Review eee
From FOSUG
Contents |
Review of the ASUS EEE 701 4G PC
by Andrew Baker
- Asus EEE Pc Model 701
- Weight 2lbs
- 7" Screen 800x480
- 4gb storage
- 512mb memory
- Built in Wifi, webcam, sd-reader
- CPU 900mhz Intel, (clocked at 600mhz for battery life)
- Price $399
What and Why?
Being a Systems Administrator I am required to be in contact with my network at all times in the event something goes wrong. For us that have this or similar requirements that means either never leaving our homes with computer and internet connections. This of course is not a very social healthy thing to do, so we end up carring large laptop bags with us wherever we go.
My Old laptop was actually a rather small 12" Averatec that worked very well for me, but was still quite heavy. The case and accessories weighed in at about 18lbs. Not a lot you say? Drag it every where you go, and your going to want smaller. Then I saw the Asus Eee.
I have been using Linux for a very very long time, so seeing a new ULTRA Portable computer coming out with Linux Pre-installed was not much of a shock to me. The Asus Eee comes from factory with a modified version of Xandros. Xandros is a commercial version of Linux but does contain the same basic Open Source framework that Linux is built on.
Review of the physical hardware=
The Asus Eee is a very small Ultra Portable PC. Must Much smaller then your average "Laptop". Weighing in at just 2lbs including battery it's one of the lightest computers in existence.
The hardware appears to be very well designed. No creaking or twisting of the plastic housing, all connectors and switches appear to be well mounted. Asus does not appear to have cut costs on the physical hardware to meet there $399 price tag.
The Eee contains minimal ports and connectors. No ports or switches are on the front of the case. The right side contains a SDHD cardreader, 2 USB ports, a VGA port and a Security lock port. The only problem found here on the side is the inability to use the VGA port if the laptop has been attached to a security cable. All security locks will block the VGA port.
The left side contains a Lan and modem connector. However No Eee's contain a modem from factory, to enable the modem port you must purchase and install a 3rd party mini modem card. This does not bother me, as most of the planet no longer uses analog modems, and I would rather not pay for it anyways. The side also contains a 3rd USB port, and a headphone/mic jack.
The back only contains a single power connector.
The bottom contains the battery release and memory expansion door. This modem ships with 512mbs or memory, 16mb of that is reserved for video usage. The Eee will support up to 1gb out of the box. You simply need to replace the 512mb stick with a standard DDR2 533mhz or better 1gb stick. The hardware will support up to 2gb, however ASUS limited the default OS to 1gb. Asus claims this was not intentional, and it can be fixed by following a kernel upgrade guide. More on the upgrade later.
Storage on the Eee is done by a 4gb SSD (Solid State Disk) hard drive. This is a high speed drive with ZERO moving parts. With no spinning platters or moving heads this drive uses only a fraction of the power a standard drive would require. Allowing for much longer battery times on smaller batteries.
The Display also uses LED (light emitting diodes) instead of florescent tubes to light the display. Florescent tube will burn out over time, and are subject to damage by dropping or impacting the display. The Use of LED's improves the durability of the display and greatly improves the battery life. There is no real down side to this technology.
You might think that this little laptop is lacking in some departments, however we need to remember that this is not designed as a desktop replacement. This is used primarily for remote access and extreme portability. Running at about 650mhz you can not expect this machine to take the replacement of your high powered desktop. Running at 650mhz you get about 3 hours of computing with the wifi enabled, almost 4 with wifi disabled. The speed will run your web browser, email, remote connections, terminals word processing, slideshows, etc without missing a beat.
The Software
Easy Mode
The Eee comes factory installed with a Linux distribution called www.xandros.com Xandros. Xandros is one of the many "Commercial" Linux distributions. From my stand point it's a decent OS, far better then the closed source alternatives. Xandros is a hybrid, based mostly on open source technology with a sprinkle of closed source proprietary software written by Xandros. Asus has modified this version of Xandros with some special addons of there own. They created a fast booting custom INIT that allows the OS to be fully booted in about 17 seconds. They have also created a very simple "Easy" menu that allows even to newest Linux user to start being productive immediately.
- The Interface
Below are screen captures taken from my Eee, in "Easy"/Default mode. There are some new applications that are not stock that I have installed, I will talk about them below.
