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back to article Asus teases with MacBook Air-esque Eee PC

Asus looks set to take the fight to Apple's 11in MacBook Air with an ultra-skinny Eee PC netbook, due to be announced next week at the Computex show in Taipei. Skinny Eee PC The Asian PC maker's Facebook page teases a slimline Eee - the line's "next evolution", apparently - but Italian-language site Notebook Italia has a …

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  1. Miek

    It's a bit thin

    Does that mean Apple will sue them claiming design patent infringement?

    4 2
  2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    I know what's missing in the picture!

    The EeePC girl!

    5 1
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Outraged!

      The laptop lovely was the only thing that made Asus at all interesting and now she's gone.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Heart

        Well, not exactly, but it was a plus.

        They were small, cheap, PC-compatible laptops you could carry in a (generous) pocket of a pair of cargo-pants and didn't care if it fell out. A shame Asus seemed to completely miss the point of why people were buying them when they came to design another machine. Mine's still a perfectly good ZX Spectrum cross-platform development machine and a portable MAME unit. You can even stand it on its end for vertical shmups.

        3 1
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          No worries people

          Mac sites are now taking on that long established tradition of hot girls and sexy machines together. Two rights can't make a wrong.

          http://macenstein.com/default/archives/mac-chick-of-the-month/

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          1. William Towle
            Reply Icon
            Coat

            ...there's supposed to be a Mac?

            I can't see it.

            Oh wait, there's one here on this peg ;)

            0 0
        2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          My EeePC 701

          is currently acting as an internet router allowing my home network to use a 3G USB dongle while I change ISP's.

          I thought it would be a bit difficult to set up, but it took about 15 minutes. I already had Ubuntu 10.10 on it, though, and it is normally used as a portable network capable media player when I don't want to watch what the wife has on the main telly.

          1 0
  3. Rupert Stubbs

    Poor old Jonny Ive

    There he is, trying to make Apple distinctive and different - and every laptop, mobile and tablet maker in the world is apparently unable to resist ripping him off.

    This Asus, for example, is not merely MacBookAir-esque. It's virtually identical. And the latest Dell XPS-15 is a MacBook Pro rip-off, too.

    Or is this a cunning plan to destroy Apple by making it impossible to distinguish MacBooks/iPhones/iPads from the competition?

    0 4
    1. Paul_Murphy
      Reply Icon

      No

      >Or is this a cunning plan to destroy Apple by making it impossible to distinguish

      >MacBooks/iPhones/iPads from the competition?

      It's to try and change Apples' business model to focus on legal action rather than products.

      ttfn

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    2. Steve Gill
      Reply Icon

      well yeah, but no

      not really.

      A simple peek at the image of this new Asus and then a look at a photo of the MacBook air was more than enough to convince me the two don't look even remotely similar.

      Well other than being thin and having a clamshell format with the keyboard on the horizontal bit and the screen on the sticky-up bit obviously.

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    3. Jamie Kitson
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      erm, haha?

      Is that a joke? Please use an appropriate icon next time to let us know.

      > This Asus, for example, is not merely MacBookAir-esque. It's virtually identical.

      a) how can you possibly tell that from a possibly mocked up image and no specs or demo?

      b) no it isn't.

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  4. Tim Walker

    Mmm... Ubuntu...

    ...nah, on second thoughts, I'm too attached to my trusty Eee 701SD :-)

    0 0
    1. Ken 16 Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Paris Hilton

      you're not running eeeBuntu on it?

      I might get a skinny one if it's cheap

      (netbook, not bikini girl)

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  5. dogged
    Dead Vulture

    Dear headline writer

    Instead of putting yourself through the endless process of writing "MacBook Air-esque" every time a hardwarew manufacturer releases a product which is THIN, you might consider using the word "THIN" to save yourself time and effort.

    Especially when, as in this case, it's fuck all like a MacBook Air except insofar as it's a thin computer.

    It's bloody annoying. You might as well say "ASUS MAKE PC, WE BUNG IN SOME FREE ADVERTISING FOR APPLE".

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    1. Marvin the Martian
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Why don't you tweak your browser to do this?

      Why do you conclude the writers actually bother? There's an even chance that each time they write "thin" it gets automagically replaced by "MacBookAirEsque".

      It's not that hard to implement the reverse in your own browser, with a variation on the KittenBlock plugin or whatnot.

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    2. JEDIDIAH
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Being like a MacBook Air

      Being like a MacBook Air is basically taking the original netbooks and dressing them up a little bit and putting a decent GPU in them. Most of what makes the Apple product "distinctive" is entirely superficial.

      0 1
  6. greenmantle
    Stop

    Break the rules...

    ...and get sued by Apple for it!

    0 0
  7. Syren Baran
    Coat

    Pretty easy

    "Or is this a cunning plan to destroy Apple by making it impossible to distinguish MacBooks/iPhones/iPads from the competition?"

    ... to distinguish them. They lack the ugly bitten apple.

    0 1
  8. DrXym

    Hope the battery is removeable

    Batterys can and should be removeable in any kind of consumer device. I hope Asus demonstrate this in this laptop and don't go down the Apple route of deliberately sealing in the battery so people end up getting rid of their devices prematurely.

    1 1
    1. Chris Parsons
      Reply Icon

      Baffled

      Why any lame-brain should down-vote such an eminently sensible post. Apple are determined that no-one should touch their precious kit except themselves, or their acolytes.

      0 0
  9. Oninoshiko
    Thumb Down

    oh, it's thin? THAT's what you meant?

    I fail to see how this is "like a mac book" any more then a mac book is "like a thinkpad"

    I was so amused listening to the boss on the phone fumbeling around trying to find a dongle for ethernet for his Air (which is where it would be if I had to fumble looking for a dongle to ethernet.... flying across the room.) Somebody needs to tell apple, the 90's called, they would like their lack of a proper ethernet port back.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mac Air clone?

    Not unless Apple has patented THIN.

    0 1
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'll get one

    ... If you can Hackintosh it as easily and perfectly as the Dell 10v.

    0 0
    1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      Reply Icon

      You may not want to...

      if OSX becomes like iOS

      0 0
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Leopard colony

        Can always stick with Leopard. At least it has Rosetta support for your recently support-killed expensive PPC music and productivity apps.

        More than likely, such a thin machine will be ARM based with some sort of Linux distro...

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  12. Goat Jam
    Thumb Up

    I'll get one if

    1) it has an ARM processor (I might accept an atom if battery life is acceptable)

    2) No M$ tax

    3) Comes with (or can take) a debian/ubuntu/mint install

    4) Is not stupidly priced and bordering on full spec laptop territory like most netbooks these days.

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