OLPC News meetup followup: XO v. ASUS Eee
November 16, 2007 – 7:10 amThinking about these two machines again, there are a few observations I can make even though I didn’t actually drive an ASUS Eee myself.
- Learning and Discovery: That’s what the XO is all about, and it shows, for good or ill. The ASUS Eee seemed more of a scaled-down application-oriented laptop (fine for those who want that).
- View Source: Again, the XO orientation toward tinkering (see #1, Learning and Discovery) shows. The Gear button allows you to see what code is behind the application you’re running. I intend to use my XO to finally get around to learning Python, among other things. The XO is written in Python as much as possible. More on this, and the security concerns/approach, in Chasing Nuts’ entry about the OLPC presentation at the Michigan Users Group this week.
- The XO screen real estate is bigger. The ASUS Eee keys are bigger.
- (previous entry repeat) WiFi on the ASUS Eee worked easily. Reports I keep reading elsewhere talk about how well the XO WiFi works (range), but we couldn’t get them working at the meetup (though their owners said they worked elsewhere). On the other hand, the other (ordinary) laptops there also had problems with the wireless, too. I hope this was some weird glitch that would not affect me in, say, Starbucks (using the free T-Mobile subscription).
In related news, I finally got a follow-up thank-you from OLPC for my donation. One of my donations. Since it didn’t list the confirmation #, and I still haven’t heard back from the support folks, I still don’t know if my phone order went through.
2 Responses to “OLPC News meetup followup: XO v. ASUS Eee”
Do you think the screen sizes on the XO and Eee would make for enjoyable Web browing? The low resolution of the Eee has me a bit hesitant to use it as a mobile Internet appliance.
By DrFaulken on Nov 16, 2007
Hmm. The Eee looked pretty sharp in the bar (meetup; lighting not low-low but not bright either). OTOH I was just looking over someone’s shoulder, not trying to read and answer email.
For the XO, I don’t have any doubt about its resolution (i.e., excellent resolution). The trouble THERE is rumors about trouble with Ajax and other modern stuff (Flash?) which means some websites won’t display properly. I don’t know if that will be fixed in this release. I don’t have Flash installed on my home Linux box, though, and get by fine there.
By configures on Nov 17, 2007