Just curious if anyone out there in FM land is using the Asus EEE PC for a travel laptop? I am considering one of these along with two small external HDs for storage. If you are or have used one, I would love to hear your thoughts.
battery life is not good. screen is also acceptable at best. keyboard is barely usable if you are used to typing on a full sized keyboard. your fingers go to the wrong places. the 700 series are slow. the 900 series is faster, but still not fast. i use mine for a short distance travel prepared slideshow viewer and that is all.
For travelling? Sure, why not? Check your mail, browse the net, and backup your memory cards, I don't think you are gonna play far cry 2 on it anyway. B&H is always "at your service", don't like it? Return it.
However, I would think they're going to be too slow to process raw files and run Photoshop. I haven't used one myself, but I believe the speed of the processor is going to be slower than a Celeron. These mini PCs are meant for web-browsing and online chatting.
I'm actually looking for a small "live out of my backpack for a few months" notebook as well. If i wasn't limited on the amount of gear I can carry Id happily to my Macbook pro. Unfortunately I wont have the luxury of carrying a full size camera bag so the notebook I do take must fit in my backpack. I haven't done much research but I ruled out the Eeepc a while ago because its no better than taking a portable storage unit and much more expensive. The units I am considering are:
The previously mentioned HP. The new ultramobile Dell Latitudes (not out yet), and the much rumored redesigned Macbook. The Hp is available now, the Dell wont be ready till September and the the macbook will probably be available in early October. I wont need it until the end of october so I'm going to wait to see what happens.
I have not used the EEE Pc...however I do use a Sony ux380n...which I love...put the larger battery on it and you can get about 4 to 5 hours out of it...and standby of a little over a day..(have to set up the custom power features)...it is small about the size of the d300 body...
Or you can do one of the OQO laptops....I have one of these my wife uses on her trips with her company...nice and rugged...just slower than the Sony...
I think it's worth waiting for the next models (and other competitors next model answers to the eeePC) before buying it. The worst thing you want to do is feel buyer's remorse because the product just isn't as good as if you had spent a few hundred dollars more for a real laptop.
i've played around with the 1000 series model and think its quite nice for document editing and web browsing, but would seriously be worried about its performance with adobe programs. i don't believe it has enough muscle to work with photoshop or bridge for that matter.
if youre considering taking along hard drives than a slightly larger, more beefy laptop shouldn't be too much of a hassle. lenovo thinkpads are legendary.
I would have to agree with both Fusiongt and Carl....if you want a something that will edit while you are their the two UMPC's that I told you about will not do the trick...however if you want something that will work for internet, email, and storage....with the ability to do limited editing...the two above will work great...you can load both PS and NX or NX2 on these units....the keyboard and mouse are just to small to let you do any really serious work...
Patrick Cox wrote:
Just curious if anyone out there in FM land is using the Asus EEE PC for a travel laptop? I am considering one of these along with two small external HDs for storage. If you are or have used one, I would love to hear your thoughts.
It depends what you want to do with it. My experience with a 701 is that it is fine for batch processing and simple tasks - but not so good for heavy number crunching or jobs requiring lots of screen area. The keyboard is small, but usable (especially after a few days of use). I have not tried using it with external usb disks, but I have not had good experiences with usb disks and other computers. As long as you are doing your transfers in small chunks, I think you should be fine.
Get a macbook. Battery life is great. It is small and light, and efficient.
Plus, you can run windows on it if you need to.
In fact, vista runs better on a macbook. (but it still stinks)
They're not cheap, but you can get used on ebay for a decent price.
That said. My hubby got a decent laptop the other day. It was a sony vaio that was in best buy for $599.
Patrick Cox wrote:
Just curious if anyone out there in FM land is using the Asus EEE PC for a travel laptop? I am considering one of these along with two small external HDs for storage. If you are or have used one, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!
