Ultra-mobile PC’s are the most practical thing a weakling like me can own. Before I used to aquire bruises due to lugging my old heavy laptop round town and to the pub. Nowadays I don’t carry have to carry monstrous desktop replacements like I’m a modern version of Atlas.
Throughout one of my scrutinous adventures through the bowels of Google I stumbled upon the Asus EEE PC. At first I dismissed it for the small amount of memory and unfamiliar operating system. I didn’t want to risk buying a gadget that could potentially fail to meet my needs.
Being an awful procrastinator I decided to read through every single review available for the Asus, since the lure of it being cheap was strong. It was fairly impressive to see the lowest rating at four and a half out of five stars from an average of about two hundred customers.
Eventually I went with my gut instinct and bought a white Asus from Expansy’s.
Everything operates straight out of the box, and naturally the first thing I tinkered with was the camera. I thought it was going be worse than a mobile phone camera, but the quality does not immediately lend itself to a 0.3 MP camera. Seriously impressive stuff - score one for Asus.
Linux boots up in under minute, and hasn’t frozen at all. I can easily run two or three programs at a time without it lagging. The applications are also incredibly useful and create documents compatible with Macs and PC’s. Very useful as I often interchange between the two.
It comes with free anti-virus, games (specifically a Linux version of Bubble Trouble), a media player, instant links to useful websites, Thunderbird, Firefox, a couple of paint programs, educational programs and plenty more. How they crammed it all in I’ll never know.
The battery leaves much to be desired with a measly three hour life, however I’ve squeezed four hours out. It’s not too much of a problem for short journey’s and lectures but otherwise I’d invest in a newer model.
The only other problems are with some of the internet features. There is no WPA2 encryption support, which is what the wireless at university has. There is also no webcam chat available on Skype - I’m hoping both things will be supported in later models.
Having a 4GB hard drive has not been as troublesome as I thought it would be. I’m not using the Asus as a desktop replacement - neither would I recommend that anyone use it for that purpose - so 4GB is just fine to keep a few lectures notes, essays and music on.
Perhaps it’s because I’m easily amused, but I was taken most by the dimensions of the laptop. It’s only slightly heavier and bigger than a Nintendo DS which is less than an average bag of flour. I can fit it into most of my handbags. That said, it’s also robust and can take living in a handbag!
Of course the Asus probably isn’t for everyone. It suits my needs and it would also suit the needs of a short distance commuter, any level of student, technology savvy kids or gadget enthusiasts. Let’s not forget its notoriously low price - I’d highly recommend it.
Comments are off Subscribe