Last week, I purchased my latest gadget, an Asus Eee PC 900SD from Amazon/Tiger Direct at the amazing sale price of $219. Wow - now that's a lot of power for a low price! Think about it ... an IBM PC compatable laptop computer with half a gig of RAM, 8GB of fast SSD, a slot for SD cards, a beautiful display, 3 USB ports, Wifi, Ethernet, etc. for just $219 - slightly more than the cost of A GRAPHICS CALCULATOR! Software that can be put on the SSD include many different (and free!) CAS software engines that are superior to any calculator sold today. I can even install and run on it the highly-acclaimed Debug4x HP-50G Emulator that works quite well on WinXP machines (both real AND virtual).

Although it doesn't come with Bluetooth capability natively, it was easy to add it with Belkin's Mini Bluetooth Laptop Adapter, giving me the ability to work with both my Logitech Bluetooth Mouse (that I use with the HP-dv7 2040US) and my Jabra BT620s Stereo Headphones. It works perfectly with these (at the same time) and make for a great PORTABLE set of computing and entertainment tools.

Did someone mention entertainment? The 8GB SSD may not "sound" like much, and it isn't for large entertainment files like music and video collections - but here is where the SD port shines! I can plug in any assortment of SD cards with all of the multimedia data files on the cards - and enjoy them without ever having to copy them to the built-in SSD! Since as of the writing of this blog post, these SD cards are as large as 32GB capacity at under $80, that's a lot of data available on postage stamp sized media that can be plugged into the computer and watched and listened to "on the go" as they say.

The "on the go" expression leads me to another point - I have been waiting and searching, unsuccessfully until now, for a computer large enough to be able to comfortably type on but small enough to fit into my Classic-size Franklin Planner - a mini-briefcase that looks similar to this only mine is black. My search is over and the 8.9-inch Asus Eee PC fits PERFECTLY!

$219 is almost a throw-away price for such power that a mobile knowledge-worker needs - so much so that I may purchase another one for backup purposes. And why not?

As is my custom with every computer I purchase and use, they all have names, and this one is called "Eeek". :)