Introduction As events during the first half of this year show, computer hardware manufacturers seem to have groped for a new idea that could pay good dividends. The essence of this idea is to offer users a new family of mobile devices, which can be conditionally classified as additional, "second" laptops, which are a cross between full-fledged mobile computers and handhelds or smartphones. At first glance, the concept turned out to be successful, the demand for such products, as it turned out, exists, and in the near future we are expecting a boom in the emerging market. This will be facilitated not only by the zeal of mobile device developers, who expect revenue growth due to the demand for new products, but also by the interest of such giants as Intel, NVIDIA and VIA, which have prepared specialized hardware solutions for use in second notebooks.
The main driving force in the new market, obviously, should be the imminent appearance of Intel Atom processors, specially created by the engineers of this company for use in portable devices, the dimensions of which are smaller than those of the usual mobile computers, and the battery life is noticeably higher. In announcing the Atom processors, Intel representatives talked about netbooks - inexpensive small laptops and mobile tablets that can still offer a full range of communication, office and multimedia capabilities.
The first devices, which will be based on the new Intel processor, should appear in the second half of this year. It is by this point that the engineers are going to complete the development of the Centrino Atom platform, which will become a full-fledged basis for the next generation of portable devices. Approximately at the same time, an alternative solution from VIA - the Nano processor (Isaiah) may appear on sale. At the moment, hardware developers cannot offer a powerful enough, but at the same time cost-effective, specialized platform for netbooks. However, this is not an obstacle for everyone. Seeing the prospects of the new market, some laptop manufacturers tried to "play ahead of the curve." Such attempts have become the topic of this review, in which we will get acquainted with the extremely popular miniature notebook, which has almost all the features of a netbook today - ASUS Eee PC.
To be fair, it should be noted that miniature laptops are not a new trend. At various times, such products were offered by many players in the mobile computer market. However, unlike the ASUS Eee PC, all such offers turned out to be niche products and did not gain wide popularity. This was mainly due to the fact that ultra-portable mobile computers turned out to be too expensive, which was due to the desire of their creators to make a kind of full-fledged laptop in a miniature design. As a result, there was a well-founded opinion about such products as about expensive and funny high-tech toys, but they did not receive wide recognition.
The merit of ASUS is that this manufacturer, drawing inspiration, apparently from the ambitious project OLPC ("One Laptop Per Child" - "One Laptop Per Child"), put at the forefront not size and capabilities, but size and price. The Eee PC reflected this vision, beating the netbook generation by at least six months. At first, ASUS wanted to ensure that the younger Eee PC models fit into the $ 200 budget in terms of cost. To achieve this goal, the manufacturer was ready to equip his computer with a small screen, a low-power processor and a minimum amount of RAM, as well as replace the hard drive with a small amount of flash memory. Naturally, this would impose restrictions on the software, which was proposed to use the free Xandros operating system of the Linux family. However, subsequently, the minimum price still increased to three hundred dollars, and more expensive models even acquired the ability to work with the Windows XP operating system familiar to many. As a result, ASUS managed to achieve unprecedented success: their miniature laptop, the Eee PC, became a truly mainstream device, interesting not only for high-net-worth enthusiasts and techno maniacs, but also for a wide range of users with different income and skill levels.
Naturally, our laboratory could not ignore such a phenomenon as the ASUS Eee PC. Unfortunately, the path of this “toy” to the Russian market turned out to be quite difficult. Faced with unprecedented demand for its new ultra-portable laptop, ASUS decided to "push" non-core markets into the background, so Russian users had to wait a long time for the Eee PC to appear in stores. However, in mid-May, the Eee PC became appear on sale, which we used. So, we have in our hands an Eee PC 4G (from the Eee PC 701 series) with a preinstalled Windows XP operating system - an older model of the device that can be bought in Russia.
First glance
ASUS Eee PC even begins to amaze with its packaging. We are used to the fact that laptops come in rather massive boxes. However, with the miniature Eee PC, the case is unique: it comes in a box that is smaller than most motherboards.Inside this compact box, you can find a dwarf laptop, a power supply, a thick fabric case, the required minimum of documentation and an auxiliary DVD.
The Eee PC itself makes an indelible impression with its dimensions and weight. A person who is accustomed to living in the world of ordinary, even 14-inch laptops, he is able to wound in the very heart. To imagine the dimensions of the ultra-portable ASUS novelty, it is enough to compare it with a book: the latter will win in dimensions of no more than 2-3 centimeters in both main dimensions. Thus, the Eee PC is very suitable as a wearable device. For all its intelligence, it is quite capable of fitting even in a jacket pocket, which will not be pulled much, since the weight of the laptop does not even reach a kilogram.
Following the laptop itself, the power supply is striking with its toy size. In this case, it looks more like a phone charger, since it is made in symbiosis with a plug, and not in a separate case. This, by the way, makes the Eee PC weighing less than a kilogram even more mobile, because a power supply unit often travels with a laptop, and here it not only takes up little space, but also weighs only 110 grams.
