Netbooks - Models, Opinions and Reviews Options

[Traian Teglet]

Undoubtedly, ASUS deserves credit for laying the basis for today's netbook market. Until not long ago, the Eee PC was a general name for all small-sized, low-cost (back then), portable computers systems that were announced. However, due to the high number of recently released and rumored devices, another generic term has been adopted, netbook. This is meant to define all small-sized, portable computer systems capable of proving the basic computing features . The question is, which one you prefer, as it seems that the Eee PC has some strong competitors on its tail.

Because so many Eee PC models are available at this point, I've decided to make this poll based on brand names, but you are free to specify which model best fits your requirements.

[Lucian Constanti...]

Uhm, some of those listed are actually Tablet PCs, which i think is a entirely different category and existed long before the netbook or ASUS EeePC.

Now the way i see it, there is no comparison between some of those models and the EeePC because the price is too different. For example the HP Mini Note while it's surely more powerful than the EeePC, is also a lot more expensive. They're in a totally different price range.

The biggest expected competitor for the EeePC is the ACER Aspire One, in both tech specs and price and the latest EeePC 1001 which will come with a 10" display, 2 GB of RAM, 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom CPU is quite pricey. EeePC fans already started complaining that ASUS is destroying the EeePC concept by making it bigger and bigger from model to model and more expensive. The 1001 model is expected to be over $650. At that price you can get a fair laptop.

My favorite at the moment is the ACER Aspire One with some of the optional features, like 1.5 GB RAM instead of the default 512 MB and the 6-cell battery instead of the default 3-cell one. I'm actually considering buying one very soon.