

After serious searching, I found that the 1005PE and 1005PR are good models. The 1005PE has a '14 hours' battery life, and the 1005PR has '11 hours' battery live, but with increased screen resolution and a built-in HD decoder chip (allowing it to play 1080p). [The only issue with the 1005PR was that a lot of people were complaining about getting products with the HD chip missing or non-functional out-of-the-box.] I'm typing this on a 1005PE now. My only complaint is that I couldn't upgrade to 4GB of RAM (which I'm not necessarily hugely upset about).

You're totally right. All they had to do was keep things simple. Good luck to anyone wading through the (international) product line:

http://www.asus.com/AllProducts.aspx?PG_ID=7dDelmkESu9DXgVB

I actually quite like that table, but it's too bad that none of those are for sale in Canada (well, the ones that run Linux, anyway. There are plenty of Windows 7 ones).

Well, the original 7'' eeepc probably was too small for most people. I personally understood (and welcomed) their move to 9'' models. I personally find it interesting though that they haven't since released a model that offers noticeable improvements over the 901 that was introduced 2 years ago.

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.

Yeah, I agree that it was a bit small for a lot of stuff - but it was a big hit, and I find it really strange that they responded to that success by changing the product. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the success was due to it being cheap enough to be almost disposable - I've known several people take them places that they wouldn't take a laptop. Increasing the screen size and doubling the price loses that.

Not just Asus: The original mini was small and cheap, the new mini is the size (and cost) of a low end BMW - ditto the VW Golf and Beatle

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.

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.)

If they could even design a model with a bigger keyboard and a screen that took up less than the available space to keep the price low, they might get fat fingered people like myself to consider one.

I don't necessarily mind the small screen, but the keyboard size keeps me from seriously considering a netbook.

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.

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).

Microsoft still sells XP to Netbook OEMs, but places hard (they don't change over time) limits on the hardware they can use

[Edit: can find very little on the XP limitations, apart from a 1Gb memory limit, but found the following conditions on using Win 7 Starter

* Screens cannot exceed 10.2 inches

* Maximum 1 GB of RAM

* Maximum 250 GB HDD or 64 SSD

* CPU must not exceed 2 GHz, and have a CPU thermal design power that is less than or equal to 15 W, not including the graphics and chipset.]

You've basically just listed the specs for my new Samsung netbook. I'm really not sure how to feel about the fact that it's design was dictated by the fact that it shipped with Windows 7 starter.

It's one of the best things I've bought in a while, though some level of credit for that has to go to Ubuntu which I stuck on it shortly after getting it. I did actually give Windows 7 a go and think about dual-booting, as I thought they might work better with Flash and the touchscreen, the combination of which make this a good iPad alternative for my young son too.

I was somewhat relieved to find that both performed better under Ubuntu and various other annoyances with Windows 7 led to it getting wiped completely.

Honestly, what's the difference? I'd kill for a netbook's performance ten years ago, even if it was in a desktop form factor. I laugh at what is considered "underpowered" nowadays.

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.

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).

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...

Google "netbook games" for further inspiration.

> 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!

You're welcome ;-)

> If there's one program that is a performance and memory hog, it's Flash video.

FTFY, based on my experience with my Eee 1005HA. Web's fine, but the world hurts when I try to view Flash video. Doubling the RAM to 2 GB helped with everything else. To be fair, I haven't tried to view any other video on this thing...

> If there's one program that is a performance and memory hog, it's a program that consumes a lot of memory and CPU.

If we're getting into this dumb meme, then FTFY.

It's a cliched rhetorical device, not a meme.

Do you know what a meme is? How could a cliched rhetorical device not be one?

Probably, but IMHO one key difference. A few years ago the "midrange" Ultraportable was like $1200. I just picked up a Toshiba T115D-S1125 w/11" screen, dual core athlon, radeon 3200, and Win7 x64 (2gb) for under $500

It's a great little machine and actually has pretty decent battery life as well.

If you want to improve a netbook try this: http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKPQ...

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?

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...

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.

Good point. Plus, Asus opened up a whole new category of computers, and the general netbook move put more emphasis on portability and battery life on all laptops. Let's not forget that!

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).

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.

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.

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

   > This is a problem of working within the constraints 
   >  of x86/Windows.

Windows, you said it. Asus and Acer sold tons of linux netbooks until microsoft used their big iron monopoly fist. Thinking of it, don't you feel that warm fuzzy feeling towards RMS?

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

A low-cost ultra-portable computer?

"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?

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.

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...

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Asus-Eee-Pad-EP101TC...

Monochrome this October. Color next March.

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.

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.

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!!! :)

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