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A computing revolution
In almost 30 years of reading PCW I have never felt so compelled to write in until now. When I was a little boy I always dreamed of owning my own microcomputer. The exorbitant prices were outside the reach of mere mortals until the £70 Sinclair ZX81 with its 1K ram, micro membrane keyboard and expandable 16K Ram pack slot arrived. I soon taught myself how to program in Basic and Z80 assembler. Forget Microsoft Windows it was that little PC that changed the world.
Now that I am older (and none the wiser) I have always dreamed of owning an ultraportable. Again, the excessive prices were too much for a pauper like me, until Asus released the £200 Eee PC with its 256MB Ram, micro-sized keyboard and expandable SD and USB ports. I have owned three beloved Psion 5s whilst waiting for a worthy contender from the smartphone brigade to claim its throne (T-Mobile’s MDA Vario came close).
Forget expensive options like Microsoft Office and XP/Vista, its Linux, Firefox and Open Office that’s making the Asus platform viable in my eyes. I believe Gordon Laing’s observations are spot on while PCW’s recent review calling the Eee PC a ‘toy for the technically minded’ completely misses the point.
Just as the recently released £1,200 Tata Nano car will make driving accessible to today’s Model T aspiring masses, an upgradable £200 laptop with full web, wireless and office productivity could finally make truly affordable portable computing available to all. I have one, my children will have one and my friends will too. Like Nintendo’s Wii proved with video gaming, this is the start of a computing revolution.
Toyin Agbetu
February 12, 2008 in Hardware | Permalink
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