The ASUS Eee PC also makes a good impression on closer inspection. Despite the low price and rather modest filling, the manufacturer did not save on plastic, for example. The body has ample elasticity for quality protection of the insides. Moreover, the Eee PC can even be classified as shockproof laptops (within reason, of course), since there are no moving parts at all. In particular, for obvious reasons, it is deprived of an optical drive, and the hard drive has been replaced with a flash memory that is not afraid of overloads. So, perhaps, the Eee PC can be a good choice for not the most tidy owners, for example, the same schoolchildren.
So, outwardly, the body of the machine does not make a cheap impression: it does not creak or rattle, and all its parts are tightly fitted to each other. We tested the black version of the device and can confirm that the exterior is on par with most mid-range mobile computers. The plastic has a pleasant roughness to the touch, which successfully conceals both minor scratches and greasy stains.
However, that unbridled delight that causes external inspection of the Eee PC, it is easy to nip in the bud. All you need to do is lift the lid of this ultra-portable laptop, which is held closed by a yielding spring. After all, there is a 7-inch screen with a resolution of 800x480 in its parameters more reminiscent of a digital photo frame than a means of displaying images of a modern mobile computer. In addition, the negative impression is reinforced by the fact that there is enough space in the case lid for a 9-inch screen, but this is the downside of the low price. If you want an inexpensive computer, be content with a photo frame, not a screen with normal characteristics. It is difficult to say how appropriate the reasoning about the image quality on this scanty screen will be, but, perhaps, it should still be mentioned that the matrix used in it is far from ideal. And if everything seems to be in order with the brightness level, then the viewing angles, especially the vertical ones, clearly let us down.
To somehow justify the small size of the screen with a much larger cover, ASUS placed two flat loudspeakers covered with cloth around its edges, providing quite decent sound both in terms of volume and frequency range. Of course, you should not expect powerful bass from them, but against the background of speakers usually installed in laptops, the speakers of the Eee PC make a good impression. Above the screen is a 640x480 webcam, but, unfortunately, the image quality is not even satisfactory.
Directly under the screen, at the bend of the case, there is a power button for the laptop, for some reason it remains accessible even with the lid closed. LED indicators for computer and battery status, hard drive activity and wireless network are located on the front edge of the case so that they remain visible even when the laptop is closed.
The second sore spot in the Eee PC's ergonomics, after the screen, is the keyboard. That the size of the keys would become another victim of miniaturization was clear from the outset. But the quality of their mechanical part, at least, raises questions. Perhaps we were unlucky with a particular instance, but our laptop's keyboard flexed unnaturally when the buttons were pressed and squeaked suspiciously. What can happen to it with prolonged use is difficult to predict.
Natural inconveniences during work can also arise due to the size. Although the manufacturer tried to use all available space for the keyboard to the maximum, certain problems with typing will inexorably haunt anyone who is used to using full-size keyboards. To make typing on the Eee PC more or less comfortable, ASUS resorted to a rather controversial solution - increasing the size of the main alphanumeric buttons by reducing the size of the remaining keys. If for the Latin alphabet such a campaign could be called acceptable, then for the Cyrillic it leads to very strange results: some of the buttons with such legendary letters as X, b, F, E and Yu, as well as the main punctuation marks, turn out to be almost not half the size of the others. But it was especially unlucky for the already long-suffering letter Ё, and it’s impossible to find it on the keyboard right away. Against this background, even the sparkling humor of ASUS engineers fades, deciding to clearly demonstrate that Russian users can easily do without the letter P. Of course, you can get used to everything, but there is no doubt that the number of errors when typing on the Eee PC will exceed the average statistical value. ... The location of the "up arrow" will certainly contribute to this: it squeezed awkwardly to the left of the right Shift.
Complementing the exhibition of miracles of miniaturization is a touchpad with a work surface smaller than a "hosted" matchbox: 45 by 30 mm. But this scanty space is enough to navigate a frame-sized screen, provided the native resolution is used. So there isn't much to complain about here. The touchpad buttons are made in the form of a single panel, pressing on the right and left sides of which carry different functional loads.
From the above, it becomes obvious that the usability of the ultra-portable laptop in question raises at least some doubts. In other words, when closed, the Eee PC looks much more advantageous than in a working one, so we hasten to slam it and return to examining the new items from the outside - to the left and right, where all the slots and ports it have are located. There is one USB 2.0 port on the left edge of the Eee PC, next to it is a 100 Mbit network card slot. Two analog audio jacks for connecting headphones and a microphone are also located nearby. On the right, there are two more high-speed USB 2.0 ports and an analog D-Sub connector that allows you to connect an external monitor with a resolution of up to 1600 × 1200. There is also a slot for a card reader that supports MMC and SD cards.
There are no noticeable details on the front and rear body ribs.
