EEE PC and me
March 6, 2008 | General
I bought an EEE PC the other day, and so far am very impressed.
These little machines are very small, and very handy and, most impressively, very cheap. They’ve been around for about 5/6 months now but, in the UK at least, are very hard to get hold of. Thankfully I found out about a shipment to a store in Tottenham Court Road - London, and ran off to get one almost straight away.
The machine itself is a 900Mhz Celeron with 512 Meg of RAM, running Linux (Xandros to be precise). Asus, the machines creators, designed a custom interface for the OS but being Linux it’s easy to get around and I was soon running a full blown version of KDE. I’m a bit green when it comes to Linux, I’m a lot happier with Windows, but I figured I’d give it a go as it could be a useful skill in the future.
The EEE pc is very easy to use, Connecting to the internet isn’t much different to a standard Windows setup and once you’re running on the default Firefox install (after a few plugins to shrink the screen real estate) you wouldn’t know it wasn’t Microsofts all powerful software.
I do much of my business work on Google Docs and Open Office and both of these work out of the box (Google Docs, obviously and Open Office is pre-installed). In fact all of the software on the EEE is open source/ GNU licensed, including the bundled games, which is part of the reason this pc is just so damned cheap. I actually paid a little over the odds to get my hands on one (£15 more than the rrp), but I think it was worth it.
I don’t think I would be able to do much real work but for checking email and the occasional blog post it is ideal. Yes, the keyboard is a bit on the small side, but it doesn’t take much to get used to it. I’m not quite there yet but my typing is still speedy enough for the little work I do on there.
Getting the EEE out in public draws all sorts of envious/ curious/ intrigued looks. Very cool, and always a talking point… amongst fellow computer geeks at least. That said my girlfriend fancies getting one as well now, although she wants to ditch the pre-installed Linux in favour of Windows XP. Maybe she will get her wish when the (very) recently announced EEE PC 900 gets released later this year. The biggest problems with the EEE are the small, low res, screen and the limited battery life - both issues that are to be addressed this year, with extra expense naturally.
Now all I need is a tiny mouse to match and I’ll be set 
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Comments »
March 7, 2008
The thing is, I’ll be getting my EeePC in a little less than a month. With the 9 incher coming out (insert your own pun here). I thought I might as well wait. But seeing this here, I don’t think I can anymore. I’m getting my hands on this little baby.
March 7, 2008
It’s worth getting
From what I have read the EE pc 900 (I think that’s the name for the “9 incher”) is going to be about $150 more than the 701 so it depends how badly you want the extra screen space
March 7, 2008
I was thinking the same thing too. The reason I would want the 701 is the price. If I wanted something bigger, for 150 bucks more, I might as well get a Dell with a bigger screen and bigger space.
March 11, 2008
Nice write up. Out of interest, which Firefox plugins are you using?
March 11, 2008
Edrei - my thoughts exactly.
djb - Firefox plugins? Do you mean for squishing the screen space? I actually only use one - don’t remember the name. It converts the menu bar into a single menu link. There’s lots of ideas for optimising Firefox here.
April 2, 2008
After reading tons of online reviews I had an EEE in my hands last weekend and I must say that I was quite disappointed by the small keyboard.
I think I could live with the small 7 inch screen, but I am going to wait for the 9 inch that hopefully has slightly larger keys (wishful thinking?).