A review of the Asus EeePC. It concludes: “The Eee PC may be targeted at children and students, but it should also entice anyone needing a compact, low cost, yet fully functional PC. It is featherweight, far easier to use than a Windows machine, starts up three times faster, and costs about a quarter of anything in its weight class.”
The pre-installed OS is pretty good for most things, but I find it is a bit limiting for real work. Xandros comes with KDE 3.4.2, so installing any newer KDE based apps is tricky, since that will force the upgrade of the kdelibs and could break stuff.
The other reason why the default OS is not appealing to me is that there is a 2.3GB read only partition for the OS files and pre-installed programs. So you only have 1.4GB for your user files on the built-in drive. That wouldn’t really be such a big problem if you could free up some space, however even if you uninstall apps you don’t use, you can’t actually use any of that freed space because no data gets removed from the system partition. And if you install new apps it uses space on your user partition.
So that’s a no go. I installed plain debian on my EeePC and it works really nicely. All the apps I need (Firefox, Openoffice, Kopete, Konversation, KDevelop, , plus a full Qt/C++ development enviroment fits into 1.5GB so I have more functionality in much less space and much more flexibility. Got an extra 4GB SD card so I might put Windows on that (although windows is a bitch to install on removable storage).
Overall the EeePC is really awesome.. Even though it has a small screen, I find I’m using my main laptop less and less at home. There’s a huge benefit to having something you can easily carry around with one hand, has no moving parts, and can use in any place, and boots up super fast.
it has a SD slot, so slam a 8GB card in there and be happy.
thats the strange thing really. i hear people installing just about anything on this computer. but i rarely hear about people using it as is…
Edited 2007-12-05 18:51
Happy that I had to buy more storage just to make full use of the device? That doesn’t sound very fun. By reformatting the built in storage to one big partition, I get an extra gig of space and way more flexibility without buying anything.
err, may i ask what your going to use it for that needs that amount of storage? unless we are talking audiovisual media i dont see how one gig to or from will be a issue…
There’s a big difference between 2 gigs free and 1 gig free. Also the more apps you add or update on the stock EeePC, the less space you have for data. That 1.4 gbs would fill up pretty damn quick.
strange that the apps installed should go on that partition and not the system one. xandros is debian based yes? i would love to see how its all mounted…
Yeah the system partition is read only so it cannot be modified once the OS is booted. Then they have the user partition and it’s all put together with unionfs.
whiskey tango foxtrot?!
of all the insane setups…
ok, then i understand the complaints.
It is actually a nice and clever way that allows a lot of less advanced fiddlers to easily restore to factory defaults. If you’re happy to fiddle with the factory defaults, it’s not hard to change those, and have an easy custom setup that you can revert to. I’m very impressed with the way it’s been implemented.
when i think about it, your right.
if the user keeps the work files on a stick or card, then its a simple matter of removing this, and then clearing the writable part of the system.
quite a efficient way to get back to a clean setup.
And why wouldn’t we be talking audiovisual media? A few films for those flights or train rides seems to be a very common use of laptops. Other uses would include additional software. If I had one of these I’d love to get mathematica and matlab if I could onto it. They’re pretty big programs. Other people in other fields probably have their own software they’d like to add.
sounds like people are expecting more from the device then is evidence for.
if one want storage, go for the 8GB or grab a extra card.
i would not call playing a full length movie on this one excepted use out of the box.
its more of a web device then a full on laptop given the specs.
Of course that’s expected use. It comes with a media player, and it plays all videos I’ve tried flawlessly, including DVD quality movies. The hardware can handle that no problem.
no dvd drive, limited storage?
i would say the media player is more for small stuff off the net then full length movies…
I bought a 4G SD card for $20 to ‘live’ in the slot, which provides some extra storage.
If you dont fit the target user profile obviously you’re going to have to expand it or otherwise fiddle with it in some way.
That’s what I said. By installing a more standard version of Linux, the EeePC becomes immediate far more useful. And it’s not that hard to get it all working.
Do the suspend mode, battery warnings, webcam and other hardware-specific features all work flawlessly as well? If so, did they require significant tweaking to get working?
Suspend mode yes, battery warnings yes, webcam needs a driver from the original Xandros install. To install plain debian, there was some tweaking necessary. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t know linux. Hopefully someone will soon put out EeeBuntu or something to make it all really easy.