Much more interesting is the underside of the laptop. On it, in addition to the built-in microphone, there are ventilation slots, and exhaust air is discharged through the grill on the left side of the laptop.
Right there, exactly in the center, is the compartment cover, which has a SODIMM slot with a DDR2 SDRAM module. Thus, Eee PC owners have the opportunity, without losing the warranty, to increase the amount of RAM, which in the standard delivery is 512 MB, as well as to supplement the disk space by installing additional flash cards in MMC or SD formats. ASUS ultra-portable computer does not provide other options for upgrading.
Of the wireless interfaces, the Eee PC only supports 802.11b and 802.11g WiFi. The lack of compatibility of this miniature computer with the 802.11n standard, as well as with a gigabit wired network, can hardly be considered a serious drawback. This laptop does not have a capacious hard drive or high-performance processors capable of decoding HD content in real time - therefore, high speeds of network interfaces are simply not useful to it.
Nevertheless, the insufficient capabilities of this computer to connect with other devices still cause complaints. So, although ASUS engineers did not skimp on USB ports, they forgot about Firewire - an interface that developers of ultra-mobile computers usually do not neglect to support. But even this is a small thing compared to the fact that the Eee PC lacks support for Bluetooth - the main wireless interface used to communicate with cell phones and other gadgets. This flaw is difficult for an ultra-mobile computer to forgive, as it actually puts an end to the possibility of using the Eee PC as an Internet device far from WiFi hotspots. The only possible way out in this case is to stock up on the appropriate USB stick in addition to the laptop.
Hardware filling
So, the first impression of the Eee PC 4G is made, it's time to pay closer attention to what lies inside this baby. At the very beginning of the review, we already said that in order to reduce the price of its ultra-mobile novelty, ASUS sacrificed performance. This means that looking for not only high-speed, but also modern components in the Eee PC is pointless.So, this laptop is assembled from three main chips - the Celeron M 353 processor, the north bridge with an integrated i910GML graphics core and the ICH6-M south bridge.
All of these components have been available on the market since mid-2004, so today, four years after their appearance, they are missing the stars from the sky. Nevertheless, contrary to expectations, their power is quite enough to solve the main tasks that arise in front of an ultra-mobile laptop, even in the Windows XP operating system.
Speaking about the main components in more detail, it should be noted that the Celeron M 353 processor is based on the 90nm Dothan core (the second generation of Pentium M). This single-core CPU boasts 512KB L2 cache and a native clock speed of 900MHz. Since Celeron M 353 belongs to Ultra-Low Voltage modifications, its nominal supply voltage is 0.94 V, and typical heat dissipation fits into a 5-watt thermal package. However, to the creators of the Eee PC, this seemed too much by modern standards (the heat dissipation of the same Intel Atom will be about half as much), so the processor frequency in the Eee PC was reduced to 630 MHz.
The processor clock frequency was decreased in the most elementary and straightforward way - by decreasing the FSB frequency from 100 to 70 MHz. However, since Celeron M does not support SpeedStep technology, this is the only available method, although, of course, it also has a very unpleasant side effect, which is expressed in lowering the operating memory frequency.
Actually, this is why the single-channel DDR2 SDRAM used in the Eee PC 4G operates only in DDR2-280 mode, although the 512 MB module installed in our laptop, according to the standard specifications, is capable of operating at frequencies up to 667 MHz.
Thus, the artificial limitation of performance in the Eee PC is, as they say, on all fronts. Hopefully, this is not in vain, and such a decrease in performance will have a beneficial effect on the battery life of this laptop.
The fact that the main components that underlie the Eee PC operate at reduced values relative to their nominal frequencies, involuntarily suggests the possibility of overclocking this laptop. Indeed, the first BIOS versions for the Eee PC allowed increasing the FSB frequency to 100 MHz, which led to an increase in the processor frequency to 900 MHz and memory to 400 MHz. But in later BIOS versions, the overclocking options were unfortunately removed. Nevertheless, such overclocking did not cause any negative side effects, except for a decrease in battery life. The processor did not overheat and the system remained absolutely stable even under 100% load.
Therefore, it is quite natural that utilities will appear that allow you to control the frequency of the Eee PC processor directly from the operating system. In particular, we can recommend the eeectl program, which allows not only switching the FSB frequency values between 70, 85 and 100 MHz, but also performs temperature control, and also, if necessary, makes it possible to increase the rotation speed of the laptop cooling system fan.
By the way, this cooling system is interesting in itself. Since it was problematic to place full-fledged, albeit laptop, coolers inside a small case, ASUS engineers simply placed an aluminum plate under the keyboard in contact with all heated chips. The air flow along this plate is created by a small fan located at the left edge of the laptop. The fan turns on as needed, and its rotation speed in the normal mode is apparently very low, since it is practically inaudible. But the keyboard, through which a fair amount of heat is dissipated, on the contrary, heats up noticeably during operation.