This is considered your "Main" or opening menu, Asus calls this Internet. Since the Eee was designed to be primarily an internet appliance I think this makes sense. Default options include "Web Mail" which is a link to the commonly used webmail services such as gmail, yahoo, hot mail, etc. Web opens up Firefox for normal web browsing. Igoogle, Google docs, Wikipedia, Internet radio are shortcuts and integrations to various web based applications and services. Wireless Networks would be your WiFi management tool for connecting to WiFi locations. The Ebook application allows you to download and read a variety of Ebooks from your collection or the web. Skype is a video/phone/chat program that works very well on the Eee. I've added the VPN and Doteltech icons to the menu, I like having a VPN connection to my work, (yup theres a Linux client for that as well) and a quick link to SSH into my server.
The second menu contains a lot of off line productivity software. Accessories contain you calculator, contacts, and screen capture programs. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations are all part of the Open office suite that comes installed. By default the Eee ships with an outdated (but fully functional) copy of open office, but a simple online update will upgrade you to the newest version for free. There is also a PDF reader (actually Adobe Acrobat by default) notepad, dictionary, file manager, and Mail/news are handled by Thunderbird. All these applications are stable, easy to use and considered industry compatible now.
I've un-installed most of the applications in the "Learn" category. But they contain some typing tools, demos, little games to help you learn the system. I did however keep the planetarium and periodic tables under Science, you never know when you might need to search the heavens for some Pl or Pu.
Play! Now be honest, if you have a little itty bitty laptop, your going to want to play. By default you get some basic games, photo manager, video player etc. They all work very well, I can play DVD's (from external drive of course) or movies copied to my 8gb SD card without any problems or skipping.
And finally we to the settings menu, This allows you to configure your Eee, environment, applications, updates, etc. I added EMEditor which is an "Easy" menu editor.
Advanced Mode
Xandros of course like any Linux distribution can be modified and changed as much as you like. I personally so not like the built in "easy" menu system. Granted it's well thought out, and easy to use, I feel like I'm limited and using a "toy". The first change I made was to enable the advanced desktop. This does not require installing any new software, but does require editing a few files, directions are available in many places including Asus's support site. Enabling the advanced desktop will give you your original KDE desktop.
I have my taskbar and menu bars auto hide when not in use. This gives me as much screen space as possible.
The Little Eee handles multi tasking quite well.
I use a few modifications to Firefox to free up precious screen space. Firefox plugin "tinyfox" is a theme replacement that removes unneeded clutter and minimizes the on screen menus. I also use Vimperator, Vimperator makes firefox behave much like VIM. Very efficient if you need to move through alot of web pages without ever touching your mouse. Vimperator also makes very good use of the limited screen space.
Sorry Windows, Looks like we took away your main purpose in life.
Open office runs great on the Eee. Word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.
The Good the Bad and the ugly
What do I love and hate about the Eee? What would I change? What should you look out for? I'll try and give an over view of the things I like and enjoy.
The Good
I think Asus nailed the price and size point for this Ultra Portable device. At 600mhz 512mb of memory and a 4gb harddrive, you think that the device will be very slow. You must take into account how much more efficient and streamlined Linux is compared to it's bloated counter parts. The Eee runs without a hiccup surfing, word processing, remote admin, and many many other things. Just don't expect to be doing heavy photo editing or playing the latest 3d game (It however does play 1000's of older games perfectly). The fact that the Eee is 2lbs is amazing, I can carry the Eee with me and not even notice it's hanging on my shoulder. Finally the battery life, Many people complain about it only having ~3 hours of battery life, comparing it with the Nokia's and palmpilots of the word that get 6+ hours of power. But the Eee is NOT a PDA it's a full fledged computer. I think 3 hours in under 2lbs is amazing.
The Bad
All devices have there shortcomings, the Eee is no exception. Over all I think that it is a well designed and laid out device. I'd change a few things. For starters the screen. I can live with the 7" screen, but the 800x480 resolution is a bit smushed. I would raise that up to 1024x600 or something similar. I do not like the single/dual button on the mouse pad. I would prefer two separate buttons, not the single button that you have to rock back and forth for the right click. The side shift key and up arrow should exchange places, making the shift in a more natural place for touch typists. Thats about all I have for complaints.
The Ugly
Ok there is no Ugly, but you looked anyways.
Well I hope this little review helped someone out there. Any questions feel free to get a hold of me. Many methods on this webpage.