yes, you can find a 14-15" with a 1-2 year old cpu, and similar age optical and hardrive.

but what the eeepc has going for it is that it has lower weight and size then that of a 12" ultraportable. the ones that normally sell for a premium with high end insides aimed towards corporate road warriors in suits...

its something you can put in a bag or packpack alongside a wallet, phone and paperback book and forget your carrying it. a cheap 15" is to bulky to forget.

I do an unusual thing with my Dell Latitude. I hold it up like a book, more or less, and read it while lying on a couch or bed. I am very near-sighted, so I can hold it closer to my face than normal-visioned folk could do. I do this also with my N800, of course.

If I had a Netbook I would do the same, only it would be lighter and easier to hold. But the screen would be bigger than my N800. Now that I'm not carrying my N800 around with me much (I use my Centro for away-from home Net access anywhere) the reason for it to be pocketable has vanished. So I'm open to something lighter than a laptop but bigger than something that fits in my pocket.

I don't think the eee is the best Netbook out there now. I like the Acer Aspire One, or what I've been reading about it. Then there is whatever Dell is putting together -- I'll follow that with interest.

http://www.liliputing.com/liliputers

Are you coming to the Summit?

1000H Linux is actually cheaper than 901, since it has a HDD. There will be a version with 40GB SSD though.

Acer Aspire is cheaper, but has an awkward touchpad and no bluetooth (even no BT support in the kernel). On features 901/1000H win by much.

woa, no bluetooth in the kernel?!

thanks for the warning. no acer on me then...

Of course in the official kernel and probably they fixed it already. I have a friend who owns one, can ask...

aaahh.. so you're bringing one there? Unfortunately I can't be there, the time frame collides solidly with work.

I would definitely go for solid state for this kind of device.

I'm not sure the M1 will ever go in to production--I got the impression it was more of a prototype and that the company wasn't commenting on its possible availability in future. So much of the hardware shown at IDF never makes it to market. The Gigabyte M528 supposedly is still going to be released in Europe this year, like the BenQ. Also, it looks like the new, lower price of the Gigabyte unit will include the 3G module so you won't need to find hotspots for your data connectivity fix if you're in Europe (or a large urban market in North America). I'm waiting to see the initial reviews to find out if GPS works out of the box--apparently GPS doesn't work on Aigo's twin unit yet. Now for those of us in North America, let's hope some of this gear makes here for sale, not just Intel exhibits.

I have talked with the Wibrain people at IFA here in Berlin. They said this new Atom based model comes to Europe at end of October (mass production will start then).

I've played at least one hour with this amazing device. Screen: ultra bright with extreme number of dpi; touchpad: excellent and very intuitive - better than any notebook touchpad I've ever used; keyboard: quite good, solid, good quality, requires some training, no touch typing but easy to press; temperature: warm, but not hot; fan: quiet(? it is loud at IFA ...), they told me about 3 modi of noise reduction in the final unit; size: yeah, better than any netbook, easy to grasp and to move around with 1 hand, it even fits into my pocket (front and back) but then I could sit down with care only - however this also holds for N800 (slightly relaxed); HSDPA: built in; GPS: no; etc.

The M1 ships with <cut>Windows</cut> Ubuntu 7 and Windows XP. They propose power for 6 hours with the standard battery, standby for several days. The unit (with XP) was very fast and responsive. I underhand installed Firefox3 (yes, they did not notice ) and also viewed youtube videos. All in all I was very, very impressed.

Yes, with Ubuntu this unit (for about 700 Euros) would replace my N800. But until Christmas Nokia has the chance to answer with an N900 .