ASUS Eee PC uses Intel GMA 900 graphics built into the chipset northbridge.
Unfortunately, the modest characteristics of this accelerator are aggravated by the fact that it takes a part of the RAM for its work. However, it is capable of hardware acceleration of 3D graphics and MPEG-2 video. Of course, the performance of this solution, which has four pixel pipelines, is not high by modern standards, but in some cases it is quite enough for a screen with a resolution of 800x480. In other words, many games of past generations on the Eee PC 4G are not only fully functional, but also demonstrate acceptable speed: for example, Age of Empires II, Diablo 2, Max Payne 2, Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed, Quake 3 Arena, Trackmania Nations we tested and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne.
The given results of popular tests 3DMark 2001 SE and 3DMark03
obtained at 800x480 native resolution for Eee PC 4G
The 4GB mini-SSD used in the Eee PC 4G also deserves attention. It is curious that it connects to the south bridge via the Parallel ATA-66 interface, but a faster interface is not needed in this case, since the maximum read speed from the selected SSD is no more than 30 MB per second.
It should be noted that this disk is not made in the usual form factor, it is soldered on the laptop motherboard, so it is impossible to find a replacement for it.
Speaking about the hardware composition of the Eee PC, we only have to mention two chips from Atheros, responsible for supporting Fast Ethernet and 802.11b / g WiFi, plus the two-channel AC97 codec Realtek ALC662. As you can see, here again ASUS has chosen some of the most inexpensive microcircuits, but nevertheless, they have good driver support for different operating systems and efficiently cope with the role assigned to them.
One of the most sore spots in the hardware of the ASUS Eee PC 4G in the configuration provided to us for tests is the battery. While obviously chosen for weight and size reasons, ultra-mobile laptop users always expect relatively long battery life. Nevertheless, sold in Russia and in many other countries, the ASUS Eee PC 4G variants are supplied with a lithium-ion battery with a capacity of only 4400 mAh, which is not enough for three hours even according to the manufacturer itself. Unfortunately, the best batteries with a capacity of 5200 mAh have not yet been imported to our country through official channels.
Detailed specifications
Below we present the basic characteristics of the laptop in question. It was in this standard form that he got into our test laboratory.
Impressions of ASUS Eee PC with Microsoft Windows XP
The first commercially available Eee PC modifications came with a pre-installed Linux-based Xandros system with an extremely simplified user interface. In addition, the basic software was already configured on the laptop. In other words, the original concept of the Eee PC was aimed at the orientation of this ultra-portable laptop to inexperienced and novice users who, by and large, the operating system cares last: the main thing is to work. However, the experience of the first sales has shown that such positioning is not the best option. The fact is that many potential buyers of Eee PC with a higher skill level and preferring more common Windows for various reasons, postponed the decision to purchase this extremely interesting device, if only because they did not want to get involved with a rather problematic change of the operating system manually. ASUS itself undertook to solve the problems of this part of users, in April it began to supply Eee PC models with pre-installed Windows XP Home Edition.
At the same time, some delay with the release of Windows versions of the Eee PC was quite justified, it was caused by the selection of the most suitable hardware configurations. The fact is that Windows XP, compared to Xandros, is a "heavy" system that requires more powerful system resources. Therefore, it is offered exclusively in the top of the lineup of ultra-portable notebooks with a 7-inch screen, the Eee PC models with no less than a 4-gigabyte flash drive. And even then, out of 4 GB of disk space immediately after purchase, only a little more than 2 GB is available to the user. True, along with Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Works (a kind of Office in miniature) and Windows Live (a set of interactive services that simplify work on the Internet) are installed on the laptop.
The operating system itself is skilfully configured as standard, it takes up about 210 of the 512 available MB in memory immediately after loading. Of course, its loading time, which exceeds half a minute, is somewhat frustrating, but in practice, no serious problems are observed. The system quickly enough reacts to user actions and does not "slow down" when starting the main utilities (unless, of course, we are talking about some heavy-weight software products).
The lack of free disk space can be compensated for by removing unnecessary operating system components and programs. However, it is not possible to achieve as much as we would like to achieve in this way. In particular, through the standard Add / Remove Programs dialog in the Control Panel, we were able to clean up no more than 2.7 GB of disk space — and this was after removing Microsoft Works, Windows Live, and less-useful parts of Windows XP.
Therefore, for serious use, we would recommend reinstalling the operating system from scratch, while removing all unnecessary components initially. The apparent obstacle in the form of the lack of an optical drive in the Eee PC is actually easy to work around, since for installation you can use external bootable flash media both in the form of MMC and SD cards, as well as in the form of USB sticks. The easiest and most affordable option for most is to install the operating system on the Eee PC Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC... Based on the Windows XP kernel (and fully compatible with it), this system is designed specifically for computers with limited hardware resources and eliminates the need to add some components during the installation phase. But even in a typical configuration with all the necessary drivers for the Eee PC, this OS only takes up just over 500MB of disk space.