Pat
I've had a 701 for about 6 months. Here is some feedback on it
- I don't use the eee for photo editing - the screen is too small
- the "clicker" is a little stiff and takes some getting used to
- the keyboard is small but useable if you practice on it for a while
- my model has a 4 GB SSD which is too small for photo storage. I normally plug in an external 2.5 inch USB hard drive or portable CD burner or USB flash drive with no problems
- the power adapter is small and the prongs fold flat so its easy to travel with
- I've ditched the Linux OS that comes pre-installed for WIndows 2000. Boot up is quick and gives me all of the functionality that I need
- the eee is perfect for web browsing and email and light word prcessing
If you're looking for a small travel laptop then you may want to look at either the HP MiniNote with the Intel Atom processor or the MSI Wind with Atom processor and 10 inch screen. I'm strongly leaning towards picking up the MSI - RAM and hard drive are upgradeable and the screen is larger than the HP. It also comes with XP pre-installed. In Canada the MSI is almost $200 cheaper than the HP.
tghd wrote:
I'm actually looking for a small "live out of my backpack for a few months" notebook as well. If i wasn't limited on the amount of gear I can carry Id happily to my Macbook pro. Unfortunately I wont have the luxury of carrying a full size camera bag so the notebook I do take must fit in my backpack. I haven't done much research but I ruled out the Eeepc a while ago because its no better than taking a portable storage unit and much more expensive. The units I am considering are:
The previously mentioned HP. The new ultramobile Dell Latitudes (not out yet), and the much rumored redesigned Macbook. The Hp is available now, the Dell wont be ready till September and the the macbook will probably be available in early October. I wont need it until the end of october so I'm going to wait to see what happens. ...Show more →
I think this is very relevant, I do a lot of travelling for work and although I don't need to edit, I do use a laptop for culling, cropping, downloading CF cards to an external drive, etc. My Toshiba is ultra reliable but the battery life stinks at 1.2 hours, it's big, bulky and heavy and my hand luggage gets weighed! I'm fed up of going through baggage control with batteries in my pockets. The Macbook is light and has a good battery life but is expensive. The new Dell's are rumoured to be released at much the same price as a Macbook and I know which I would choose for the money, especially as you can get a bullet proof 3 year mac worldwide warranty which would suit me down to the ground. That is eventhough the battery life of those Dell's will be incredible. WIth the rumour of the new Macbook we can hope for some good deals on the current model soon I hope!
Just for reference, I tried the ASUS and decided the keyboard was too small so I returned it and then purchased a Lenovo X61. After finishing a one week trip with the X61, here are my thoughts...
-To save on weight, I opted for the smaller battery. This was a mistake. I only have about 2 hours and ended up wishing I had more.
-The portability and size of the X61 are outstanding. The keyboard is excellent as well. Very usable.
-The screen that came with mine is awful! I can't judge anything but composition and sharpness. If there is a screen upgrade, I would consider this.
-With the dual core processor, this machine is faster than my desktop at home. (I guess it is time to upgrade the desktop! )
Overall I am very happy with my choice but I would make a few changes per above.
If you are interested in an EEE PC check out the 901 or 1000 models with XP on them. These offer the Atom processor and the best combination of features in a small package. IMO
Anyone looking for a really small laptop, with decent battery life, should try to wait until the end of the year.
Intel will be releasing the Nehalem chips soon, and they should find their way into Laptops before they even hit the retail cpu market. These won't be faster than the current Penryns (in fact, they will be slower for multi-tasking) but they will be vastly more energy-efficient. The key word here is "vastly."
Does anyone have any updates on how the ASUS can handle Lightroom?
I´m living out of a backpack right now, so space, weight, and price are big factors for me. Do any of the newest crop of netbooks (ASUS 1000, Acer Aspire One, Dell, HP, Samsung) handle LR? They seem to have the suggested available RAM, but can the Intel Atom processor (1.6 GHz) handle photo-processing?
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