I am interested in pint-sized, cheap laptops such as this Asus Eee PC. At $499 and weighing only 900 grams, it will allow you to surf the web and type a document in OpenOffice. It runs Linux not Windows. It has a negligible harddrive – about 1.5MB of free space – but you can boost storage with a USB. Sounds great for travelling and for younger kids school needs although the touchpad and keyboard sound a bit dinky. A step in the right direction and competition should deliver improved options over the next year or so.
I first read about this at Troppo. This tiny laptop now on sale in Australia at Myers. (85)
I was initially keen but I reckon in many cases a combo phone pda at around $700 with say a folding keyboard for notetaking is a better buy for many people.
These small pcs would make great corporate pcs for portability where most people only want something for a presentation Powerpoint or OO equivelent and bit of note taking and the odd small fiddle with a spreadsheet, plus email and web – thats about all most work pcs get used for.
I’ve got a combo PDA – phone but I reckon they are too complicated.
I think the phone function should be separate – every time I try to make a call I end up taking a movie of my rugged jaw line.
Your last para spot on – all I want to do is make a Powerpoint presentation and get on the web – with some note taking.