More experienced enthusiasts can even create their own distribution of Windows XP using the nLite utility, which allows you to cut down the distribution of this OS even more. Thus, in the process of testing, we managed to minimize the disk space occupied by the operating system to 300 MB while maintaining all the necessary functionality. At the same time, the system took up no more than 120 MB in memory, and loaded in 19 seconds.
In other words, the Eee PC opens up a tremendous scope for sophisticated, experimental users to creatively optimize software. So, instead of Internet Explorer, you can install the increasingly popular Firefox, instead of Microsoft Works, we would recommend using the more compact and more functional free office suite OpenOffice.org, and as a graphics editor opt for the compact but rich program Paint.NET. The Windows Live package offered by ASUS generally seems to be of little use, which can be completely painlessly not installed at all.
Thus, the most significant problem faced by Eee PC 4G owners is the relatively low resolution of 800x480. Obviously, when developing its operating system, Microsoft did not count on such screen sizes at all, so often even standard dialog boxes do not fit in the visible area entirely. Similar difficulties can arise when working in familiar programs and even when visiting sites, most of which are currently optimized for a screen width of at least 1024 pixels.
In part, these troubles can be circumvented by the specialized utility AsTray Plus, which allows you to set resolutions on the Eee PC higher than the standard resolution determined by the characteristics of the LCD matrix, up to 1024x768. However, it should be understood that this is a kind of "stub", we cannot talk about full-fledged work in such modes, since the image quality in this case turns out to be below any criticism.
If we close our eyes to the insufficient screen resolution and the noted problems in ergonomics, then it is not so easy to make any complaints about the operation of the ASUS Eee PC in Windows XP. It handles typical tasks that may arise in front of an ultra-portable computer with dignity. Performance, disk space and the amount of RAM are quite enough not only for simple surfing of web pages and viewing electronic documents, but also for full-fledged work in office applications, and for decoding DVD-resolution video files, and for Skype conversations, accompanied by reception and transmission video. The Eee PC is no longer powerful enough to play high-definition video. However, given that this ultra-portable mobile computer lacks an optical drive and has a small screen, viewing HD video should hardly be considered a typical workload for it.
While testing the practical capabilities of the Eee PC 4G, we tried to recreate a typical (from the point of view of a technical writer) working environment on it. To do this, we launched OpenOffice.org Writer on a laptop, in which the text of this article was edited, and also opened several Mozilla Firefox windows, loading them with Gmail and a number of information materials from technical sites. During this experiment, in the background, in parallel with the main load, Winamp was running, broadcasting Internet radio, Miranda IM, Skype, uTorrent and the antivirus avast! Home Edition. And surprisingly, but in this case, the Eee PC did not have any critical problems. Even without overclocking, the processor load did not exceed 50-60%. A much more popular resource was not the CPU speed, but the amount of RAM, which, in our case, was occupied by the running applications almost completely. So increasing its volume over the standard 512 MB may become a top priority for those users who plan to use the Eee PC quite actively.
In any case, however, the ASUS Eee PC 4G, running Microsoft Windows XP, has proven itself to be a well-balanced solution - in the sense that its feature set and performance level are quite equal to the size of this ultra-portable computer. All typical tasks that a laptop with such dimensions can face are perfectly solved by means of the Eee PC 4G.
But, perhaps, with one offensive exception. The thing is, given the hardware inside the Eee PC, you'd expect this laptop to be able to please its owners with a relatively long battery life. In practice, however, the situation is completely different: we never managed to get more than two and a half hours of battery life from the Eee PC 4G. However, these tests were carried out with the screen brightness set to the maximum level, and the WiFi adapter was used to establish a connection to the wireless network. The built-in USB camera was disabled.
Testing with the Battery Eater 3 in standard mode (under load) yielded only a very modest result of 2 hours and 13 minutes. In Reader mode, which does not load the system much, the laptop worked a little longer - 2 hours 35 minutes. Separately, we measured the battery life of the Eee PC 4G when playing DivX video: it was 2 hours and 21 minutes. In other words, the battery life of the Eee PC is downright disappointing.
conclusions
Despite the fact that the impression that the ASUS Eee PC left after itself turned out to be rather ambiguous, it is impossible not to praise the developers of this ultra-portable solution. The fact is that with its Eee PC, ASUS turned out to be a pioneer, it opened up a promising new market for inexpensive and small laptops. And from this point of view, the Eee PC can be described as a real breakthrough. Such small laptops, the cost of which is not deterred by the number of zeros on the price tag, can be useful for both beginners and experienced users. The fact is that there are a lot of possible applications for such a computer, which explains its growing popularity.ASUS did the right thing to release several flavors of the Eee PC with different operating systems. It was with this step that the manufacturer managed to significantly increase the reach of the target audience. As a result, the promised sales of the Eee PC of 5 million units by the end of the year seems quite achievable, unless, of course, the dominance of ASUS offerings is not shaken by the imminent appearance of a motley squad of netbooks based on Intel Atom processors.
