To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
I got an Eee 701 too. The value for money was nowhere near what modern netbooks offer but still very good compared to the other options out there.
Mine has survived all sorts of bumps and drops. I'm running Mandriva 2009 Spring on it with KDE4 desktop - having upgraded to 2GB of RAM because I was getting out-of-memory crashes. It's really slick with 2GB installed, desktop effects look great and are somewhat useful on the tiny screen.
I use it to SSH to my desktop where I keep my real work, to watch TV off BBC iPlayer, to read stuff out in the garden and to display recipes in the kitchen. The use as an SSH and NX client really comes into its own when I'm travelling. I also stick stuff I need to read and videos I'd like to watch onto an 8GB SSD card when travelling.
I have used it on planes in the past but have had trouble getting the wireless kill switch to work, so I usually don't.






Member since:
2005-12-31
I was one of the "beta testers " of the Eeepc series, you know the poor sods that bought the wannabe Jesus Laptop onto hear Jerry Sheng announce the 901 two months after.
I still have my baby and I'm still happy with it. Keyboarda is a pain after an hour of typing and I spensd half of the time correcting the faults I made with my big hands ( 192 cm tall , you pay that all your life long).
Other thing that is really painful is having to scroll texts horizontally when on a web page ( we once did REALLY live with 800*60 resolution??)
What do I do? What in fact I have been doing on the main PC for a life long, I write documents, I surf, I look pictures, I read texts.
I run the basic Linux that was provided because I never found a distro that booted faster ( things are gonna change though, I really cannot stand it a second more) but was VERY unsatisfied from it from the first two seconds.
Using the baby I was able to write while going and coming back from work and in every situation a portable machine is supposed to work like in a bar or a street.
I'm very satisfied with the netbook experience and will keep on using it, even if I will have to pay for a Vista licence for the privilege of choosing Linux as main OS.