Why I bought an Asus Eee PC 900
Last week I bought an Asus Eee PC 900, a 8.9” laptop, being very portable and using a SSD disk, which makes it more durable when moving around. That last part was important to me, so I’m accepting the limited lifespan of SSD disks, which you only can write to a finite amount of times.
I went with the 900 model sold in Sweden, because I wanted a Swedish keyboard so that I can sell it when I want to upgrade to a better machine, which I know I will. Initially I wanted the 901 model, but since delivery times from the UK was too long to fit my needs, I went with the crappy 16 GB version you probably shouldn’t get. It was cheap though, so just the fact that I can work during my current trip pays for it in time well spent. Or it should anyway, we’ll see how well it turns out, as I’ve spent less than an hour on the train so far…
Anyway, I bought the Eee PC 900 for a reason, or several really:
- I’ve wanted a truly portable laptop for quite some time. My MacBook is a good machine, but heavy and cumbersome to actually use on trips.
- I wanted a fairly cheap small laptop that I could throw in my bag, no fuss. So SSD and no media bay or stuff like that, just the bare essentials, lightweight.
- I’m all in the cloud, so why should I bother with big hard drives? In fact, I barely need them at all, with the iPod as my music player, and USB/memory cards should I want to watch movies on my laptop.
- I have found that I write better fiction away from my desk, which I probably associate way too much with work (it is all about fooling the psyche, as you know), so why not make sure I can move my fiction writing to where I want to?
So you could say I’m filling two needs here really. One is that I want to be able to bring a laptop on trips, and actually do some working/whatever on it while traveling, something that I find hard with the MacBook since a lot of trains, airplanes and whatnot are too cramped for a full laptop. The other is that I want to help myself write more fiction, which I do by fooling myself into be more positively attuned to writing, by doing it away from my desk. The portability and simpleness of the Eee PC helps me do that.
The Asus Eee PC 900
I went with the 900 model, as I said, because I do want a screen that can manage web sites well enough. with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels, sites might not look great, but they’ll fit horizontally at least. That means I can use it as a blogging machine, since I’m all in the cloud anyway.
It’ll be interesting to see how this will work out. One initial goal I’ve set for myself is to get a new version of a pen-and-paper role-playing system out to the people using it, possibly releasing it later on as well. I’ll do all of my writing on that using this Eee PC. I also intend to do some fiction writing, of course, including the final edits to the Orn story The Green Knight, as well as the third Stiel Uthrom story.
We’ll see how it works out. Right now, the keyboard is making life hard for me. I’m a touch typist and find that it doesn’t really work that great, and due to the size of my hands, neither does my finger setting – I just can’t fit it in and types with 3-4 fingers per hand instead. I am at a reasonable speed though, getting better, so it might not be an issue.
Netbooks are the future for me, and I doubt I’ll be replacing my MacBook at all when it clocks out for good. One strong desktop computer, and a truly portable netbook, possibly a 10 incher to get room for a better keyboard, that is probably the setup I’ll be looking at in the future.