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Asus Eee PC 904HA Network Computer
Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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Juliann Tallino, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Steve Ueckert, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 10:41 PM on 12.14.08 |
->> I haven't worked with anything smaller than my 12" MacBook G4.
But I did go to Best Buy and put my hands on several of the netbook computers. My initial observation is that the keyboard on the 8.9" / 9" class of netbooks is too small for my hands. If I had to do much captioning, I'd be spending a lot of time correcting typos.
I did feel much more comfortable with the 10" screen models such as this:
http://www.buy.com/retail/usersearchresults.asp?querytype=home&qu=msi+wind&qxt=home&display=
It is only slightly bigger in actual size, but the keyboard is much closer to the size with which I am comfortable on my MacBooks.
--Steve |
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Steve Ueckert, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 10:42 PM on 12.14.08 |
| ->> I meant to add the name of the computer: MSI Wind U100-279US 10-Inch Netbook |
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Zach Honig, Photo Editor, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 11:32 PM on 12.14.08 |
->> Netbooks are great, for browsing the Web, sending emails, even video chatting... but don't be fooled by the specs -- they're most definitely not suitable for Photoshop or Photo Mechanic. In fact, most versions of Photoshop won't even run on a 1024x600 pixel display. If you're just looking for a cheap, tiny portable computer, then go ahead and get one... but don't plan on using it to do anything with your photos.
Good Luck!
Zach |
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George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 10:23 AM on 12.15.08 |
| ->> If you are looking for an ultraportable Dell has announced a 12-inch netbook that is selling in Japan and should come here in 2009. But, like many of the netbooks, the trade-offs to make things smaller and lighter cuts into the RAM, hard drive and processors making them not great for photo work. |
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Christian del Rosario, Photographer
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 6:15 PM on 12.15.08 |
->> Hi Debra,
I use a couple of the Asus EEE PC's, including the larger 1000h which is also using the Atom processor.
It's not supposed to replace a full-blown laptop with more powerful specs, rather designed to be inexpensive and power efficient.
The model I have has a battery life of just over 5 hours, and there are aftermarket batteries which almost double this (albeit double the size of the battery though.).
I do use Photoshop CS3 on the 1000h, but it certainly takes a little more time to do Post processing. If you only need to do basic stuff like levels, color adjustment, resizing, etc...it's not bad.
The initial reason i bought the EEE PCs was to tinker really. I am using my smaller 7" for a file server with a couple of drives connected to it. That has been on for over a year without any issue. The newer 10" 1000h was primarily a "fun" ultra-portable, but it has come in handy to do basic photo editing too. It fits in almost all my camera bags, so I always have it with me. |
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Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 11:27 PM on 12.16.08 |
->> Zack,
I will have to disagree with you about the netbooks being used for photos, after seeing one up close and personal tonight. and talking to several photographers who use them daily to get out some images fast.
I was on an assignment and one of the other photographers had the Dell mini. His main usage is exactly what I want it for-getting out a few photos FAST without the added weight of a MacBook pro or other full size laptop. He said the most he ever sent out at once was about 30 images, and these machines are not meant to download 500 images.
The specs on the Dell were the same as the Asus I was looking at-16 gig hardrive, 1 gig of RAM, and he is using Photo Mechanic and PhotoShop CS3.
I have to say I was impressed with this Dell and the images looked as good as they do on my MAC.
My plan is NOT to use this as my main machine or to replace my MAC (nothing will come between me and my MACS:) After carrying everything around yesterday plus my MAC laptop, I need something a lot smaller and lighter.
I'll let you know which one I decide on, if I do. My main concern is whether I will be able to figure out how to use a PC. |
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Steve Ueckert, Photographer
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 12:13 AM on 12.17.08 |
->> The issue associated with the 600 x 1024 display is not that it won't support PhotoShop, but that all the tool menus can't be displayed along side the image. It is necessary to scroll back and forth to see all.
But if all you are doing is minimal PS actions, then it shouldn't be a deal breaker.
I would still opt for the 10" screen over the 8.9" models because of the keyboard size.
The 16 gig flash drive could be an issue, some of the netbooks have standard 5400 rpm hard drives in the 60 or 80 gig size. I would also consider adding a 2nd gig of ram if possible.
Your last sentence, though, is the deal breaker for me. I will only work on a Mac. Thus my backup 12" PB G4 is as small as I can go for now. It is still a very useable computer.
