I find it a bit sad that you link to Amazon three times in this post, which reads like it’s an advertisement anyway.
Of course it’s your blog and you can do what you want. I still read and enjoy most of your posts.
Hope everything goes well with you, your wife and your kid!
I bought the same model of the Acer Aspire One a few months ago but in white. I’ve really come to love the little machine. I take it everywhere with me. There is massive potential for these new netbook machines. Especially for schools and college students. I’ve loaded Ubuntu onto my AA0 and I do all of my CS work on it.
I previously owned a Dell XPS M1210 and have really become a fan of the idea of having a small ultraportable, light weight laptop paired with a powerful desktop machine. This way you get the best of both worlds. The desktop would cover any high end needs such HD video and gaming as well as being a container for home media. The netbook would cover the basic needs many people have such as text editing and web browsing. It’s a perfect combination for my life style.
wants
Many long years ago, I had a TRS-102 (I think–a follow-on to the TRS-100 anyway) because I wanted so desperately to be able to carry something small and light enough for my briefcase-like handbag that I could write on for an hour. (If that–it had hardly any storage to go with its three-line window).
It wasn’t there yet, but it was exactly the KIND of thing I was looking for, at a lowish price.
Now I’m broke, and something that has everything I could want and then some at a really low price comes along. MUST GET MONEY!!!
I own an Asprie One 150X. I decided against Linux, even the netbook would be 50 € cheaper (have tried Linux a few times since slackware 96 , have learned to hate it).
I first get rid of a few things:
60 days office trial - bah
extra toolbar in browser - no way - I want the space
Works - no commentadobe acrobat - to big, to clumsy
Next I installed the basic tools. Since it has a seagate harddrive, you can install the Seagate DiscWizard ( a branded version of acranos TrueImage home with less functionality, but hey, no money spend. http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard ). So this is what is needed for easy backup to external disc.
So after a first backup in nearly first install state, there is a list of tools which I def. needed:
Free:
SyncToy http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52displaylang=en Hey, Yodas says: trust microsoft on syncing your files you must
Virtual CloneDrive for easy mounting of disc images http://www.slysoft.com/de/virtual-clonedrive.html
ZipGenius for handling all sorts of compressed files http://zipgenius.altervista.org/zg6/help/index.htm
Mobipocket (hey it has the size for reading ebooks)http://www.mobipocket.com/
Driver for Printer mobile DVB-T Stick
Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition (can’t live without C#) http://www.microsoft.com/Express/
Paint.net (okay it needs some ressources, but is definitly THE free grafik program) http://www.getpaint.net/
PDF Creator http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/ for creating … guess what pdfs
FoxIt Reader http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php - fast pdf reader
Wink http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ for creating screen videos
Pointofix http://www.pointofix.de/ for adding color to screenshoots (directly draw in in frozen screen)
Texxas http://www.texxas.de/ tv planer
Trillian http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/ as multimessanger
IE 7 - can’t live without it and have read the security mailinglist of mozilla, no way that I ever use firefox. Opera was slow on the machine, don’t know why.
Inexpensive:
Mag license (5€total) of
Ashampoo Burning studio 2008 (can produce isos and so on)
Ashampoo Photo Commander (I don’t trust google 
)
Softmaker Office 2006 (50 €) Small office package with very good compatibility to MS Office
Magacine license of (€3,30 total ct’ 04/2008)
Concept Draw 7 (http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/) as Visio alternative
Concept MindMap 4 - Yes i know, but i like mindmapping
Concept Procet 5 - As MS Project Alternative
EDraw 3 SE - just for cases where Concept Draw has drawbacks http://www.edrawsoft.com/
So, that are 58 € for getting development issues and allday things on the machine done. Now going for some entertainment
eets http://www.eetsgame.com/news/index.php (same ct cd) a small game between incredible machine lemmings
Still Life http://www.stilllife-game.com/en/ - dark adventure that flies on the netbook (4,50€ in magazine)
Sam % Max (loved the old ones, love the new ones) http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax/
Other free adventures like the fanadventures ZakMcKracken Broken Sword 2.5 also fit on the machine. ( http://www.zak2.org http://www.brokensword25.com/ )
A few 5 minute games which are a bit different
crayon physic shttp://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon
Marker World (similiar to crayon)
And yet it moves http://www.andyetitmoves.net/
That is all what a machine for project planing, development and a little gaming really needs (okay source control, but… it’s no real development, so syncing to a netdrive of the server which does versioning is all which is needed)
Any other good programms?
h, i forgot, i would never buy a pink device… mine is white.
Jeff, you know this whole netbook thing started off with Asus’ eeePC 701 running a cut-down Linux distro, right? And that they only started putting XP on them afterwards?
Yes, this has been a nice little wedge for Linux. Then Microsoft gave XP a reprieve for netbooks (god help any OEM putting Vista on one of these things), and a lot of the Linux versions got shoved aside. The MSI Wind, for example, only comes with XP.
I’m really looking forward to my Dell Inspiron Mini 9 arriving soon. They just skipped the custom distro bit and went straight for Ubuntu. Handily, Ubuntu just happened to have a netbook-centric interface ready to go…
think i’m getting old,
all the crapware OEMs get paid to include with Linux
yes. OEMs like Asus pay money to get some stuff (like legal DVD viewing (hey and that without an dvd drive) to linux. Asus has developed closed source drivers only for the linux version and also paid a hell lot of money for altering Xandros to fit for the small screen. (Acer has done the same with Linpus…)
So the money they don’t pay for the OS is spend for drivers, altering the OS and so on. Linix therefor is not cheaper. The ikit for 149$ is more a smartphone/pda. The sad thing is, that $ prices are put to € 1:1 or 1: 1.5. For 139,-€ I can buy a brand new Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone (or 400 € more from a well known brand) which can do the same.
