3 Reasons Why The Eee PC Makes Sense

When it was first announced, the Asus Eee PC made waves in the gadget world. Although its announcement was pre-empted by the Palm Foleo, the Eee PC's price point made everyone look at its direction. Although it will have a rather dinky monitor at 7" and frugal storage (starting at 4GB), it still makes sense to get an Eee PC as a second laptop. Here are the reasons:

1. The OS. Although Asus will bundle drivers for Windows XP, the Eee PC will run a flavor of Linux out of the box. This means that like Apple portables, the Eee PC will be immediately useful because it will come pre-installed with an MS Office-compatible office suite, a browser and a host of other pre-loaded and useful apps.

2. The form factor. The Eee PC is small, thin and light. Just large enough to be productive but small enough to not to be a bother to carry.

3. The time is ripe for this kind of device. Although the Eee PC does not have a large storage, it may not matter a lot for most techies because in this day and age, people can use an online email server for their communication needs (Gmail, Y!Mail, etc), they can also use online "office suite" such as the Google Apps (Docs, Sheets, etc.). Other files can be stored using Box.net or other online web-based storage service. There are other web-based applications out there that will help offset the Eee PC's lack of storage space (Basecamp comes to mind but there are others out there... trust me:) ).

Months after its announcement, the Asus Eee PC is still on top of my wishlist. The Palm Foleo and the Via NanoBook may have more "muscles" behind them but their price point is their biggest "minus points" at this time so my money will go to Asus *if* I do get one of these ultra-ultraportable laptops.

technorati tags:eee, portable computing, Asus

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