However, along with the undoubted success of the innovative concept of the Eee, one cannot fail to note the shortcomings of a particular implementation - the 4G model we reviewed. Especially now that the Eee PC has been on sale worldwide for more than six months and the euphoria about this product has already subsided. Indeed, in practice, it turns out that this model is far from perfect. For example, it makes a winning impression only when closed - under the lid of the laptop hides a miniature ergonomic nightmare, the main components of which are a too small screen and an inconvenient keyboard, especially in the Russian-language layout. The insufficiently thought-out hardware capabilities are also frustrating: the lack of Bluetooth support and the amount of RAM that is too small for full-fledged operation in Windows XP.
However, some of these shortcomings have been corrected in the next model Eee PC 900, which is already being sold in full on ASUS priority markets. Unfortunately, the Russian market does not belong to them, in the situation with the supply of the Eee PC, ASUS deliberately demonstrates its disdain for domestic buyers. And it is not only about the new models of ultra-mobile laptops, but also the configurations of the models of the old ones. For example, the same Eee PC 4G reviewed in this review was equipped with the weakest of all possible batteries, with a capacity of only 4400 mAh. As a result, it is completely unsurprising that during the testing process we got an indecently short battery life, significantly less than even three hours.
Thus, for all the attractiveness of the Eee PC as an idea, we would recommend that you take your time with the purchase and wait. At least when ASUS launches the Atom-based Eee PC 901 with a nine-inch screen and gigabytes of RAM, larger flash drive, Bluetooth support and longer battery life. Besides, numerous ASUS competitors are about to enter the market of inexpensive ultra-portable notebooks, many of whom will certainly not treat the Russian market as a secondary one. So the appearance on store shelves of more perfect and convenient netbooks than the Eee PC 4G, in any case, is not far off.
Check availability and cost of ASUS Eee PC
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Many homo sapiens, especially males, believe that "more" automatically means "better." However, there are exceptions to this rule.
Take, for example, such a thing as a laptop: the smaller and lighter it is, the better. (Whoever disagrees, can put a 17-inch monster in a bag and run around the city with this load for at least a couple of hours.) The small size of a laptop can cross out all its shortcomings, especially when you consider that the range of tasks solved on the road is usually sufficient poor: most users, including employees gg, a text editor, email and internet access are enough not to feel left out. (That is, of course, for complete happiness we need another 100 million dollars and a personal island in the Mediterranean, but this is beside the point.)
That is why, in our opinion, the miniature ASUS Eee PC is a revolutionary device, the appearance of which will have serious consequences for the entire market. In fact, ASUS has decided to revise the traditional concepts of mobile computers. The combination of size, price and open software platform makes the Eee PC a hit.
Specifications
- CPU: Intel Celeron M ULV 900 MHz (actually - 630 MHz)
- Video: Intel GMA900
- Display: 7 inches, 800x480, LED-backlight
- RAM: 512 MB
- Storage device: 4GB flash + SD / SDHC card slot
- Communications: Wi-Fi b / g, Ethernet 10/100 Mbit / s, 3хUSB 2.0
- OS: Linux (used a variant of the Xandros distribution)
- Weight: 920 grams
First impressions
ASUS Eee PC makes a very strong impression with its incredibly small size. When closed, the laptop is comparable to a pair of DVDs or a small book. Weight - about 1 kilogram - also belongs to the strengths of the device.
ASUS Eee PC is comparable in size to a VHS cassette or a pair of DVDs
In our hands, we have visited a black laptop, the body of which is made of high-quality plastic, pleasant to the eye and to the touch. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the white Eee PC, which we also had the opportunity to spin in our hands: it is made of glossy plastic with a "mother-of-pearl" coating, which not only resembles cheap Christmas tree decorations, but is instantly covered with fingerprints. If ASUS was determined to make the computer white, it had to follow the example of Apple, which uses durable and non-marking polycarbonate for this purpose. By the time the official sales start in Ukraine, other color options will be available, including orange, pink and green. We sincerely hope that they will be made of high quality matte plastic, like the black sample.
In general, the Eee PC has no complaints about the build quality: it looks almost monolithic. Hinges, unlike large ASUS laptops, firmly hold the screen in position, and the lid reliably protects the matrix from damage. The fastening of the battery also did not cause any complaints - it sits in its place like a glove.
We also liked the convenient location of the USB ports - they are located on the side edges of the case, which provides easy access to them. The Eee PC comes with a small case that protects it from scratches when carried in a bag.
