Asus EEE Book X205TA [Update]

[rogue.hackz]

Okay first of all I have a 3 year old laptop that is quite modest in my opinion, although the specs aren't that great but it gets the job done.

It's a Samsung Series 3 laptop (NP370R4V) with Intel Core i5-3230M processor & 4GB RAM.

Also since I run Linux with a minimal window manager using the most minimal of resources I barely use more than 2 GB Ram (max) at any given time. Having used it for 3 years straight without replacing the battery, it doesn't last for more than 2 hours. Initially it ran around 3-4 hours at max charge so not much difference in my opinion if I get a new battery.

Also I came across this old thread which got me interested in buying the asus-eeebook-x205ta: https://evilzone.org/security-tools/which-is-the-best-laptop-brand-for-hacking-and-reliability-purposes/msg103783/#msg103783

What got me interested in the idea of buying a netbook was the battery life. 10-12 hours straight seems really attractive option to me whether I'm doing some light coding / hacking it really does come in handy.

So what do you guys suggest? Should I go for that netbook or should I consider getting a better battery? I haven't researched much about what kind of battery is available for my laptop if they have 6 cell battery that would be great but I doubt they have anything similar and even if they do it'll probably be the same price as the netbook.


Update:
I've decided to do some research regarding the new EEE Book by Asus (X205TA) and here's what I found.

- If you're planning to run Linux on it, absolutely don't get it unless you're ready to deal with a shit ton of hardware issues.

- Even people with a lot of experience with Arch Linux had a hard time getting things to work / some stuff didn't work:

* Wifi doesn't work / could be resolved to make it work but not easy.
* Sound doesn't work due to no driver available for that hardware
* Brightness has issues that needs to be resolved
* Suspend / Resume has issue
* Random freeze
* Hell you can't even install it the regular way, you have to follow a different guide.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kbmTJKS37hc4NXBQe9svoBlUmAsITZXnw-3PLIGHDCo/edit#heading=h.jvk35ikcimdx

In my opinion, its not worth it better to wait it out and see if there's a hardware that has better support for Linux.

Thank GOD I did some research, usually I assume most hardware just works. Now I can spend that 200$ elsewhere.

[wopr]

If you looking for battery life I suggest looking for one that can handle an external battery (ie. ibm/lenovo, dell, hp's) mainly the business models have support for a 2nd or 3rd battery (ibm/lenovo)

Asus netbooks arent bad but dated I have a 1000HA I use to use alot got 6~7 hr's under load with linux Im sure it'd hit 10hrs plus with the crazy 12cell battery some resellers were selling after you rebuilt it with some nice 3200mAh sanyo/samsung cells 

I have a newer baytrail cpu convertable I gotta say it's nice on battery life and not having a cooling FAN sucking up 1/4 to 1/3 of your battery is nice also. Maybe take a peek at one of those?

[rogue.hackz]

Hey thanks for your post.

First of all, I actually have a work laptop but only problem is battery.

At the moment I'm not planning to buy a high-end laptop, more like looking for a cheaper alternative that has good battery life regardless of the performance.

I've looked at a lot of laptops, especially the Lenovo business class laptops x1 carbon, x250, etc. they obviously have excellent support for Linux and also have really good battery life with added bonus of extendable battery but they cost a lot usually around 1-1.5 grand. Their specs arent that great, only reason people use lenovo business class is cos of their awesome keyboard, superior build quality and most important of all really durable.

I've also looked at Dell XPS13, it also has a really good battery life. Overall if I were to buy a good laptop with Linux support it will probably one of these.

[wopr]

 Yea your looking at top end laptops so yea $$$

 But if your using it for productivity reasons it is worth it in the end is it not?

 If you only want it for toying around can always pickup the superseded models lenovo X200 for example, or lower Im pretty sure their X series line all has extended batteries.

 Myself I was picking up Asus 1000HE's for $40+sh on ebay specs are 32bit N280 Atom blah blah. But they have a 10hr battery life on low use and toss out 6hrs on max use. Yeah they arent pretty or lite for that matter but for basiclly $50 bucks I have something I would of spent $100 easy on if it was a Rasp_Pi

All depends what you want todo with it. (peek the 1000HE has ton of mods, only bad thing I can give it is the damn mouse buttons are soldered on mainboard, and the thing is a TANK (weight/build))

[rogue.hackz]

Hey thanks again for your post.

At my local IT shop, I saw a lot of those cheap netbook alternatives some are like Chinese brands with better specs and a bit higher pricing. Probably around 200-250$, but they have intel atom processor aswell so not really sure if it's worth it. They look pretty cute though.

I'm planning to go tomorrow, perhaps I'll check out some and post a review on what I found.