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[PiForEver]

I am thinking about getting an eee 2g surf, but before I do I want to know the goods and bads of both XO and EEE.

[StewieGriffin]

I am thinking about getting an eee 2g surf, but before I do I want to know the goods and bads of both XO and EEE.

Depends on what you want to do with it.  I currently have both an XO (running Ubuntu 8.04) and an Eee 900 (dual booting Ubuntu 8.04 and XPSP3).

The XO is a ton of fun - you will learn a lot about Linux and installing operating systems.  And you can get it lean and fast, believe it or not.  It takes some hard work and some overclocking.  You can't run XP on it currently, regardless of the announcements.  But with Ubuntu, who cares!

The Eee is probably a better out-of-the-box experience.  It is a standard PC.  You can run whatever you want on it.  XP, Xandros, Ubuntu, or whatever.   For what its worth, YouTube runs better on the Eee only because of the proprietary Flash driver.

[Eph Zero]

The XO is really unique, and I love playing with a machine that is so different from everything else out there. The sunlight-readable screen is GREAT! Sometimes I put the XO away for a couple of weeks, and when I come back to it, I always think, "Wow, that screen is amazing!"

If you are fairly adept at following recipes for Linux and you install a more-or-less standard distro on an SD card, I think the XO makes a great low-power email/IM/note-taking machine that you can leave on all day instead of your power-sucking regular laptop.

BUT if video chat is important to you, I'd go for the EEE. So far, video in + out at the same time just does not work well on the XO, perhaps because of the slower processor. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, because this would be my favorite machine if I could get that to work!) OTOH, it looks like Skype will be releasing a mobile version, so maybe later on that will work, too.

The EEE would be a bit smaller and lighter, but the XO is sturdier (as far as I can tell -- I haven't yet seen an EEE in person).

[Eph Zero]

Oh, and the keyboard on the EEE will probably be more comfortable. You can use an external USB keyboard on the XO just fine, but that probably won't help you out if you want to use this as a travel computer.

[sracer]

I'll add my 2 cents...

If power management is a requirement, get an EEEPC.  If full support for the hardware is a requirement, get an EEEPC.  If you are willing to take a gamble (it may never happen) and wait for power management and full hardware support, get an XO.

[PiForEver]

I already have an xo, I just wanted to know if it was worth it to get it a friend

[teapot]

I have only seen EEE PC for s short time, and my impression is, it has better (though fragile) keyboard, smaller (in both resolution and size) screen, and faster processor. I would say, overall it's a draw, though I like my XO better. (Software is more or less the same -- I have Ubuntu on XO)