John Rumm wrote:
Lobster wrote:

An Asus Eee PC would seem to fit that spec spot on.

The newer bigger one looks like:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04..._asus_eee_900/

Thanks for this; never having heard of these I'm definitely very
interested and have been clueing myself up on them.

One concern is the Linux o/s which neither SWMBO or me have ever used;
if it were me I'm sure I'd be fine with it but knowing er indoors as I
do I strongly suspect that would be an issue, so I'd only buy it on
the proviso that I could swap to XP. I'm presuming that would mean
buying a USB CD/DVD drive (which I suppose we'd probably want anyway)
to be able to access an XP installation disk? or could it be done over
my home network?

They do a version with XP preloaded as well. IIRC that has a hard drive
as well though so battery life is not quite as good. There are also
plenty of sites explaining how to add XP yourself.

AFAICS you can buy a 12Gb or 20Gb version with Linux, but if you want XP
you must get the 20Gb. Haven't come across any mention of a non-solid
state hard drive though; and in fact haven't found anywhere flogging
them preloaded with XP yet (haven't searched exhaustively yet though).

Also - despite already owning 3 copies of XP for the families'
existing PCs, I assume I'd need to buy another one? Having just
checked dabs, that costs an eye-watering and deal-breaking £191
though. I'd happily

You can legitimately move an install of XP only if it was bought as a
retail version and not an OEM preloaded one.

Ah - just been looking at ebay where in fact there are lots of
shrunkwrapped copies of XP for around 60 quid, with the rider "this will
be shipped with a non-peripheral component to meet Microsoft's OEM
guidelines" which now makes more sense to me. Does that mean these
copies are OK, and will work, and are kosher (if bending the rules?)

Well if you want XP then get the Eee with XP, although it loses a little
of its "turnkey" charm. (the Linux on it is setup such that it does
everything you need from the outset - email, browsing, media playback,
digital images etc. So you never need to get any closer to it than that).

Not having found the two versions to compare for specs/price yet, I was
thinking maybe get the Linux version to try out, and if SWMBO deems it
unfit for purpose, then add in XP later: however I'd need to be sure
that was definitely feasible from a practical and economic viewpoint.

Thanks again for your feedback.

David