Community Matters

Lots of Cloudbook reviews are popping up all over the net. Here are the things that stick out for me:

• After all the complaining about the EeePC resolution, Cloudbook went with exactly the same 7″ screen with the same resolution. How unfortunate.
• gOS seems pretty but less mature. Several supports of hangs, of apps not working, generally of more user confusion. The EeePC user interface is very well done in comparison. The Firefox theme is better optimized for the small screen, etc.
• Generally the EeePC feels faster. Faster boot, faster application load times.
• Even though, some reviews compare the 1.2GHz Via C7 with the “900 MHz” Intel Celeron (guys, do your homework, it’s running at 630MHz) and assume that the C7 is faster. The reality is that it has a faster clock speed but is running about half as fast as the Celeron at the same clock – which means the two chips at question here are roughly the same, the one in the Asus maybe a tad faster – which the comparisons seem to show as well. And of course it’s trivial to push the EeePC to 900MHz (at the cost of some battery life). I guess I should mention here that I work for Intel, so get confirmation for this data elsewhere.
• Also, some reviews point out the 30GB hard disk in the Cloudbook as “better specs”; my only response to that is “excuse me”? I’ll take 4GB SSD over a 30GB hard disk in an ultra mobile notebook any time.
• Also, it seems that the chipset of the Cloudbook limits it to 1GB of RAM – I run my EeePC with 2GB and can tell you that alone makes a big difference.
• But the thing that really bugs me the most – the weird tiny touch pad in a very odd location on the Cloudbook (above the keyboard on the right). Not promising.

Overall I think that Asus doesn’t have to be too worried about this newest competitor. Especially as they are getting ready with their second revision that is generally expected to deal with the biggest complaint: screen size. The 8.9″ EeePC Gen2. Can’t wait to get one.