Keyboard and touchpad
In our opinion, the ASUS Eee PC keyboard is its main drawback. To reduce the size of the device, the manufacturer naturally had to sacrifice the convenience of text input. The keys on the Eee PC are much smaller than the keys on typical notebook computers, which is clearly not to the liking of people with large hands. The layout generally corresponds to the standard one, although there are some oddities in it: for example, the key with a tilde is next to, and all the number buttons are shifted one to the left (that is, the two is in the place of one, and so on). In the first few hours of my interaction with the Eee PC, I made a lot of typos, but during the week the number of errors decreased and the speed increased. However, I did not manage to get used to the unusual arrangement of the numbers.
The touchpad, like the keyboard, is very small in size - you need to get used to it. Below the touchpad is one large key, which is used for both left and right clicks depending on which side the user presses. The touchpad natively supports scrolling.
Screen
ASUS Eee PC is equipped with a 7-inch screen with a resolution of 800x480 pixels. The screen, by the way, is not quite ordinary - it has LED backlighting, which has a good effect on both the image quality and power consumption. Brightness and contrast are simply excellent; The Eee PC is the first laptop I've ever seen that can work more or less well outside during the day. For indoor use, the brightness can be safely set to half of the maximum. Unfortunately, the low resolution of the screen makes the work not very convenient. Personally, I really hope that in the future ASUS will release an update to the Eee PC with a resolution of at least 1024x600.
Shell
The ASUS Eee PC runs a modified version of Xandros, a popular Linux distribution based on Debian.
By default, the laptop is loaded in the so-called easy mode, which is designed to make communication with the laptop as easy as possible (and also to increase the speed of the system). In this mode, the user sees on the screen several tabs with shortcuts for launching preinstalled applications. At the bottom of the screen, as in the usual Windows operating system, there is a taskbar on which buttons for running applications are displayed, as well as a system notification area (analogous to the Windows system tray). The default notification area contains the clock, battery indicator, network connection status, volume control, and current Caps Lock / Num Lock status. When you start a resident program (for example, Skype), its icon also appears in the notification area.
The set of preinstalled applications, in our opinion, is quite good. The Firefox browser is used to browse the web, Pidgin is used for instant messaging (a multi-protocol client that supports ICQ, AIM, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk and other networks), and OpenOffice.org is used to work with documents (for some reason, the old version 2.0 ). Media tools include the Amarok music manager, SMPlayer video player and GwenView photo viewer (analogous to ACDSee). Other useful programs include FBReader (e-book reader), Skype and, of course, the everlasting Klondike Solitaire. In general, the set of functions provided by the Eee PC "out of the box" significantly surpasses any PDA we know and comes close to full-size laptops.
Hacker's corner
No matter how convenient and thoughtful the software environment is, there are always people who want more. This section of the article is intended specifically for them. Immediately, I would like to warn you that all changes in the configuration of the ASUS Eee PC you make at your own peril and risk: edition gg will take absolutely no responsibility in the event that something goes wrong. In addition, you need to have a good working knowledge of the Linux operating system.
The first priority for any advanced Linux user is command line access. Fortunately, the ASUS Eee PC makes it easy: just press + + [T] to launch xterm. If you, like me, prefer a different terminal - for example Konsole - you will have to edit the ~ / .icewm / keys file. To do this, in the command line, type the command sudo kwrite ~ / .icewm / keys and edit it as follows: key "Ctrl + Alt + t" konsole In the same way, you can set other "hot keys" to invoke programs. Our - presale - copy was not configured for Cyrillic text input by default. This unfortunate omission had to be corrected. We first got rid of SCIM using the sudo apt-get remove scim-xandros command. Then we edited the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:
Section "InputDevice"? Identifier "keyboard" ... Option "XkbLayout" "us, ru, ua"? Option "XkbOptions" "grp: ctrl_shift_toggle" ... EndSection
And finally, we installed a simple and convenient kkbswitch layout indicator. Unfortunately it is not in the official Eee PC repository maintained by ASUS, so we grabbed the package from Debian Etch and installed it using dpkg. To have kkbswitch start automatically when your Eee PC boots up, open /usr/bin/startsimple.sh as superuser and add / usr / bin / kkbswitch & somewhere before exec icewm. Then we adjusted the sizes of the system fonts, because the default size (10 points) looks too large on a screen of this resolution. To change the font size in KDE applications, open the kcontrol utility and set the required size in the Display / Themes / Fonts section (8). For GTK applications, you'll need to edit the ~ / .gtkrc file. It is necessary to enter the following lines into it: gtk-font-name = "Sans 8" gtk-toolbar-style = GTK_TOOLBAR_ICONS Well, for complete happiness, we turned on the full desktop mode, although, in our opinion, at such a small it is absolutely useless on the screen. To do this, literally one command is enough: sudo apt-get install ksmserver kicker After that, another button will appear in the computer shutdown menu - Full Desktop, after clicking on which the Eee PC will reboot into the full KDE desktop mode.
It should be understood that the ASUS Eee PC is a full-fledged computer in terms of architecture, so you can install any operating system on it, including Windows XP. However, we think that the pre-installed set of software is good enough not to bother with anything else.
