Asus EEE PC Review

Contributed by Cawfee

A personal review of the Asus Eee PC I recently decided to give in and invest in a laptop. All I really needed it for was surfing, email and note-taking in class / away from home; even the most basic current configurations cost around 500$ or more no matter where you look (Fujitsu, Dell, HP, Toshiba) and are generally overpowered for what I was aiming for, so the Eee PC by Asus caught my attention. The "4G" model promises a lightweight, tiny system for 400$ that barely generates any noise, runs on a solid-state 4 GB drive (somewhat similar to the widespread USB thumb drives everyone has these days, only hard-mounted) and features 512MB of RAM, a 900MhZ processor, a built-in webcam and wireless functions based on an Atheros chipset. The operating system is a customized build of Linux designed for simplicity, but can be replaced by XP; the manual even tells you how. The Gizmo itself But on to the laptop itself. I've read a few reviews and was told that it's small, but you can't believe how oh-my-god-don't-step-on-it tiny it really is until you hold one yourself. The box it came in was hardly any bigger than the regular shipping boxes Newegg flings my way, and the pictures don't really do it any justice: The Eee PC is about as big as a medium-sized paperback and can be lifted with two fingers. No joke. Despite the diminuitive appearance, the build is surprisingly high-quality; there's no loose or clacking parts, and the case has a nice textured feel to it. The Plugs and Ports There's three USB2 ports in total; two on the right, one on the left. Apart from the standard speaker / microphone ports, there's also an SD card reader, an Ethernet port and a VGA out so you can attach the laptop to an external monitor. The AC charger is a refreshing sight, actually; normal laptops come with their own little bulk power adapter that usually lies on the floor like a fat slob and gets in the way, but the Eee charger is a single unit that simply plugs into your wall outlet, no bigger than regular cell phone chargers. The system itself contains no moving parts apart from the cooling fans thanks to its solid-state drive, so it's plenty rugged for transportation and would probably survive a small drop without losing all your data on the disk. Now this doesn't imply you can go chuck it around in the running shower while your house collapses into the mud like you could with a Toughbook, but it's perfect for carrying it around everywhere you go without worrying too much about it. The laptop's keyboard is tiny and you'll probably have to get used to it a bit, but it has the nice responsive key clacking that we all know and love lest we forget we pushed the key in the first place. The touchpad has a scroll area on the right and clicking is better done with the pivot 2-button mouse on the bottom, since you'll find yourself constrained tapping and scrolling on the pad at the same time. With a bit of practice though, one easily gets used to the small form factor. The Operating System As said before, the Eee PC ships with a modified version of some Linux distro which works very nicely for rudimental tasks; it boots up / shuts down in around 6 seconds and features a simple push-these-huge-buttons interface. The desktop is locked at a resolution of 800x480, which seems small for our widescreen-pampered minds but works really well for standard tasks. The display is nice and crisp and features good backlighting that doesn't strain your eyes in the dark. The standard browser is Firefox, OpenOffice takes care of the note-taking and slide-making, and finding wireless networks is a breeze with the included manager. The wireless range is impressive; I've found two open hotspots I've never seen before on any other device, and the signal strength was reliable throughout the session. The built-in webcam has a surprisingly good picture and takes reliable snapshots in 640x480. Aside from internetting, webcamming and writing, you're given a dictionary, a media player, a messenger program that runs ICQ, AIM and MSN, a photo manager and a fun little paint program along with a few games nobody in their right mind will ever play. The fun part is that you can install virtually any operating system of your choice on it; you'll need a thumbdrive or external USB CD-ROM drive to perform the install, but if you keep the specs in mind (512MB RAM, 900 MhZ CPU) the Eee PC will eat whatever you throw at it. Reports of working operating systems range from Xubuntu over Fedora to Windows XP, the latter of which is even supported by Asus in their driver repository. I upgraded my unit to 1GB of RAM right out of the box and noticed a little increase in response time, but since I'm planning to install XP on it soon, the gig of RAM becomes a necessity if you're planning on deriving from the given system. Yes, the Eee PC does run games (even though most of them will only be available to you under Windows); people have gotten World Of Warcraft to run on it reasonably well, along with Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Counter-Strike and even Half Life 2 (I'll have to try that myself). This is quite surprising given the integrated graphics and the small resolution, but it's a point in it's favor. What I don't like This is the hard part of the review; the Eee PC is a great system for what I had in mind with a very reasonable price tag considering its size and portability, so there's only a few minor points that struck a sour note. First off, the system takes a little bit to respond to your clicks if you're accessing programs apart from Firefox; this is probably only noticeable to people who aren't me and don't reach for a book if a loading process takes longer than 2 seconds, but with the RAM upgrade, that problem is pretty much solved. The touchpad sometimes doesn't respond to clicks, and you have to tap on it a little harder than with usual full-sized touchpads to make it do what you want. The battery supposedly lasts for 3 hours, but with enabled Wireless and a lot of activity it quickly drops to 2 hours total. This is, again, not a big issue since the AC adapter is so low-profile you can pretty much sneak it into any outlet wherever you are. The screen resolution and overall size might be an issue for people with poor eyesight or higher expectations, but the text is very crisp and easy to read, and can be magnified by the system if necessary. If the screen was any bigger, so would the unit, which would impact the portability aspect and battery life in the long run. All in all, if you've got 400$ to spend and don't need a laptop for gaming or graphic design work, the Eee PC is amazing and gets the job done, plus it fits into your bag with ease. There's a cheaper model available without a webcam at ~350$ (4G Surf), and a really basic one (2G) with soldered-in RAM and half the disk space for around 299$. My recommendation if you're considering one is to go with the 4G; those 50$ more will give you the best there's available right now and lets you swap out the RAM with ease. You can get 1GB of memory off Newegg for around 25$, which is well worth it especially if you're ever tempted to install XP on it at any point. Summary: + tiny profile + fast boot times, good wireless + rugged build + customizeable to your needs - battery life - touchpad click response

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