--Steve |
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Christian del Rosario, Photographer
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 12:12 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> As a heads-up, Asus ships the 1000 series with a 40GB solid state drive (Linux), or up-to a 160gb HDD. My 80GB HDD 1000 series still gives me 5.5 hrs on the standard battery.
A great forum to get to learn more about the EEE series is: www.eeeuser.com |
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Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 12:15 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> Christian,
for my non PC brain...what exactly is this?
Since you are using this, how do you feel about it for getting out possibly 20 images fast?
Also-is it true that Photoshop operates differently (more steps needed) on a PC? |
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Christian del Rosario, Photographer
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 2:56 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> Debra,
Are you referring to the models I posted? Those are the different ways the 10" EEE PC by Asus can be purchased. I noticed you referring to the 16GB solid state version which is the smaller 90x series. For not much more, the 10" screen is called the 1000x series. I think it's worth the extra cost for the larger keyboard and larger screen alone...and the Atom processor is very efficient to drive the standard hard-drive models (40GB - 160 GB) to at least 5 hours....even more if you opt for the 10" screen with the 40GB Solid State drive.
As for getting out 20 images fast, how exactly did you mean?
Photoshop operating differently on a PC versus a MAC? I'm not sure as I usually use PCs actually (gasp :p). The last time I used Photoshop on a Mac was many many years ago. So I'm not sure exactly how it would be any different. But I can't imagine it being any more difficult than a Mac. |
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Christian del Rosario, Photographer
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 3:09 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> It is true that these netbooks are not fast when it comes to graphics. So if you are looking for something speedy, this won't be ideal. But...
I can say that for 1DmkII large jpegs, I can post-process 20 images in about 15-20 minutes depending on what needs to be done. I'm talking basic levels and color balance per image, nothing crazy. It isn't a speed demon so it takes maybe 5-10 seconds to open an image, but once the image is open, the basic operations are fairly reasonable to perform. I also use actions to automate some consistent post production to speed things up. So, not sure how this works for you, but I use this more for convenience than speed.
One thing I have done for both of my EEE PCs us increase the RAM. I have 2GB of RAM on the 10" and it is running Windows XP SP3. 667mhz DDRII. This appears to be the limit you can add (an XP limitation). Being RAM is pretty cheap, I'd recommend the same if you do get one of these guys.
Hope this helps. |
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Rich Cruse, Photographer
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Laguna Niguel | CA | USA | Posted: 3:41 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> Deb:
The 13" MacBook Aluminum weighs 4.5 lbs $1299. Also consider that you will need to buy another copy of PhotoShop to run on your PC. I have been using a MacBook Black for 2 years now and have a Mac Pro at home. It works well for me. The old White MacBook is $999.
Rich |
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Nigel Farrow, Photographer
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Suffolk | UK | United Kingdom | Posted: 6:20 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> I am guessing the trick for making these work for us comes in the software used. Reading a thread on another forum the writer said he had stripped out all unnecessary programs. No idea how to do this with Windows but for the tech savvy it sounds like it may be a good suggestion if space is gained and there is less working in the background.
I can understand the use of Photoshop for high end editing but for images that need to be sent on deadline for use in either a newspaper or on a website is there an acceptable alternative ?
Surely only the basic editing features are required plus the ability to either ftp or email. For this kind of use we don't even need a lot of the functions in Photoshop Elements. I'm quite surprised that Reuters haven't issued their own editing software or that Camerabits haven't introduced basic editing functions into Photo Mechanic.
For those who still want to use Photoshop it may be worth learning the shortcuts. The ones for the tools menu are all, I believe single letters, and you can add in your own for most tasks that don't have one.
Debra, you may also want to take a look at the newly released Samsung NC10. Some people in the forums seem to really like them. Biggest dislike appears to be the colour options ! |
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Martin McNeil, Photographer
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East Kilbride | Lanarkshire | United Kingdom | Posted: 9:03 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> I'm looking at a Dell Mini 12 for just such reasons. It comes pre-loaded with Windows XP, and 8GB SSD and 1GB of RAM. I'd be using it for fast FTP of images from site. Here's how I see it working.
I shoot RAW+JPG using my D3 bodies; I keep the RAW files so I can process them for best quality but the JPG's are on hand for rapid transmission. Setting JPG low, size priority, each shot weighs in at around the 1MB mark... so I can squeeze a LOT of shots onto a 4GB CF.
When I plug in the card reader to the Dell Mini, I would browse the contents of the CF card using either the Windows XP shell or perhaps Adobe Bridge. I would then copy across only the selects that I want to transmit - perhaps no more than, say, perhaps the best 20 shots per fight. That should make for a total of about 200MB of data.. hardly worth fretting about even on the small 8GB SSD drive of the Mini.
