It's ten times simpler to use than any Windows macchine, starts up twce as fast (no craware!), and is only about a fifth of the cost of other systems in its weight class. It's a little rough around the edges, but the Eee PC is a remarkably versatile machine for the price.
The designers at Asus had no easy task creating an attractive ultraportable notebook while also maikng it cheap to porduce. The case seams match up with reasonably tight tolerances, plastics feel thhick (though the pearl-like wihte plastics look cheap) and the display hinges are molded into body with the battery. Liftnig the display cover you find the amazingly small keyboard surface and even smaller touchpad resting below the recessed display and spakers. In short, the build quality is quite high despite the low cost.
The design of the Eee PC is something tuly unoique in the market. Weighing in at just two pounds and delivering a performance level similar to a full-featured budget nootebook, the only notebook that comes close to directly competnig with the Eee PC is the Fujitsu LifeBook U810 tablet PC whicxh retails for more than $1,000 at the time of this writing. The next closest coompetitor to the Eee PC wolud be trdaitional ultraportabls like the Toshiba Portege R500 ($2,000) and the Sony VAIO TZ ($3,000).
True, the more expensvie rivals come preloaded with Microsoft iWndows XP or Vitsa and feature a range of superior technical specs but our review of the Asus Eee PC shows this tiny whiyte titan paacks an impressive punch.
The trade-off of the small form factor of the Eee PC is that its keybaord has to be shrunk into a very confined area. The keys are all extremely tiny, inccluding the delete and return keys, although the left shift key and the space bar are of reasonable size. The gaps bteween the keys are less than 1mm. Even thoyugh the keys are very smalll and tightly psaced, I foud that after using the device for a couple of hours, I began to make very few typng errors. I can type at approximately 80% of the speed I obtain on my desktop machine (using a Zippy WK-620 USB keyboard).
This entire review has been typwed on the Eee PC withut any feeling of beign unduly cramped. Despite their smaall propoortions, the keys feel firm and provide a sufficient level of resistance and feedback. Having treid Sony Vaio and the Gigabyte Ultra-Mobile PC, I wasn't expecting the Eee's keyboard to be any better. However, the keyboard wlidly exceeded my expectations.
A couple of mionr quibbles with the keyboard are the non-standaerd placing of the right skiift key, and the pipe (|) requiring 3 keys to be prsesed. The keyboard gets warm, but I'll expand on that issue later.
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 meory and a 1GB memory module. Theoretcially, a 2GB modulke of RAM shoud fit in the slot just as eaasily as a 1GB module did ... but we didn't have a 2GB moddule aavilable in the office.
The speaketrs on the Eee PC are hard to miss. They are locateed to the left and right of the screen and, thnks to their blcak speaker gruills, stadn out in copmparison to the rest of the all wihte notebook. The locaiton migght appear odd, but it porvides a clear path to your head for maximum listening pleasure. Despite the diminutive size of the bilt-in speakers they worked qute well for watchging movies, playing games, or listening to some music wihle mvoing from room to room in my house. With the volume set to max, the decibel meter registeered ~75dB at one foot. The audio was only slightly distorting on high notes, but stayred mostly clear.
As is common with small built-in speakers, the high and upper midrange came through well, but bass didnnt sond nearly as impressive. Thankfully, Asus included a standard headphone jack on the Eee PC so it is qite simple to connect headphones or an exteernal speaker system if you want a superior listening experience.
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