Now that the OLPC has risen in price to $188, I ought to be discouraged. The inexpensive laptop just gets more expensive.
That is, I would except for the news I began reading about last week concerning Asus's new laptop: the Eee PC. For those who have not heard of Asus before, they have been a leader in computer desktop hardware components for years.
Earliest news about the Eee PC indicated that the low end model would run $199. The current rumor is the lowest price model shipped in the US will be $259.
We'll have to wait until the Eee PC comes out in the next month or so to find out for certain which model will be available. But what we do know is that the first Eee PC models will have a 7" screen, uses a Flash Memory drive (2GB/4GB) instead of a mechanical hard drive, has built in wifi, usb, card reader, and even an optional web camera on higher end models. But most important, it comes with Linux instead of Windows :-)
See these two reviews for more information:
So I wonder... Is this a new trend in lower end laptops? What will a $250 laptop do for computer ubiquity? Will it put laptops in a price range that many college level students can now afford? Are we a society ready for ultra portable computer devices so that we can stay interconnected (I think the Eee PC is supposed to weigh in at around 2 lbs)? Will the Eee PC usher in a generation of users that see Linux as equitable to Windows?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, I want one. I want one! :-)