Even if I needed to perform an edit on my shots, most of what I would need to do can be handled directly in Adobe Camera RAW via Bridge. I don't know if many folks have tried using Camera RAW on JPG files; it can do quite a good job in a pinch. Another plus of Bridge/ACR is that it doesn't hog as much memory as Photoshop when working.
My cellular network offers the Mini 12 with a 3GB/month 3G data plan for £25.53 a month. I'm going to talk to the business support unit to find out if there's some way I can trial one of them under the very circumstances I've described. Should they agree, I'll either post my findings in this thread or, perhaps, write up a more detailed opinion for Bert to consider publishing as an SS.com article. |
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Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 11:15 AM on 12.18.08 |
->> Rich,
I already have the MAC laptop but being 4.5 pounds, it's too much on certain days. For those of us here on SS that are the "urban" shooters-living in cities where taking a car isn't always possible, 2 pounds makes a huge difference. (Plus a mini fits the bag a lot easier)This time of year, bringing my car out-even with Press parking (the ability to park anywhere in the city except at a fire hydrant or bus stop) is really not an option-there is just too much traffic and tourists. So the extra 2 pounds of on the Mac, plus the size, makes it literally a pain. I have seen a lot of photographers with the ultra small laptops and they caught my eye. All these guys are massive-well over 6 feet-I have small hands so the keyboards on all the netbooks were fine for me.
I was also thinking PhotoShop elements would be more than enough to do what I need to do.
I am guessing that at around $400, I can't really go wrong...as long as I can figure out a PC. Chrisitan-I was told that there are just more steps in using photoshop.
Thanks for all the help and input, everyone
DLR |
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Paul Stackhouse, Photographer
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Cary | NC | USA | Posted: 7:35 PM on 02.06.09 |
->> I decided to give the Lenovo S10e netbook computer a try. It comes with Windows XP Home, but don't be afraid, see how the other 88.7 percent of the people live. As former NC State'er Charles Shackelford almost said "PC, Mac, it doesn't matter, I'm amphibious". It came with 512mb of memory and it was easy to upgrade to 2gb, which made it a little faster. I installed the Canon software and Adobe Lightroom and was able to shoot tethered with a 40D. I copied the Canon software from the CD to a USB flash drive because this little guy does not have a CD drive. The s10's screen resolution is 1024x576, which is not large enough for the Canon installation. To workaround this, I connected the S10 to an external monitor, hit F3 on the S10 to make the external display the primary display, changed the resolution and ran the Canon install. I chose to use LR for shooting tethered because it gave a larger display of an image with histogram than the Canon software. If I need to shoot tethered with my 1dmIIn, the S10 has an expresscard slot and there are a firewire expresscard's.
My original plan for the netbook was to use it for portable storage and display, like an Epson p-6000, only bigger, with wi-fi and cheaper. To review photos, I have installed Photo Mechanic, which warns of a low resolution monitor during the install, but it works. The only issue is the settings window, it is to large and the bottom part goes off the screen. Most of the settings I wanted were at the top and hitting enter saved my changes. The nice thing about LR and Photo Mechanic is that my primary machine is a MacBook and these products have cross platform license. I plan on using and expresscard/34 CF reader, but I incorrectly ordered an expresscard/54, the numbers indicate the width in mm of the slot. Files should load faster than using a fire wire CF reader on the Macbook.
To get the files from the S10 to the Macbook, I did test moving files using an ethernet crossover cable. I found one at Staples for $18, but passed and got one at a local computer store for $5, so there is another $13 to the 1dmIV fund. Using windows folder sharing on the netbook side and enabling Windows Sharing on the Macbook side, files can be moved quickly between the two machines and should be faster than using an Epson p-6000 like device. I followed the instructions on http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/3020.html to set up both the Windows and Mac networking. I skipped stage 1 of the instructions about subnet and it worked fine. I also did not enable Personal File Sharing on the Mac because I had no need to share files from the Mac side.
Odds and ends:
- additional specs: 1.6 ghz Atom processor, 80gb hard drive, 10.2in screen.
- skype and the built-in camera work well.
- you can press in the trackpad area for a click, instead of using the buttons.
- one finger scrolling is done by using the right side of the trackpad.
