The Eee PC is one of the greatest pieces of kit I have ever bought, and at the low price of around £230 you cannot go wrong. It's compact form factor was the main selling point for me, as it gives me the ability to work on the train without adding any considerable weight to my bag.
The Unit
The Eee PC is a few centimetres larger than a DVD case in each dimension in terms of footprint at around 23x17cm. It's around 3cm thick. The left hand side houses an RJ-45 Ethernet port, a USB 2.0 port, a microphone socket and a headphone socket, as well as the exhaust fan duct. The right hand side features an SDHC-compatible SD card slot, two
USB 2.0 ports, a standard monitor port and a Kensington-style security slot. The back only has the socket for the power cable. When the laptop is opened up it reveals a 7'' screen (resolution of 800x480) stereo speakers flanking the screen, a VGA webcam above the screen, a full QWERTY keyboard and a mouse touchpad. The bottom right hand corner houses LED indicators for power, charging status, HDD and WiFi. The underside of the laptop features a user-accessible RAM slot, which I have used to replace the included 512MB stick with a 1GB stick.
Operation
Upon switching on the Eee, the user is greeted by an Eee splash screen, after which the operating system loads very quickly. It is organised into tabs for different activities and includes OpenOffice, webbrowsing and games amongst other things. If this interface is too simplified, the user can switch to a normal Linux desktop which enables full customisation of the PC, installing new software etc. Configuring the network settings to connect to my home wireless network was very easy, although at first the laptop seemed reluctant to connect to my router. It eventually worked, but I reckon it was to do with the WPA encryption I use, as after testing on open networks and WEP protected ones I met no problems at all.
I opted to install Windows on my Eee after exploring the default OS in order to provide a more familiar environment. With an external optical drive installation went very smoothly and the PC is now running XP Pro SP2 flawlessly. Generally the Eee runs quite fast; graphicaly it copes fine with running the original Unreal Tournament and the PicLens Firefox extension.
Using the monitor port I have had no problem connecting the Eee to a projector to show videos and is diminutive size has made it perfect for moving around giving presentations.
I have found the spacebar to be a little unresponsive - it needs to be pressed slightly harder than you might normally press it while typing. I'm not sure whether this is a general problem or just with mine.
Storage
The 4G comes with a built-in SSD with a 4GB capacity, hence the model name. This provides a user with ample space for light use such as office documents, but for anything larger (including Windows which takes about half of my SSD) the SD slot is essential. I currently have a 4GB SDHC card with larger files an applications on it, although I would recommend keeping system files or applications which need to run in the background off the removable storage so you are still free to use the slot for other cards!
Battery
The battery life is not exceptional but is more than acceptable - I get around 3 max out of it, although WiFi use reduces this. Considering the fact that the charger is closer in size to a mobile phone charger than a normal laptop power brick (the plug is the whole thing) it's not a chore to carry around for use on the move.
Modifications
A massive Eee PC community has sprung up at sites such as eeeuser.com, where the more adventurous Eee users can find info on upgrading the laptop. It really is a modders dream whether you want to perform a simple RAM upgrade or install a touchscreen!
In short, the Eee PC provides the ideal platform for work on the move while staying connected, or gives users the opportunity to modify to their heart's content. Why pay more than £1000 for an ultraportable PC when, in all honesty, this little beauty can do everything you need for a fraction of the price?
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Apr 10th, 2008
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