Review Friday: Asus EEE PC - It’s a PDA on steroids!
This week I look at the newest shiny gadget I bought. The Asus EEE PC 4G. This small PC has 512Mbyte of RAM, a 4Gbyte flash drive, a 7″ 800 x 480 screen, a 600mhz Via CPU (900Mhz, but underclocked to save power). It also has plenty of connectivity features, such as wireless, 10/100 LAN, MMC/SDHC reader and 3 USB sockets. It also has a webcam and microphone.
I purchased my EEE from Toys R’ Us, an odd place to get such a gadget, but they weren’t trying to gouge people like some stores, and they had some in stock on Monday. I paid an extra £6 for delivery on Wednesday and by 2pm I had my EEE. I opened the box, took a few seconds to recover from the awe of how small this thing is, removed the EEE, inserted the battery and hit the power button. Within 30 seconds was presented with the set-up wizard asking for things like my name and timezone. I had a play with the default linux install, yes this comes with linux as it’s OS (part of the reason it only costs £220), but quickly got frustrated. I was frustrated because they lock you into a ’simple’ mode with a few tabs populated by big icons that say “INTERNET” and “EMAIL”. That’s fine for most users, but I’ve used linux a lot and didn’t like this restricted environment. A look at the EEEUser wiki told me I could ‘unlock’ the ‘advanced’ features and get a normal linux desktop, but I bought this with the intention of using it at university so for ease I was going to install windows. I also found it hard to locate the settings for my wireless network under Xandros (the linux install). I daresay it’s fine for people who just want to click the INTERNET button and go online (with Firefox incidentally), but it’s not for me.
The EEE doesn’t have an optical drive (too big) so you can’t just pop in a Windows XP install CD. A quick look at the EEEUser forum quickly turned up a very helpful post about installing XP on the EEE. The EEEUser wiki also had an article on how to slim XP down. I’ve Nlited XP before so it was fairly familiar, just a lot more stripped down. It took a couple of hours to install XP onto the flash drive in the EEE, and about an hour after to install various drivers and patches.
A few people have asked me why I don’t just buy a laptop. They’re a similar price or a little more expensive, and they explain to me that it has a larger screen, more memory and runs Vista!
These people have missed the point. The EEE isn’t a midget laptop. It’s a PDA on steroids!
It can run a full XP install, has enough horsepower to play videos and flash games and is small enough and light enough to carry nearly everywhere (it’s smaller than an A5 pad and weighs less than a kilo). And for only £220.
EEE vs. iBook comparison shots
Below are a few photos showing the difference between my 14.1″ iBook G3 and the 7″ EEE PC. They look fairly similar, maybe Apple should follow cue?
Pros
- Small and light
- Flexible operating system choices (will run any X86 OS. Windows, Linux or OS X (with a little hacking)).
- Superb build quality (little flexing or movement)
- Good battery life (around 3 hours with wifi in my testing, mainly just web browsing)
Cons
- Limited upgrade path (Ram and storage).
- Slightly tricky XP install
So in summary, if you are looking for a cheap UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) that will run Windows XP, look no further. Although you might have to if you want one now, as they are sold within minutes of pre-orders going online.
Have a good weekend, wherever you are web browsing from :P
Jason