X20 and EEE PC 900A *PICS*

[fixup]

I though it might be interesting to most of us here. The only advantage of X20 is the COLD palm bay because battery (no any heating circuit) is underneath. The 900A is as cold and quiet except the palm bay that's slightly warm if I put my palms on it to let the heat build up. The 900A is in BestBuy stores for $300 and 900HA is the same size with a very quiet and fast 5400rpm 2.5" Seagate 160GB HDD and a 0.3M (640x480) webcam for $350. 900A has a tested 4 hour battery life while the 900HA is 5. 900A is exactly 2.2lb while the 900HA is 2.5. The ac adapter is very cutely small and light. Building quality is second to none, a huge surprise for $300, inside and out (yes I have opened the case to see what's inside).

IBM(Lenovo) need to work hard to catch up in this game. The ideapad is a joke, large, hot and short battery life, full of cheap glossy plastics. Not sure about its noise as I only played it in a very noisy store. There is no any reason for me to swap my X20 for it.

At home, I still love to use my X20; but on road it is the 900A with me from now on.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/fixup77/SQPPluZE1c ... 00x600.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/fixup77/SQPPln93Yy ... 00x600.jpg

Admin note: Please put *PIC* warning in subject line and keep images ~50KB.

[Raceboy]

Nice comparison pics! Thanks!

As I recently bought X24, I've had ALL X2 series laptops to play and the best of them is X23. Why? Because with 866MHz Low Voltage Tualatin (133MHz bus+512KB L2) it is pretty much as fast as X24 with 1.13 GHz CPU but the latter is MUCH hotter and noisier due to not having LV CPU. The fan is on much more often, on X23 you barely hear it even in quiet room.

And X22-23 are much cooler and quieter than X20.

[onigiri]

I had a 900 before I got my x31. I found the EEE to be too slow (well, for one the music would LAG every time a page would load on firefox - maybe it was more some other issue?). But the 900 I had was a celeron 900mhz. I think the 900A might have the atom processor now (not sure). Also, as time passed, I found the 900 to actually be to small for me. I felt very limited (got annoyed with how things fit on the screen, and low/slow ssd), and the keyboard was horrible! (Though may have improved on the 900A). If you were typing on that thing, every few words, a key would not register and you'd have to press it twice. Also, I realize the x20 might be completely different than the x31. Overall I'm glad I settled for my x31 (cheaper than any netbook I could get now that was decent and had a hard drive). And it didn't help I was new to linux, it took forever just to have wine installed and working.

But to each their own. I was actually looking at netbooks again today, and some just look so tempting! Though there are so many models out now that it is hard to choose. All with basically around the same specs, I think the deciding factor for me would be the design, built quality, and cost.

[fixup]

The 900a is just a 900 with an Atom 1.6GHz CPU. Because Atom uses much less power, the battery life is doubled and heat is no longer an issue.

If you want something that's smaller than X20, this 900A or 900HA is the very best choice. If you don't like slow and small SSD, then the 900HA is the one with a 160GB HDD. Both are as quiet and cool as my X20. Other netbooks are hot and/or noisy, and more expensive.

Of course, the first thing is to install XP. With a crippled version of Linux, it is truly a netbook only. But once you have XP installed, it is a full-power laptop that happens to be ultra portable and dead cheap.

If you're looking for a netbook as large as X20, I don't know why you want to do that. If I need anything that's bigger than 9", I'd buy a used X20/30/40 (the cool and quiet ones) without a second thought.

If you want something between the X20 and 9", then the 1000HA should the one you take a look at first.

[onigiri]

Oh yes, I actually prefer a bigger screen (max 12") but thin and light weight but thought they were too expensive (until I found out about used thinkpads!). I'm a student, so I carry a lot of notebooks and textbooks around with me. So the small size of the EEE felt awkward in my bag along my full sized books.

But I had the old 700 and the 900 after, so I never got to experience the more powerful notebooks with improved...well, everything. Perhaps installing XP would have changed the experience. I could never install anything I wanted. :S

On an unrelated note - I was visiting future shop today and browsed through the laptops. Is it me or are they getting bigger and bulkier than ever? It was especially funny seeing them beside the Acer Aspire One. One thing I hated when I had bought a 14" HP (ugh) laptop was the bulky size and heavy weight. Not to mention the design..

[comptiger5000]

Yes, laptops (except Thinkpads) are bulking up. I have my old Compaq R4000 15.4" here, it's 2" thick and weighs 8.5 lbs (more than a W700)

[j-dawg]

Netbooks are becoming a more viable prospect by the day, with more and more software being tailored for that market. The best part of the netbook revolution is that it drives down demand for old ultraportables, meaning more cheap X-series Thinkpads for us...but at the same time, I still want a Lenovo S10 or an Acer Aspire One.

Given $400 and a choice, I don' t know if I'd pick one of those or a used Thinkpad. The possibility of a warrant y and a relatively modern spec is too tempting. And Dell just launched a 12" netbook, making the choice even harder.

[dwilsonfl]

Yep, still looking at them too and weighing the new vs used X series thinkpads.

HP mininote, S10 versus X31, X41

Plus on new is videocam, warranty, and new
Plus on X series is speed, cost and quality


decisions decisions

[DPHMIN]

Thanks for the pictures. I recently saw a EEE PC 900 at Domededovo airport in Moscow. I like the size of it - it seemed to be smaller than the TP240 I had with me - but I hate a glidepad mouse.

I recently used a Dell with glidepad, and the lack of a scroll button (like my X23 has) was disconcerting, as was the need to move my finger at least once to move the mouse pointer across the screen.

The price you quoted would make it tempting, but I think I still prefer a TP X series. If they would only make one with a trackpoint...

[phr]

How can anybody be talking about the ghz or disk space of these things when the most important difference is the keyboard. I have a (now dead) 240, and a 235 (even smaller), and an EEE 701 (same keyboard as 900) and the EEE keyboard is practically unusuable except for very light duty web surfing and sending an occasional short email. I use my 701 with an external keyboard at work, which is actually pretty tolerable, but there goes the mobility. An X series Thinkpad is quite a bit better but infinitely more usable because of the bigger screen and real keyboard. The CPU speed is practically irrelevant.