David Hurst

I’m constantly searching for the next new gadget to make my life better somehow. Invariably these gadgets fail to enrich my life beyond the initial novelty value, but somehow I just keep getting suckered in. I’m pretty certain that isn’t the case with the Asus eeePC…

Imagine a laptop small enough to fit in a coat pocket, light enough to take anywhere, and powerful enough to perform everyday computing tasks - you have the Asus eeePC. Small notebooks are not a new thing (Toshiba has been doing it for over a decade), but until the Asus they have all been exorbitantly priced. And in the eeePC we have clear proof that Toshiba, Sony et al have been ripping us off for years - charging more for something smaller and less powerful.

And just how cheap is the Asus eeePC? £200 - that’s how cheap. The model I have is the 2Gb Surf, and here’s what you get for your money:

• Mobile Celeron 900
• 512MB DDR2 RAM
• 2Gb Solid State Disk
• 7″ TFT (800 x 480 widescreen)
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• WiFi 54g
• 10/100 Ethernet
• SD Card drive
• VGA Out
• In-built speakers and microphone
• Headphone and mic socket

If you opt for one of the slightly more expensive models, you can have larger disk drives and a built in webcam. It’s worth mentioning also that the Surf models don’t have upgradeable RAM. I did wonder for a while if I should have paid more and had a better specced machine, but on reflection I think I made the right choice for me. I have a webcam built into my MacBook Pro - I’ve used it all of about 4 times in the past 18 months. SD cards are so cheap, why would need a bigger system disk? And anyone who is putting more than 512MB of RAM in, and actually needs more, would have been better off buying a conventional laptop, because this is not a powerhouse.

There is of course no CD or DVD drive - it’s too small - but, you can plug in external drives without a problem, and that includes USB hard drives also.

One of the reasons this laptop is so cheap is the lack of a Microsoft operating system. That’s not to say the eeePC can’t run Windows though, because it can and there is a Windows installation instruction booklet in the box, along with the drivers disc. You won’t be putting Vista on it, but it will run XP perfectly well.

The operating system installed is Xandros Linux, which is based on my favourite Linux variant: Debian. Asus have removed the normal desktop functionality and replaced it with an “easy mode”. I wasted no time in getting rid of that so I can have a proper Xandros desktop. There are plenty of tutorial out there to help you do that, and if you mess up, just tap F9 when you boot up to completely restore the system.

I regularly use Linux and would rather have Xandros installed on my eeePC than Winblows. New Linux users should not be put off though. Mozilla Firefox is the web browser, and the office programs are OpenOffice - an open source office suite that’s every bit as good as, not to mention completely compatible with, Microsoft Office.

The only thing missing on the 2Gb Surf is an email client, and all my attempts to install one have failed. Thunderbird, KMail, Evolution, Sylpheed - they all fail to run. Clearly, Asus has hobbled the OS somehow, and this I’m not happy about at all. If anyone else out there finds a solution, please let me know. In the meantime, I am debating whether to stick with webmail or put Ubuntu (another Debian based Linux variant) on it.

The small keyboard is surprisingly usable - takes just a few minutes to adapt to it. I can type at full speed on it, but I guess those with a larger finger girth may struggle. You can of course plug in a full-size USB keyboard.

The screen is a bit of a struggle though, with a resolution of only 800×480. Most websites these days are optimised for 1024×768 so, a bit more width and height wouldn’t go amiss. That said, it is perfectly usable, and it’s only browsing the internet where you really notice the problem. I have my eeePC plugged into an external monitor at work, where it does run higher resolutions quite happily. This means that this machine would be perfectly usable for Powerpoint presentations at 1024×768 through a projector. Great!

Apart from the hobbled OS, which isn’t really a hardware issue, the only problem I have with this is battery life. The claimed 3 hours may be achievable if you do nothing but type a document, with the sound off, WiFi off and screen on lowest backlight setting, but otherwise, the best I can do is 90 minutes. My MacBook Pro 17″ after 18 months of daily use and charging will still give me 3.5 hours. I think this is a big problem on a device that is supposed to be ultra portable. Without an armoury of spare batteries, you won’t be working for long on your eeePC.

Overall though, this is a neat, well-built sub-notebook, and at this price, you really have to wonder why anybody would want to pay over £1,000 for any other sub-notebook. This is a full-spec computer for PDA money. I’m sure Asus will address the issues, and if they do, then they will be set to make a killing of these little babies.