Kind of old news, but since everyone's talking about buying a computer...

[while1]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/30/1853241

I so want this!

Since starting my summer undergrad REU I realized I really need a cheap ultra portable laptop to run linux on!  All due to having to haul my ass to research workshops, dissertation defenses, weekly meetings, etc. and constantly watch grad students and profs alike doing whatever it is they're doing on their macbooks (not fully paying attention that's for sure), whilst I sit there attempting to do any bit of work on my research I can in my head or on paper because either the material being covered is above my head due to its highly specialized nature and intended audience (graduate and above), or aren't fields of research that spark my interest (i.e. path planning).

All I really need hardware wise is a something with decent wireless, LAN, and also 56k incase I get stranded on an island.  Its specs just to be able to run linux of some sort.  I mean not even specifically linux, just an OS that has nice shell integration... and X would be nice too.  OSX would work, but Apple's hardware is way too pricey for just doing the basic tasks and terminal usage I require.  Windows is just a pain to work with in this department.  Programs like PuTTY are decent, but still a hassle... and cygwin is rather a pain to install (took forever to download and install last time I had to do it)

I do have a Dell Latitude D810 which is like 2 years old, however it's big and heavy.  Also, since I flew to Texas A&M I just brought my laptop and peripherals and actually make use of my laptop for these last 2.5 months... I wouldn't like having to unplug, pack up, and lug it around daily, as well as repeat the same procedure again after I come back from working and running around for 8-10 hours.

EDIT:  Fixed the horrid 3sentencesmashedtogether that was the first part of the post.  I blame working on my research paper for the last 12 hours.

EDIT2:  LaTeX owns so much.  Random.  I know.

[Ergot]

That's the Asus EEE right? I've considered getting that as well. There are a couple of drawbacks though... It has a small battery, no CD drive, and a small hard drive.

[while1]

Aye.

But it's not a conventional harddrive.  It's a 4gig SSD/flash-based harddrive that comes with the base $199 model, and an 8gig one amongst other additional features that comes with the $299.

I'm not really looking to store much local data on it, since most of my work will be done with data stored remotely.  Documentation and other documents and also some images will be on it.  I figure that the investment will not be one that will make me literally cry if it gets stolen or feel like I've just lost my right hand because I had important data on it.  Also, since it has 4 USB ports, I can just plug in my external 500gig HDD or if I need something more portable I could plug in a flashcard reader something.

Optical drives are pretty much obsolete pieces of hardware for me unless it's installing drivers or software or OS.  Of course I burn DVDs on my desktop, but that's a desktop.

Not sure about the battery.  The article says 3 hours of life on the go, and I'm not sure what this implies... but probably in actuality means it's less than 3 hours since no laptop I've ever owned comes within at least 1.5 hours of the stated duration.  So yeah... that would be the one thing that makes me wary.  Although, since it's in line to compete with OLPC... and shares similar characteristics like a flash-based harddrive (consumes less power than a conventional one I'd assume)... and it runs linux (I thought I read that Windows manages power consumption not as efficiently as it could) then it might actually be close to the actual 3 hour life they say.

[Newby]

You know, for a few hundred bucks more, you can get a laptop that doesn't suck...

Just my two cents. It may not be possible/reasonable to wait for that few extra hundred bucks, but think of the money you'll spend in upgrades on that box just to get it working well. Better off just buying a cheap laptop off newegg or something.