On its way already, apparently …
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/tsearch/ubuntu+eeepc.htm
UMPCs usually weigh .5kg, with some heading up towards 1kg but that’s pushing it. The 1 to 2 kg weight range is called sub-notebook. The Eee is right on the border, on the light end for a sub-notebook but rather heavy for a UMPC.
Still, he is right on the money about the cost. $400 is very cheap for this weight class, which usually ranges from $1000 to $2000, some even more.
The design is too boring. It looks like old dad’s laptop, suddenly found when cleaning the house. Palm’s Foleo could be much more attractive.
While it wouldn’t be a deal breaker against buying one, the looks of the thing are one of the big things I don’t like about it. I wish they’d get rid of those speakers and replace it with screen space.
Yeah, the huge border around the LCD reminds me of an old 486 laptop display.
My biggest niggle is the small screen. To me it would be worth getting this with a larger screen area. I guess they cut cost this way. My fonts are smaller than I would normally use.
Yes, I also like imaginary devices more than real ones.
EeePC now is just a cheap ugly laptop. Instead it could be a nice ultra-portable device. All it needs is a bit of designer’s attention. It would be Ok to cost $100 more, if you need wide screen or better plastic. Look at the popularity of Nokia N800/N810, which is far from imaginary.
No, it wouldn’t be ok to cost 100 more. Not at all. That makes it $500, and then you’re starting to get into the range of other devices. I don’t think I would have bought it for $500, even if the screen was slightly bigger. And better plastic? What does that even mean? The black EeePC is similar to the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. You might think that looks ugly, but I think it looks professional.
Asus is going to sell an order of magnitude more EeePCs than Nokia will ever sell N800/810s. Asus can’t even keep up to the demand. The main reason is that the N series, while pretty cool little devices, are still fundamentally a specialized device. Everything needs to be ported to the Maemo platform. So you’ll be forever waiting for the software you want to use, and that ported software will always be out of date compared to the versions available for PC. On the EeePC, you have none of those problems, because there it’s just a normal computer, scaled down. So you can run all the apps you run already. That’s the crucial advantage of a general purpose device.
They’re already treading on that territory – I think it was a lot more attractive when the price batted about was $200. But for $400, you could get a used Thinkpad X30 on eBay which would probably also have better hardware specs than the Eee.
Yeah, used not new, worn out battery, 4 times the weight, way bulkier to carry around, less robusst due to the traditional harddrive, etc etc. A used normal laptop s a completely different devce for completely different uses. I don’t know why people insist on making the comparison.
So you buy one that’s factory-sealed, or a new battery. Either way, you’re still coming in under the cost of the Eee.
Uh, no. The x-series thinkpads are in the 3-3.5LB range (the Eee is 2LBs – not a 4x difference) and pretty much identical in size to the Eee.
…which also has *at least* 20x the capacity of the largest storage that the Eee comes with.
Perhaps because they’re comparable?
Used X30s come with a 20 or 40gb drive. So that’s 5-10x or 2.5-5 times the storage of the EeePC depending on if you get the 4 or 8Gb model.
Ebay currently does not have any listed with a factory sealed or new battery. There goes that option.
You also don’t get builtin wireless, so you need to buy an extra card which is inconvenient and ads to the cost.
You’re right, my bad.
and I’m using it with the default “Simple” os and it works splendid!
I did write a couple shell scripts to launch through the file manager for some programs not accessable from the easy interface (and yes, I know I could fire up xterm and do so) but I wanted something quick, so I’ve got .sh files to launch Rdesktop as well as a few other programs.
I kept it at the default because the speed is what I wanted out of it, I wanted the 20 second boot and the 8 second shutdown, I wanted a laptop to sit under my coffee table that I can bust out for a few minutes here or a few minutes there to check movie times, showtimes or even check my mail.
Good stuff in this tiny package, I dropped a 2g SD card in for some extra space, but for my needs, I don’t think it’s really necessary.
Yeah the fast boot is nice, but standard debian + KDE boots in 30-35 seconds, which is still acceptable in my books.
CTRL+SHIFT+T is your friend.
Full Konsole.
I haven’t tried that (the KDE ‘full desktop’ doesn’t have those shortcuts by default), but Ctrl+Alt+T gives an xterm under the IceWM ‘easy’ desktop.
