I was just pondering that, if Asus had chosen PPC (or another RISC) for its Eee PC, rather than Intel, the Eee would have an even better battery life. Anyone know about cost difference?
Also (strategic side-effect) there wouldn’t have been the whole “it will now be preloaded with Windows at some major retailers” foo. Seeing MYER sell the Eee (with GNU Linux) was just good. In future, I understand, only “specialist stores” will be doing the Linux version, with the major shops doing the Windows version. Pity.
This is not an ordinary PC, no sense going mainstream just for the sake of it.
I bought mine from Myer, shortly after they were released. It was great. They were on display “front and center” – running Linux. I bet most people didn’t even realise what the OS was (is)…
Mark Unwin.
I just ordered one through http://www.catchoftheday.com.au/ ($327 + about $15 postage), with the fast startup it should be great for Phoebe who loves to play with “the puter”. She uses GCompris (for now, just the games that teach her to get to grips with the mouse), and just any text editor so she can bash some keys ;-)
If it’s not super-suitable for, I might find another use, or another good home for it… at that price, worth a try.
A SARM233/XScale based solution would have been interesting … but it does make the device kinda look like a Nintendo DS.
Besides going “socket intel” allows ASUS multiple kernel vectors. Also Marvell’s 5th gen ARM … not so hot … actually very very hot and a bitch to work on. :)
I understand that in about July/Aug they will be releasing an Eee based on the Intel Atom chips – which will be reducing the power consumption of the CPU by a lot.