Last week I was at the Tridentcom conference in Innsbruck. There, while attending a talk, I saw first-hand the horror of a presentation gone completely wrong, the discomfort of the audience, and the pain of an embarrassed speaker as his ASUS EEPC failed miserably. The presenters beautiful slides were cut horizontally (about 30% of the lower part of each slide was missing) because the ASUS EEPC could not drive the overhead projector properly. Every other laptop, including old clunky student-budget ones, running Windows , Linux, and Mac OS, were successful in beaming presentations. But not the ASUS EEPC.
There are many objective reviews of laptops on the Internet based on specifications, design, speed, etc. They try to compare products side by side so that potential buyers can choose the product that is best for them. Still, somethings are considered standard and not even mentioned - like the assurance that the power adaptor will charge the laptop's battery, the battery won't burst, the USB ports will work, and the VGA output will work. Seasoned customers are smart enough to get a mix of online and off-line opinions about a product before buying it. But sometimes when products are just released, it is hard to ascertain whether a product will serve its purpose down the road. I hope this EEPC horror story gives folks some additional information before they buy it.
Its all nice to tout the small, cheap ASUS EEPC. But seriously, didn't VGA-out technology mature like 15 years ago? And ASUS cannot even get this right in 2008? My 2 cents - get a second or third hand Pentium 3 laptop or something instead.
2 comments:
I am pleased with my eeepc. Good image viewer,no problem with video output (i drive a 42" HDTV as a monitor).
My larger laptops don't travel well in my motorcycle saddlebags but this unit fits nicely and with SD storage, no vibration issues with hard drives.
This is a travel PC, good for Internet and snapshot storge/sharing. Not good if your writting a novel.
The Openoffice suite is excellent, I use the Windows version on my Dell laptop, too.
I completely understand that the horror story is not universal. But what is troubling is that such a basic feature (VGA output) was not caught in quality control. Gee who knows what else is wrong in these little EEPC plastic boxes?
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