Cheap Subnotebook Rule Of Thumb

Another good exchange at the NotebookReview.com forum:

My question is, at which point is it a full blown device and at which point is it a basic needs deal?

Reply:

[T]hat’s an excellent question. Although I think there’s a lot of room for improvement with the Eee PC, the fact that it only uses a 4GB SSD/Flash module doesn’t bother me because I have a 16GB SDHC card and a 320GB portable USB drive. I don’t use the Eee PC as a primary computer and since it’s just for travel use or web browsing while I’m on the couch watching TV I don’t mind not having a super fast processor or tons of storage.

That said, I want a notebook that’s smaller than a 10-inch display with a good display that fits a full web page, good battery life for at least 4 hours of continuous use, and enough processor and graphics performance for active web browsing, some light Photoshop work, and some light gaming. I also want to pay less than $500.

I don’t want a heavy-duty Photoshop and video encoding machine because that’s why I have a desktop. I also don’t need 100GB+ of storage because it’s just a short-term travel laptop. I also don’t want to spend more than $500 because I need to travel everywhere with it and I don’t want to be worried about losing an expensive investment.

See, but the damned thing about that Asus is … even when I am looking at the keyboard and aiming my fingers at the keys I want to press, I still wind up with too many damned typos!

And unfortunately, bringing in an 8.9″ screen on the 900 didn’t improve the size of the keyboard.

Perhaps the upcoming version with a 10″ screen will?

My head is still spinning.

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