One of the most often criticised habits of so called Apple “fanboys” is that they are so easily led around by the collar by Steve Jobs that they might as well be simple pawns in his chess game. A mere squeak from the mighty Steve on any product good or bad is enough to drive thousands of the Apple faithful to spend, spend and spend some more.

Well there are another group of people displaying some similar behaviour of late however this time it seems to be the technical media who are driving this fad. On any given day of the week at any of the major technical blogs/news site you will see stories and adds promoting the “Ultra portable notebook” that every man and his major Chinese assembler seem to be pumping out of the factory these days.

What am I referring to? None other then the fad created by the ASUS EeePC of course. While there has always been a sub notebook market if one scratched under the surface of the notebook industry none were ever really affordable to the common man, they instead remained the plaything of those with enough dosh not to care about such silly things as overpriced hardware in comparison to a full size unit as the portability was it’s selling point not its high price.

ASUS saw a gap in that market and decided to strike and I gladly will give them a standing ovation for what they have been able to cram in such a small unit and for such a small price. It’s practical, sturdy, well priced and able to complete most tasks that full sized notebooks are often used for.

The EeePC has quickly become the darling of the tinkerer and the businessman due to its size, relative ease of use and the flexibility for those that look a little further under the hood. I don’t deny that the unit has a place in the market for those who do need such a small unit. Perhaps they like to travel and don’t want to carry a full size 13 inch or larger at all times, who really knows.

The problem however is that due to the success of the unit and the amount of media coverage it has generated it is now reaching a new audience, one which perhaps would do well not to jump on the bandwagon so quickly.

I’m referring to the “OH YA I NEED ONE OF THOSE THINGIES I WOULD USE THEM ALL THE TIME!” and then realise that they wont ever actually use the thing after taking it out of the box.

I have done some research into this however I will present to you how I came to this conclusion. I myself was convinced by someone who himself did not have one of these units but used the large ball of rolling hype and reviews to have me jumping up and down to get my hands on one. I was actually convinced that I had a genuine use for a notebook of such size and all of this portrayed to me by someone else who had never actually touched a unit.

Armed with no facts at all and only the unfounded claims of a friend I went right out and picked up a unit, went home and ripped it out of the box and prepared to be blown away.

Blown away? I was blown away all right. By its almost unusable keyboard, the abysmal battery life however most of all I was blown away by the realisation that it only took ten minutes of usage to realise that I had made a mistake. I convinced myself that after a couple of weeks of usage I would come to see it’s strengths, its usefulness that I could adapt to the keyboard. Well here we are a month later and I no longer have an EeePC.

Once I had realised that I had no real use for the unit I then attempted to sell it via a few forums that I am member on only to run into about 20 more auctions under very similar circumstances as mine. The story was always the same:

“Oh yeah I bought the unit for a laugh and then realised that I did not actually have a use for it, unit is only 1 week old, barely touched and comes with all these add ons, must sell ASAP!”.

If you do a bit of research you will find this almost everywhere you go. The purchase of a new unit quickly followed by a sale of that same unit within weeks usually with a vastly reduced price and various extras in order to entice you into a quick sale.

The same methods under which I bought my own unit are then used in order to try and sell it quickly to you however I often wonder why people don’t simply turn around and ask the seller the following question:

“If the unit is as good and as awesome as you say it is then why are you selling it for 300 less then you paid a week later?”.

The reality is that while it is a great little device it is not meant for everyone which I am sure a lot of people will point out that I should of known from the get go. That however is not my point, my point is that the sales of these units is being pushed by people and purchasers that have no such use for any of these products.

If you do fall for the hype or you genuinely feel that you could use one of these units I recommend that you actual spend a decent amount of time with the unit getting a feel for its keyboard and its usage before slapping down your hard earned cash.

I am constantly hearing of this new and emerging market and the competition that is heating up within in it and every time that I hear this I always think to myself what market? Now forgive me for I will admit with ease that I am not the head of a large notebook/hardware company and may not be able to predict the market or even see the current shape that it is in now with the clarity of which they do however as a consumer I just don’t see that such a market exists at this time and if it does then certainly not to the size which we are being led to believe. I just don’t buy that we all want to be carrying a notebook around that has the power of a 6 year old desktop, twice the size of my wallet that has a keyboard your average sized professional will be unable to use.

I’m just not ready yet to trade away the advancements and the work which have allowed me to have all the power and use of my desktop at my fingertips no matter where I go. I enjoy my larger screen and the ability to perform powerful complex calculations should I need to do so.

What is wrong with the current size of notebooks now anyway? When did we all become so lazy that it has become a pain in the arse to carry more then a few hundred grams of weight? Its called a bag, you can get them pretty much anywhere to fit any device that you would like. I was on a MacBook before I got my Pro and I never had any issues with getting it around the place. I simply threw it in the backpack and off I went, did not really weigh me down at all. In fact I cannot even really say that I find the MacBook Pro that heavy either, then again I could be considered a bit larger then your average person in this line of work.

Even for those that do have issues with the current size of notebooks there are still options on the market which are smaller and lighter then those which I have listed above but are still actually usable over something like the EeePC and by useable I mean that you fingers will still actually resemble fingers when you are done attempting to type on the unit for any length of time greater then entering your system login.

The sales of the EeePC have also convinced ASUS that it is a good idea to release a desktop based on the same theory of the EeePC. That is light, small and cheap and with just enough power to sneeze or perhaps power a text editor. Oh it can run Linux and blah blah and and its so cheap!

You want to know what else is cheap?! Older computers, it’s called recycling. Take that old box that has almost identical specs to the EeePC or hell even buy one for 50 dollars and use that instead of paying 400+ for the warm warranty fuzzies and funky fashion statement that you will get to make to all of your geeky friends. You know, just like apple users do.

I encourage you to discuss this as always in our forums:

http://snatchforums.net/index.php?topic=18.0