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$149.99 ASUS netbook—plus more tips on e-book apps on the Acer Aspire netbook
May 23, 2009 | 5:25 pm
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By David Rothman
The $199 Acer Aspire refurb from CompUSA is again sold out, at least as I write this.
But you might consider a 149.99 deal on an ASUS EEEPC from ZipZoomfly. Price includes shipping, at least in the States.
Like the Acer, the ASUS EEEPC701SD-BLK004X offers XP Home, meaning you can run more e-book programs than with Linux.
May DRM vanish, so Linux fans can enjoy zillions of bestsellers while still using this hardier OS and open source software!
Not as powerful as Acer Aspire, but longer batter life
The ASUS isn’t as powerful a machine, and the resolution of the seven-inch screen is a mere 800 X 480. But it still should do the job for the budget-crimped who want a laptop rather than an e-reader alone.
XP Home’s ClearType option, if it’s available, should make the ASUS screen a bit more tolerable than otherwise. Also, the rated battery run time of 3.5 hour actually beats the rated one for the more expensive Acer by an hour.
The ASUS offers 8G of built-in solid state storage. If you keep the number of apps down, you’ll probably still have a fair amount of space for e-books. Any thoughts on the space issue from others?
Warning: Act fast if interested
No, I don’t know how long the ZipZoomfly deal on the ASUS will last, so don’t tarry—just so you’re aware of the risks. My knowledge of this California-based company is squat. Anyone have opinions, especially on its refurbs?
For now, thanks to Danny for calling attention to the ASUS deal .
Meanwhile, back on my Acer…
Now—more about my experiences with the Acer, or, to be exact, the statuses of various e-reading programs on it at this point.
Sony Reader’s eBook Library: More fun for me than Adobe Digital Editions, at least on a laptop. The text displays well in the middle of the screen against a dark background.
FBReader, Mobipocket, eReader, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Digital Editions: No probs noticed so far. I especially like the built-in network library feature, so I can download directly from Feedbooks while within FBReader.
Adobe Reader: I had to zap Version 9 and downgrade to 8.1.3 because the licensing agreement didn’t show the “Agree” button on the little cut-off screen. Perhaps I was missing something. Anyone else have that problem? A better solution?
Of course, I prefer tablets over laptops for e-book reading, but so far we don’t have econo laptops going for as little as $149.99. Give it time.
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Comments:
You asked about zipzoomfly. I have a refurb from them of a Panasonic dvd recorder. It has been just fine, and I’ve had it for quite awhile. No problems. But then we are not comparing like items. I have bought other things from them and they are good to do business with.
The ASUS Eee PC model 700 has a display resolution of 800×480. I know; I have one.
Thanks, Mary and Con. Fixed res stat. Con, what are your thoughts on the 700 as an e-book reader? David
David,
I think the Asus eeepc deal at Zipzoomfly is not a refurb. I see no mention of “refurb” in the description; the warranty is for one year from Asus, which sounds new, also.
I’ve bought many things from this site over the years. I think they’re reliable. Also, you’ll find some friendly little icons at the bottom of each page like Bizrate, BBB, and Cnet.
I’m the guy who originally brought this to your attention, BTW. I found it on WiredDeals.com, I think.
Danny
Just found the following deal on WiredDeals.com:
Asus EeePC 900 Netbook, $150 + $5 shipping. It’s a little bigger than the Asus EeePC 700 mentioned above. It is a refurb, with a 90-day Asus warranty. Runs Linux, though. XP could be installed, I think.
http://www.woot.com/
Danny
David, I didn’t realize that the Sony ebook Library software was also a reader. I just tried it and find that it makes a very decent reader in fullscreen mode. I think it an even better non-DRM epub reader than ADE. It does however, share one flaw with ADE. When clicking on a link, I can’t find any “back” button to return to where I was.
The program imported several TXT, RTF and epub books and displayed them very nicely. My only complaint about the epub display is that the small font size seems more like a medium, and things only get larger. It would be nice if the sizes started off a bit smaller.
All in all, I like it as a reader. Thanks for the tip. Tomorrow I’ll install it on the netbook.
Danny and Joseph:
D.: Thanks very much for the further info. Hard to believe at that price the ASUS is not refurbed, but I suspect you’re right. Changed the copy.
J.: Wow, it’s great to see someone else agrees with me on the Sony reader–probably Adobe designed. I hope Adobe changes ADE to catch up.
Thanks,
David
The Eee PC 700 is not too bad as a reader device. The resolution is pretty low, but I’ve read quite a bit on it, with the display rotated 90 degrees.
The default Linux distro (Xandros) was horrible, so I upgraded to Ubuntu, which was dead easy and well worth it. I haven’t run Windows on it, and have no intention of doing so.