- battery life is about 2.5 hours. My s10e came with a 3 cell battery and Lenovo has a 6 cell battery for $129. Like camera makers, they charge that much because they can. There are 3rd party batteries, but I will wait and let others blaze this path, hopefully without a blaze. It seems some laptop fires are started because of faulty 3rd party batteries.
- according to http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/17/osx-netbook-compatib.html , the s10e is considered a good candidate to install OS X, but the ethernet port does not function. Maybe I will just put an Apple sticker on mine.
- http://www.s10lenovo.com/ is a good source of info. |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 7:51 PM on 02.06.09 |
| ->> Interesting info Paul. I just picked up an S10e myself and am impressed so far. Tomorrow I'll be taking it along on an all-day shoot for a track meet, wrestling tournament, and hoops game. I plan to give it a good workout although I only need to transmit a handful of images and transfer 30 or so via flash drive. I have an ExpressCard 34 UDMA reader which I plan to use for CF transfers. I've got LightRoom 2.0 on it and I'm also planning to see (don't laugh) how Picasa 3 works on it. |
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Erik Markov, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 11:18 PM on 02.06.09 |
->> Add me to the S10e group. Ordered it off Buy.com for $299, add 2gb of mem and a bigger 6 cell battery and I'm still at just over $400, which I think is pretty nice.
I think the most important part of considering one of these is knowing just what you're getting into. The keyboard is cramped, some of the keys are in spots that they aren't on a regular board. But I didn't buy it thinking I was going to be typing 25 words a minute.
Thing I like about it is the express slot and the splashtop instant on software. If I need to check email real quick or SS ;) the web is on in 8 seconds. Paul which ram would you recommend? And which brand card reader did you order? |
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Hassel Weems, Photographer
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Locust Grove (Atlanta) | GA | USA | Posted: 11:45 PM on 02.06.09 |
->> Those of you using netbooks who would like to save some of that precious space on the SSD might want to look at www.portableapps.com
You can install a wide variety of applications to removable memory. They will run from a USB drive or SD card and take up no room on your computer. You get the added bonus of being able to run your applications on any Windows machine.
For the Mac users who are adding a Windows machine, irfanview.com is a great little image viewer. It will open just about any media file type out there. You can do basic things like crop and rotate. It's small and will run fast on just about any hardware. |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 4:59 AM on 02.07.09 |
| ->> Erik, Paul - The specs (on my S10e, anyway) says the max additional RAM is 1GB (for a total of 1.5GB). Are you telling me you have gotten yours to recognize more? |
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Mike Morones, Photographer
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Fredericksburg | VA | USA | Posted: 8:54 AM on 02.07.09 |
->> I'll jump in here on the S10 bandwagon. I've had one for about a month now and used it to cover the inauguration and a few basketball games. Though I installed Photoshop CS3 on it, I haven't had much need to use it, instead editing and transmitting through PhotoMechanic. My main machine will always be the Mac laptop but sometimes I want to travel lighter than usual.
I can't complain about it - I got the pictures out fast (not at the inauguration - had to wait till I could get better coverage!), it is light and the battery lasts a reasonable amount of time.
I had wanted to get the MSI wind if only because I had heard OS X was more easily installed but I got a deal on the S10 so I'll settle for the PC experience for now... |
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George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 12:11 PM on 02.07.09 |
->> Some of the RAM issues are not necessarily OS related but OS-sales related.
For a while manufacturers kept wanting to offer XP over Vista. For some laptops the deal was made, if it came with more than 1gb or RAM then Vista had to be installed.
That is how the Dell Mini 9 units were originally sold (and still may be), even though the user could upgrade to 2gb for about $20 and 20 minutes of time on their own. I read somewhere the Dell 12-inch mini had the RAM soldered onto the board so it was not user replaceable, but I have seen online videos of the Mini 9 showing how to replace the RAM with a 2gb chip. |
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Paul Stackhouse, Photographer
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Cary | NC | USA | Posted: 9:49 PM on 02.07.09 |
->> Erik - I am using 2gb of Crucial ram from Amazon for $23, and it works fine. I ordered a Delkin Expresscard/34 reader from Adorama. Reading customer reviews at Amazon, BH and Adorama, it seems like some people have problems with these and MacBook Pro's. I did not see reported problems with windows.
The S10e comes with 512mb of onboard ram and an empty slot for additional memory. Adding a single 2gb stick was easy, 2 screws to remove a panel on the bottom and pop in the new memory into the empty slot. After the upgrade the machine has 2.5gb of ram, but System Properties shows 2gb. I don't think XP Home can use more than 2gb. |
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