One thing that people seldom mention (and the press has not addressed) is the limitations that Microsoft has put on netbooks. Here’s a quick hint… How many netbooks come with high resolution screens (as in above 1024x600) AND an Atom processor of 1.6GHz? Seen any netbooks coming out using the new Atoms with hyperthreading?
Asus makes over a dozen different models of eeePC, but none with high resolution and an atom. HP makes a higher resolution screen, but cripples the machine with a subpar processor.
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=404869 contains some discussion on this issue, along with links to various other sites.
Personally, the first netbook I see with a solid state drive, Atom processor 1.6Ghz, and resolution of 1280x768 (or preferably higher…) will get my money. I’m ready to buy now. No, I don’t care if it has Windows XP or Vista with Aero; in fact I’d prefer Ubuntu with Compiz.
Way to go! I own Acer Aspire One, one with linux os, SSD drive and 7 hours battery life. I LOVE it. 
Of course, since I planned to do some development on it, I installed and modded Ubuntu on it.
Since my old laptop is 13 lb, this lightweight replacement is much easier on my shoulder.
I’m sure you will buy one for yourself soon enough.
I’m a modern but young luddite. I HATE web apps. I have gone to the point of writing HTML scrapers to access webapps from native apps.
Hi Jeff, the co-founder of Wakoopa here. One of the guys in our team is actually an Asus Eee PC fan. I’d highly recommend trying that out for once if you’re into netbooks. Its distro is quite nicely done: http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/
Regarding the rise of web apps: it’s effecting lots of other businesses besides the netbook market, like ours. We’ve started tracking web apps for our users recently, next to Windows and Mac apps. All because the biggest part of our user base (mostly professionals and gamers) was spending more than 50% of their time inside the browser. I can only imagine other developers making some similar decisions recently.
Are you a Wakoopa user too Jeff? Would love to know what apps you’re discovering on a day to day basis. Cal Henderson from Flickr has been doing it for a while, pretty handy: http://wakoopa.com/iamcal
i’m surprised no one has mentioned http://www.umpcportal.com. there is endless news, info, and hands-on experiances for netbooks, UMPCs, MIDs, and many other small mobile computers. i’m a big fan of computers smaller than traditional laptops have been following the tech for a few years now.
i use this for the same purposes:
definitely not for everyone, but it replaced my laptop in ~90% my usage scenerios. funny thing is, it weighs as much as the power adapter of my laptop.
say ‘beep’ if you really do read all the comments.
Oh, and you should really do a post on Chrome…
What Apple tax to run Safari? It runs on Windows too. I’d just stick with Webkit.
I’m a modern but young luddite. I HATE web apps. I have gone to the point of writing HTML scrapers to access webapps from native apps.
What exactly does that gain you?
How many sizes of computer will you eventually buy? The traditional two (laptop and PC) have became three (with the addition of the iPod and blackberry genre) and now 3 becomes 4… I think that #5 will be smaller, as there is no demand for bigger and no room left in the middle. What will smaller look like?
Heck, I hope it looks like a good pair of sunglasses.
Give Google time, and every OS mainstay will be web’d. Email: Check. Office Apps: Check. And, if I press the ‘’ key in gmail, they’ve even given me a game. Check. Google is also a calculator, image creator (just type a few descriptive words), sound creator… it is an oracle, in the original sense.
1008: Student approaches oracle. Master, what is the meaning of logarithm? A logarithm is a mathematical function, and it works like this. And so the master tells him.
2008: Student approaches oracle. logarithm? Results 1 - 10 of about 2,500,000 for logarithm. And so the master tells him.
A bit of a problem for these devices, in that they really need the external internet connection. If you purchase one, and then move to an area without mile after mile of wifi coverage, it becomes much less usable.
The HD is small, you can run Open Office on it, but the flash is gone. Your PC, with it’s wired connection and ample disk space, will be used much more. Be wary of relying on applications and machines beyond your control, they may fail.
As for me? I want one. Yes. I certainly do want one. For all that it is worth, this will be a pretty awesome thing.
Didn’t anyone notice that he’s running Firefox with Adblock Plus on that thing:)?
re: question about upgrading memory:
The ASUS 901 can be unofficially upgraded from 1 GB to 2 GB. There is a description in the reviews for it on amazon.com.
Seems to me that Win2000 would be a good choice for some of these netbooks. Less memory needed, less processes running.
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Microsoft agrees with you…
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/microsoft-windows-the-beginning-of-the-end
i just have to say, for those that want iphone size but with the thinkerability of linux, have a long hard look at what nokia is up to, or maybe the neo freerunner. hell, maybe even the pandora may be interesting.
http://europe.nokia.com/link?cid=PLAIN_TEXT_508842
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://openpandora.org/
yes, only one of those are a phone. but something tells me that for home use, the phone part of the iphone is the least used bit…
it kinda saddens me how microsoft have gone all gorilla on the netbook market tho. i smell them taking a loss on the xp licenses just to make sure the linux mindshare do not increase in the general public.
also, it pains me that each time there is a choice between linux and windows, the linux version is the least powerful one, hardware related.
hell, dell pulled a silly one with making the linux version of their netbook the underperformer, but upgradeable, and then make available rebates on the windows versions that made the most powerful windows version on par in cost with the linux version, pre-upgrades. and the linux version would be, post-upgrades, more expensive then the most powerful windows one, at equal power…
grumble, risk paranoid company leaderships, grumble…