…as a Christmas present. It’s not bad. I don’t much like the Asus version of IceWM, but I was able to enable a start menu and add quite a few programs to the default IceWM interface (more is installed than the simple, big buttons indicate). To create start menu items, the package icemc helps. I also enabled KDE (apt-get install ksmserver kicker), which runs quickly.
http://linux.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/eee-pc-adding-a-start-menu-an…
Software availability is very limited with the default repositories, and the best solution is to add the standard Xandros repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/xs2.0/upkg-srv2 etch main contrib non-free
deb http://dccamirror.xandros.com/dccri/ dccri-3.0 main
While still somewhat limited, these help a lot. I suppose you could also grab from Debian Stable, if you need something not provided by Xandros. In general, Xandros packages are older than Debian Stable’s. The EEE PC uses newer versions of the Kernel, OpenOffice, and Firefox, however.
My impressions: Overall the system boots quickly and runs well. The system suspends, but does not hibernate, as there is no swap file. Startup is well under 30 seconds.
Lots of stuff is labeled “Xandros” this and Xandros” that. The weirdest one was Xandros Anti-virus. It’s just ClamAV. The Xandros file manager is showing its age. Konqueror 3.4, though old, is a vastly better file manager.
Probably the strangest thing I have done is install Qemu and run Windows 98 at 640×480. Kqemu will not compile, even with the appropriate kernel source downloaded from Xandros.
To give a flavor of what this little toy can do, I took my daughter to choir practice, and waited at a coffee shop that offered free WiFi. I did some sermon prep using OpenOffice files I had put on an 8 gig. SD card (which also holds /usr/source). I used Firefox to browse resources on the Web (updated to 2.0.0.11) while looking at reference material on Windows 98. It was easy to switch back and forth. The WIFI worked fine, and I suspended everything when going out to plug the parking meter. In the end I was quite wired, and I had a sermon prepped.
I had to fly recently, and found the EEE PC much easier to work with than my last laptop. I don’t fly first class, so there isn’t much room for a laptop on the standard airline tray table. There is for this puppy.
The screen is small and lacks vertical resolution. Learn the ALT-F11 key in IceWM, as it toggles the removal of the window boarder. On KDE you can have programs start with no boarder by default.
The keyboard is bigger than the screen, but still small. You can’t tough type on it, but I haven’t found it a problem. I use two (rarely three) fingers on each hand to type, and can get up a bit of a head of steam.
If you don’t fear playing with config files, you can set up IceWM to show a double height task bar that auto-hides. KDE lets you do this by right clicking the Kicker, and selecting “Configure Panel.”
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4062
I managed to hose my installation the day I got it; I fully expected to.
That’s when I learned how to use the restore disk, and boot off of a USB based DVD-RW player.
wow, running windows in qemu worked with 512 mb of ram? I was thinking of installing virtualbox but I figured it wouldn’t run very well..
wow, running windows in qemu worked with 512 mb of ram?
Yes, it works fine, if slowly without Kqemu. Just remember, we’re talking Windows 98 here. It runs very well with 128 meg. of RAM. With Virtualbox, try 192 meg. for Windows 2000.
I’ve been tempted to pick one of these up, but a few things about it that are a turn off for me.
Namely that the 900Mhz cpu has been underclocked to 630Mhz. Now I understand this thing isn’t ment to be a speed demon but 270Mhz is a rather large chunk to be missing in a sub 1ghz cpu. Its like buying a dell with a 3.2Ghz cpu and finding out that it only runs at 2.5Ghz unless you void your warranty
Speaking of warranty upgrading your ram voids it, and the ssd would as well but its soldered into the motherboard.
I have never read the claim about an under-clocked CPU. CPU information is stored in /proc/cpuinfo, which reports a CPU running at full speed.
As for the RAM, 512 meg. is plenty for most jobs. If you need more RAM, you probably want more storage space and a much bigger screen.
What makes you think it’s underclocked? I have one, /proc/cpuinfo says 900MHz, it seems fast, and I’ve played large video files without issue. I’ve read elsewhere that it’s underclocked but have never been able to find any indication of this on mine.
