21
Jan
Last week Walt Mossberg reviewed the EEE PC (4 months after release, which is a little late for him) and claims he does not like it. Normally I enjoy reading what Mossberg thinks of a product, especially since he gets them a few weeks before release, but I can’t help thinking he’s completely missed the point of this product.
His main concern is that "it’s too cramped". My response? "well duh!". Of course it’s cramped. It’s a 7" notebook that weighs 2 pounds, it also costs a quarter of most other ultra portables.
Mossberg criticism aside, there is no denying the success of the EEE PC. Asus has sold 400,000 of them in the short 3 months since its launch and is projected to sell another 4-8 million of them in 2008. To put things in perspective; that is almost the same number of machines Apple will sell.
It’s also hard to deny that the machine is "lacking" a little in the features department. Asus clearly made some sacrifices to keep the cost down.
Thankfully it seems that the EEE is perfect for the mad scientist style hacker. Take for example this machine. What started as a basic EEE PC now has GPS, FM transmitter, SDHC card reader, Bluetooth, 802.11n wifi, 2Gb ram and a modem. All for the additional low low price of just $450. Or this guy, who has added 3G wireless and a touch screen to his EEE.
Asus clearly have a winner, and it’s great to see that they are already planning better versions, but it’ll be important to keep the price low. Part of the success of the EEE is always going to be that magical $199 price point they promised us.
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