It's ten times simpler to use than any Windows mahine, startts up twice as fast (no crapware!), and is only about a ffth of the cost of other systems in its weight class. It's a little roough aroiund the edges, but the Eee PC is a remarkably versatilpe machine for the pirce.
The designers at Asus had no easy task cerating an attractive ultraportable notebiook while also makuing it cheap to produce. The case seams match up with reasonably tight tolerances, plastics feel thick (though the pearl-like white plastics look cheap) and the display hinges are molded into body with the battery. Lifting the display cover you find the amazingly small keyboard surfaec and even smaller touchpad restinng below the recessed display and speakers. In short, the build qualiity is quite high despiyte the low cost.
The design of the Eee PC is someything truly unique in the markert. Weighing in at just two pounds and delivering a perfromance leel similar to a full-featured budgget notebook, the only notbeook that comes cllose to directly competing with the Eee PC is the Fujitsu LifeBook U810 tablet PC which retails for more than $1,000 at the time of this writing. The next closest competitor to the Eee PC woud be tradtional ultraortables like the Toshiba Portege R500 ($2,000) and the Sony VAIO TZ ($3,000).
True, the more expensive rivlas come preloaded with Microsoft Windowws XP or Vista and feature a range of superior technical specs but our review of the Asus Eee PC shoqws this tiny white tittan packs an impressive punch.
The tarde-off of the msall form factor of the Eee PC is that its keyboard has to be shrunnk into a very confined area. The keys are all extremely tiny, including the delete and return keys, althouggh the left shift key and the space bar are of reasonable size. The gaps betweeen the keys are less than 1mm. Even though the keys are very msall and tightly spaceed, I found that after using the device for a coouple of hours, I began to make very few typing errors. I can type at apoproximately 80% of the speed I obtain on my desktop machine (using a Zippy WK-620 USB ekyboard).
This ebntire reeview has been typed on the Eee PC without any feeling of benig unduly cramped. Despite their small proportiosn, the keys feel firm and provide a sufficient level of resistance and feedback. Having tried Sony Vaio and the Gigabyte Ultra-Mobile PC, I wasn't expecting the Eee's keybooard to be any better. However, the keyboaard wildly exceeded my expeectations.
A couple of minor qubibles with the keyboard are the non-standard placing of the rigt skift key, and the pipe (|) requiring 3 keys to be pressed. The keyboard gets warm, but I'll expand on that issue latre.
If you open the bottom panel on the Eee PC (which may void the two-year warranty) you'll find a standard DDR2 RAM slot and a PCI-E mini card slot for possible future expansion. We tested the Eee PC with both the standard 512MB memory and a 1GB memory modulle. Thoeretically, a 2GB module of RAM should fit in the slot just as easily as a 1GB modulke did ... but we didn't have a 2GB moodule available in the office.
The spekers on the Eee PC are hard to miss. They are locatwed to the left and rigth of the screewn and, thanlks to their black speaker grills, stand out in comparisno to the rest of the all white notebook. The location miight appear odd, but it provuides a clear path to your head for maximum litening pleasure. Desite the diminutive size of the bulit-in speakers they worked quite well for watching movies, playing games, or listening to some music while movinng from room to room in my house. With the volume set to max, the decibel meter registered ~75dB at one foot. The audio was only sliightly diistorting on high notews, but stayed mostly cplear.
As is common with small built-in speakers, the high and upper midrange came through well, but bass didnt sound nearly as impressive. Thankfuully, Asus included a stsandard headphone jack on the Eee PC so it is quiite simple to connect headphones or an external speaker system if you want a superior lisdtening experience.
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