There have been several reports about it on forums like this one
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=3759
and heres a wiki from the same site about the problem
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/eee_hardware_faq
From what I understand the default OS is showing what the cpu is rated for rather then the speed its going do to a bug or whatever. With it showings its true speed when XP or another linux distro installed
From what I understand the default OS is showing what the cpu is rated for rather then the speed its going do to a bug or whatever. With it showings its true speed when XP or another linux distro installed
Now I know which part of the source they did not release 🙂
The FSB runs at 70 instead of 100MHz, so yes, the CPU is not running at 900MHz. But, the whole system still works really speedy, it’s quite incredible, even KDE.
I will probably at some point upgrade the RAM to 1 or even 2GB; there have been some indications that it might not void the warranty. (They seem to be walking on legal thin ice with this, depending on the country.)
I don’t own a Eee PC but I have used one. This is what it thought:
Pros: Sensible UI, Good performance for price, full-featured apps
Cons: Ugly (White is so-so, Black is fugly)
I am ordering an OLPC (from G1G1) because of its nice screen (big, high-res and swivel), interesting UI, mesh networking (with myself lol but still cool) and of course, giving to charity for the same price.
What’s it for? I think of it as perhaps an upgraded PDA, or something you could travel with if you don’t want to lug, or have the space for, a full-sized laptop, or even an ultra-light laptop.
While some have mentioned that the 4 GB flash memory drive is small — and so it is — the machine also sports a couple USB2 ports, so a small form factor external hard drive could be plugged in without being too much of an additional burden in size or weight. That same drive could be shared with your main computer to synchronize files.
Has anyone heard of a working modem solution for the Eee? This would be perfect for traveling light, but sometimes this means using dialup or dialing directly in to devices, and IIRC this has been a problem so far.
Psion series 5/MX was such an amazing product. perfect size, perfect keyboard, lighter than any comparable device even today. Just make a similar one with today’s technologies of CPU/mem/Screen and it’s gonna be an instant winner. Compared to the Series 5, the EEPC looks so clumsy and waste of estate, especially the screen area. To make the EEPC perfect, it needs to dump the touchpad area and leave the bottom part with KB only, have touch screen, make the upper part same size as the bottom and let the screen have the entire area of the upper part. The speakers should be on the sides. That would be cool.
Edited 2007-12-06 01:34
Anyone wanting a larger screen must also realise that this will also require a larger battery and all of this costs money.
One of the reasons for the small screen was to conserve battery power, since the screen is probably the single biggest power consumer in the whole unit.
It would be great to have x and y feature just like other laptops but I think people are forgetting that if it did have all the features of other laptops, it would then be the same price as all the other laptops.
Its an ultra-low-cost laptop, so take it or leave it.
I’ll be buying one as soon as the budget allows!
actually I would’ve preferred they made it smaller again, lose the webcam, maybe even a bit less of everything except the size of the keyboard and have it cheaper still…but then I’m thinking more along the lines of a super-pda that runs a full linux distro.
Well they do have the 4G Surf, which is $50 bucks less, but lacks the webcam and has a smaller battery. Then they have the 2G versions, but I dunno pricing or specs on those.
I’m hoping for the next gen models which reportedly will have the Merom processors, no fan, and use 2/3 of the power. Should give a nice boost in battery life. Then I’ll sell mine and buy that
But why isn’t this thing running Sugar or gOS? It seems like they are targeting almost the exact same space with this laptop although I do understand that Sugar is probably too basic of an environment but why not coordinate their efforts more? Also it seems like the Asus and Everex laptops could use some of the OLPC tech such as the screen and mesh-networking. Why isn’t more coordination happening between these projects?
Edit: What kind of BIOS is this thing using?
Edited 2007-12-06 07:52
I don’t understand the appeal of a 7″ screen?
Well since Eee laptop is linux based you can always install rdesktop on the laptop and run windows apps on ThinServer XP
http://www.rdesktop.org
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm
This aikotech links to the page of a software company who must hate its users. Look at what they try to make you go through just to purchase their software (scroll down to the download instructions).
http://www.aikotech.com/purchase.htm
I was actually looking at alternatives to Microsoft’s terminal server, but I am not in the mood for dealing with companies that haven’t figured out how to sell their products without treating their customers like crap. We get enough of that from Microsoft.
Actually it’s a good clarification of how the whole process work. I purchase their software without much difficulty
Since I get a complete installer I do not need to “activate” my software everyone a virus wipe out my OS
Try it, it won’t bite
rdesktop come installed, available from the terminal window.
I use it daily, with a modified .sh file for easy connections.