[Leica] Experience with Apple? (Now: liliputing.)

[jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

2008-08-06-23:56:48 Mark Rabiner:
> I see people with 6x9 inch laptops. White ones.
> I want a laptop that size I'd carry it around with me.
> Take it to the movies and to the bathroom.

Funny thing.  I just got one of these...

  
http://www.amazon.com/Display-Intel-Processor-Solid-Battery/dp/B001BYB620/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1218138157&sr=8-2

  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220371

...as a "throw it in a bag when you might not bother to bring a
computer if your lightest one weighs seven pounds" thingie.

And as you suggest, for the first time I found myself answering email
and such while visiting, um, the smallest room in the house.

  http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/686.html

Because the little thing fits on the tiny table where I've been
accustomed to balancing a paperback.

And now, please erase that image from your memory.

The teensy computers have become known as "nettops", because they're
tiny laptops do drag around if you expect to do some keeping in touch
via the 'net, but don't expect to do heavy typing.  Because to be that
small, the keyboard has to have smaller-than-normal spacing, and your
fingers have to kind of scrunch together.  That, and the screen is, yes,
a little smaller than my 17" Macbook Pro.

Of the Asus Eee PCs, the 901 caught my eye because:

  - Of the models which use the newest, lowest power flavor of
    reasonably-speedy Intel x86 processor (the "Atom" family), this is
    the one which is still nice and small (the inch-wider 1000 series
    might be more comfy to use, but gets close to being as big as a
    "real" laptop), and

  - It still has a nice solid-state disk (no hard drive to whir at you
    or bust if you drop it).

And of course you get the Linux flavor, because:

  - You get a more stable and efficient OS, fine for the purposes of
    this sort of machine;

  - With the money saved by not having to buy a Windows license, for the
    same price they get to throw in a nominal 20G of solid-state disk
    instead of 12G;  and

  - Lets face it, Windows is just icky.

The most-comparable Mac is the Macbook Air which manages to be almost as
light as the Eee 901 (2.5 lb 901; 3.0 lb Air) but have a nice big screen
and keyboard and shiny MacOS.  But maybe "nice big" (though really thin)
isn't what you feel like right now.  And for the SSD (Solid State Disk,
mister acronym-hater Rabiner) version of the Air they want $2600.
Versus $600 for the Eee.  An investment versus maybe a what-the-hell.

There's of course more on this whole class of cute little computers:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

  http://www.liliputing.com/