So, ever since I built my sub-$500 "gaming rig"--which has been simply awesome, by the way--my Asus Eee 701 "netbook" has been collecting dust in my bedroom for months. Some reasons for this:
- I'm not sure if it's a problem with the SSD, but the Eee seems to be having issues with file permissions in Ubuntu.
- A display issue with my Westinghouse HDTV prevents it from correctly displaying 1080p resolutions from VGA cables. DVI works fine, but there is no DVI port on the Eee.
- With high resolution external monitors, the Eee's display is pretty choppy. But I've been too spoiled by a 1080 display to settle for its dinky 800x480 native resolution, which can't even display a modern website without horizontal scrolling.
- I used to do a lot of Web surfing and lightweight gaming in my bed, but I haven't done so in a long time. In fact, I haven't been doing much PC gaming at all; I've been getting my fix from my dusty old PS2.
- I also used like going to the local coffeebar and hanging out there, which I also haven't done lately.
But that doesn't mean that my interest in portable computing has completely faded. I'll probably do a clean install on my Eee and see if I can't get it running nicely. But I'm beginning to hone in on a possible December purchase. Here's my top candidate so far: the
Gigabyte M912V. I've spent literally years thinking of how much fun I could have with one of Fujitsu-Seimens's P1600 series mini tablets, but they have never cost less than $1500. This new model will be less than half that price. Some other neat things about it:
- The screen is big enough to be useful.
- It has an ExpressCard slot, which I hope would become home to this Asus "XG Station" gadget. That would solve my external monitor issues quite nicely.
- With a wireless access point in my classroom, I could take attendance without going back to my desk; I could also remote into GIMP on the desktop there and write onto an projected screen.
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