Sunday, February 03, 2008

Asus EEEpc

I just bought a Asus EEEpc, the 8g model. I'm writing this on it, in the bus on the way home. It's a neat little machine. I won't go into hardware details because several websites already covered the thing in detail. There is a very active modding community centered around the eeewiki, that spell out almost anything you would want to know about the hardware. Someone posted a complete description (Pictures included) of how to add lots of hardware to the little PC.

I can note a couple of limitations:

  • The keyboard has some “getting used to”, like the small backspace, or the half-size shift key.
  • The screen is small. 7 inches. I wish Asus had remove the speakers on te sides to make more room for screen space.


But it also has several features I like:

  • The form-factor makes it easy to carry around. It can't fit into a pocket, but it' small enough to be hand-carried.
  • The webcam on the 8g edition is a definitive plus.
Other interesting things to note:

  • The interface is... interesting, to say the least. I like the idea of a task-based interface, and would love to install this kind of Interface on my parent's computers. But, for myself, I'm too used to a more “traditional” approach of listing applications.
  • I can't shake the feeling that I should be careful about writing stuff to the drive. The onboard SSD has a life limited by write cycles, somewhere in the 10000-20000 range. Someone on the EEE user forum pointed out that, even with frequents writes, that would put the onboard SSD in the years ranges.

All things considered: I like it :)

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