Acer touts cheaper rival to Asus Eee PC, wither the OLPC?
When Bill Gates scoffed at the OLPC and its limited functionality, who knew that Asustek would be laughing instead when Its Asus Eee PC garned sales and rave reviews. Expensive Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC) aren’t getting anywhere near the attention nor the sales figures Asustek’s little notebook can. Now Acer wants to get in on the action with their own super-affordable, ultraportable.
The OLPC’s small size and basic features were targetted towards school children in developing countries; Asustek has somehow managed to spin a slightly more expensive version of the ideal into its Eee PC. With Acer in the picture, will Asustek hang on to the budget ultraportable crown? Digitimes was the first to break the news on Acer’s answer to the Eee PC revolution, and it looks like Acer’s model could be up to $50 cheaper.
Acer has the advantage of its wide distribution market, giving it the option to push prices lower. Asustek is wisely not going to attempt to fight it pricing-wise but its experience in this particular market segment just might give it an edge. In the end, it’s not going to boil down purely to price. As evidenced by Apple’s pricey PCs and notebooks, users are willing to pay a little more for a better user experience. What the Eee PC had going for it was its simplicity, responsiveness and word-of-mouth reputation for ‘working as advertised’.
Not that users are pleased enough with the Eee PC to let it alone. HTLounge.net had a nice piece on a modder calling himself ‘guryhwa’ who souped up his Eee PC with a Pentium M processor and upping the RAM to a nice 2GB’s worth. Asus would do well to keep its eye on the competition as Intel attempts to muscle into the fray with its Classmate PC (rumoured to be coming to retail in the U.S. and Europe soon), and other rivals like Acer and HP attempt to come up with their own Eee PC ‘killers’.
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