Asus eeePC First Thoughts
For those paying attention, I mentioned in a previous post that I had purchased an Asus Eee PC. Specifically, I bought a black 4G. Some specifications, as they might or might not matter:
- 7” LCD (800×480) display with LED backlight
- 900MHz Intel Celeron, but down-clocked to around 633MHz, which I believe is a Dothan CPU1 chip.
- 512MB RAM on a single SO-DOMM
- 4GB SSD
- WiFi, Ethernet, 3 x USB 2.0
- 5200mAh battery
- VGA-quality webcam
- Stereo speakers
For the $400 it cost from Amazon, not a bad setup. Certainly it’s not going to replace the Sony TZ series or Apple’s MacBook Air. It is however smaller and lighter than either of them. And 1/4 the price.
So what do I think of it so far? That’s a bit hard to say. I’ve not really taken it on a trip yet to evaluate it on a plane—the big test—but I can make some initial observations:
- Wow, 2 pounds is light. It makes my ThinkPad T42p or MacBook Pro feel like a boat anchor.
- The screen is tiny, but amazingly legible. The DPI rating is pretty high, so I’ve been able to compensate for some of the size limitations by just making fonts smaller.
- The keyboard is tiny, and requires some getting used to. I can type hunt-and-peck without a problem, but touch-typing is definitely taking some getting used to. The feel, however is pretty good by notebook standards. It’s not a ThinkPad, or even a MacBook, but it’s better than any Dell I’ve used.
- Speakers are pretty good for a notebook, and coworkers commented they sounded better than you’d expect for the size.
- Moving from the captive UI to the normal KDE user interface is pretty easy.
- Skype works great on it.
- Performance isn’t bad, and certainly better than I expected. Application launch isn’t blinding, but once things are running, it’s pretty zippy.
- At first, I was confused as there is only a single trackpad button, but it differentiates left/right by where you click on it. It is, however, way too firm.
- Battery life with the backlight down some and WiFi turned off is exceptional. I actually got 4 hours and there was still some left.
- All my coworkers want one. Lots for doing what I’m using it for: network monitoring, configuration, and other “mobile terminal” applications.
- With a few additional software packages installed, I still have about 1GB free for user data, which is sufficient for my application. I’ve added a 16GB SDHC card to augment this.
So, overall, I’m quite satisfied with my purchase. Driving home from Raleigh last night, I thought: you know, this would be a brilliant “car computer”. Now if I could only think of a justification to do that! Otherwise, my only planned modifications are more memory, potentially hacking an internal GPS receiver (SiRFstar III here I come), and maybe finding a little more storage.
1 Dothan? Not Dothan, AL I hope. I hated that place when I had to visit there for work a few times.
This entry was posted at 9:38 pm on 28 February 2008 and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
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well ok, im not exactly a computer expert… i have one of these things, just got it… the 2gb model… i was under the understanding that i could download mp3’s with it… but i have yet to find a downloading program that will work… limewire will download but i can’t get it to run… maybe its just me and my lack of experiance with linux and firefox… but i would love to get some help from other users… so im asking, if you have any hints for me… please, please help… i love this thing but would like to use it for downloading and playing mp3’s as i don’t have an ipod… i was hoping to use this insted… thanks
Marie Lawson
marieglen@eastlink.ca