Carrying Less

I’ve been seriously considering the purchase of a 9-inch Eee PC for one primary reason: it’s small. Right now, I have 12-inch iBook that I purchased in 2005. I love the look and feel of the notebook, although it could be a little thinner and weigh a little less. It’s not in my budget right now to get a new notebook computer from Apple, and I have a Mac Pro that I purchased in 2007 for any tasks that require serious computing power. I only need a small notebook, and an Eee PC running Linux appeals to me.

I can sort of justify the purchase of the Eee PC. I need to buy a new battery for my iBook, and that’s going to cost $130. The cost of the Eee PC is only $300, so the net cost, if I don’t get the iBook battery is only $170. Note that you have to assume that I will never use the iBook again, which is highly unlikely, making the purchase of the replacement battery necessary anyway, if only a few months from now when keeping it plugged in all the time annoys me enough (it already does). Okay, so my argument here is a little thin.

I’ve decided, for now, to hold off on the purchase of the $300 Eee PC, and instead carry less. The biggest problem that I have with carrying a portable computer is the fact that I have an over-the-shoulder bag that carries everything I could possibly need. For one thing, the bag itself is too large. For another, I’m not sure I need to carry two external hard drives, regardless of how small they are. There are other miscellaneous things in the bag that have not seen the light of day in about a year. I simply don’t use everything I carry with me.

I have a single-strap backpack-style notebook bag that I replaced pretty early on because it did not allow me to carry everything I thought I needed at the time. I dug this bag out of the closet tonight and decided to reorganize my portable computing equipment, eliminating everything I don’t really need to have with me while on-the-go. I’ve managed to pack the essentials, I think: the iBook, its power block, an ultra-slim 30 GB external drive, some cables, a small mouse, a USB-based Bluetooth adapter, an SD/MMC/MemoryStick combo reader, and my USB-based Sprint mobile broadband card.

Maybe I’ll never buy an Eee PC, and the time will soon come, within the next 12-months, when I’ll purchase a MacBook Pro from Apple instead. I’m still not totally certain that the only reason I wanted an Eee PC was to lighten my load. I think a good part of me also wanted a new notebook running Linux to play with, and I can hold off on that for now, even if the price tag of $300 is so cheap it feels like a steal.



5 Responses to “Carrying Less”

1. Cliff Bowman says:

   January 18, 2009 at 8:43 am

   Pshaw. I can’t put in my closing tag because I wasn’t a member when I posted.

   Take ‹/a› and ‹/a› and ‹/a› for good measure.

   Reply
2. Cliff Bowman says:

   January 18, 2009 at 8:32 am

   WOW. Sub-$200? What store?

   It was Best Buy. Maybe it was a combination of closeout and post-holiday sale (and no one seemed to like white), but I’ll check again next time I’m there.

   Asus’ Chairman Sheh is as saying that the smaller Eee PC’s are going to be phased out in favor of 10″ models. Asus is also supposed to offer a $200 Eee PC this year.

   Reply
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4. Cliff Bowman says:

   January 13, 2009 at 10:21 am

   The netbook-as-terminal idea really appeals to me, but I find the 8.9 inch Eee PCs a little too small. The screen size isn’t the problem: the keyboard is. Full-speed touch typing just wasn’t possible at 83% full size. I’m also worried about the battery life of the 3-cell models and am drawn much more strongly to the 7+ hours on the 1000 series.

   On the plus side, my local Big Box store had white 901A’s marked down below $200.

   Reply
5. Dennis Metzcher says:

   January 13, 2009 at 8:03 pm

   On the plus side, my local Big Box store had white 901A’s marked down below $200.

   WOW. Sub-$200? What store?

   For that price, even with the small keyboard, it might be a pretty good tradeoff. I agree with you on the keyboard, though. It is a bit small. I’m usually OK with smaller keyboards, but I have to admit that I haven’t actually tested one of the netbooks to see if I can live with the keyboard.

   The major downside for me would be the inability to run Mac OS X (although there are ways to do this, I’m not interested in troubleshooting drivers and not being able to get updates without breaking something).

   Reply