ASUS Eee PC in full desktop mode
Performance and expandability
The ASUS Eee PC uses a low-voltage Celeron M ULV processor with a nominal clock speed of 900 MHz and a 1MB L2 cache. It should be noted, however, that the Eee PC currently has a 70 MHz FSB and an effective processor frequency of 630 MHz. Despite this, in basic mode, the laptop responds to all user actions instantly. In full desktop mode, the responsiveness is slightly degraded, but still communicating with the Eee PC does not irritate the user. The presence of a relatively powerful processor allows you to watch almost any movie in MPEG-4 format on ASUS Eee PC without preliminary re-encoding (these are DivX, XviD, WMV codecs and others). The SMPlayer mentioned above does an excellent job with its duties, it's a pity that it does not allow you to watch files over the network. Of course, high definition (HD) video is out of the question. The only pre-installed application that raises a lot of speed issues is the OpenOffice.org office suite. It is very simple to speed it up - it is enough to install a gigabyte module instead of the standard 512 MB RAM bar.
The memory is hidden under a cover on the bottom of the laptop, but the cover is unfortunately sealed, so upgrading the memory will likely void the warranty. In addition to the slot for RAM, under this cover you can find a PCI Express Mini Card slot, into which you can install any expansion card of this form factor (although at the moment their choice is limited and is mainly limited to wireless adapters). In our opinion, the most obvious upgrade to the ASUS Eee PC is buying a fast 4-8 GB SDHC memory card and installing it in the corresponding slot. This will allow the subnotebook to be used not only for work, but also for entertainment.
Food
ASUS Eee PC is equipped with a 5200 mAh (or 38.5 Wh) Li-Ion battery. Despite the relatively low capacity, the battery provides sufficient battery life. The laptop lasted 3 hours when watching DivX video at maximum screen brightness and almost 5 hours in office work with Wi-Fi turned on.
The included PSU is one of the smallest and lightest laptop PSUs we've ever seen. It is quite comparable with chargers from some mobile phones. This reduces road weight and makes the Eee PC even more portable.
ASUS Eee PC power supply (bottom left) next to the power supply unit of an IBM laptop and a charger from a Motorola mobile phone
In the dry residue
In our opinion, the ASUS Eee PC is a truly revolutionary device that can completely change the way you use mobile computers. Possessing enough power for work and entertainment, it is distinguished by its unprecedented small size and attractive price (it is expected that the cost of the model we have visited in Ukraine will be about $ 500 or UAH 2,500). At the same time, inexperienced users will certainly be satisfied with the functionality provided out of the box, especially since the set of preinstalled applications is very good, and Linux gurus will be able to fine-tune the system "for themselves". It should be understood that the ASUS Eee PC will never be able to replace a full-fledged large laptop or desktop computer - however, it is not intended for this. This device is designed for Internet access, working with texts and simple entertainment like watching videos, but it copes with these tasks exceptionally well. Quite frankly, the author of this article, who often has to travel across the expanses of the former USSR, himself thought about purchasing an Eee PC as a small, lightweight and comfortable travel laptop. It seems to us that the best recommendation for this device is difficult to come up with.
The popularity of laptops has only increased over the past few years. Manufacturers began to massively develop models designed for different audiences. This is how gaming, media, office and work laptops appeared.
But 10 years ago, the laptop market was not so diverse. Each model turned out to be special and was noticed by everyone who followed the production of the devices. At that time, users preferred compact and stand-alone models.
This device entered the market in 2008. At the time, it was announced as an innovative solution. Its main features were compact size, budget cost and versatility.
The specs of the Asus EEE PC 4G weren't outstanding, and they would put off any buyer at this time. But in 2008, the device was powerful enough for all everyday tasks. The netbook was bought as an assistant by office workers and students.
Now, looking at modern models, the Asus EEE PC 4G would be called mobile, since even some smartphones have already acquired a 7-inch diagonal, not to mention tablets. But at the time, not everyone could afford the luxury of a standalone and compact laptop. Therefore, the release of such a model at a low cost turned out to be the best option.
Supply
The Asus EEE PC 4G comes in a light blue box. Everything looks very nice and attractive. On the front there is a photo of the Asus EEE PC 4G netbook, while the specifications are indicated on the side. It is immediately clear that the model is focused on work, study and play. This is exactly what the manufacturer wrote on the box.
The front also indicates that the netbook is running Windows XP. The back of the package lists the main characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 4G. Since the device is compact, the box is also small, so it didn't even have a handle attached to it for transportation.
By the way, the packaging also shows why the netbook has three letters "E" in its name. The manufacturer mentions the word "easy" - "easy". He wants to convey to the customer that this device will be easy to use, easy to learn and easy to play.
Equipment
But the fun begins with unpacking. The visual characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 4G can already be seen by opening the box. Inside, in addition to the device itself, there is a battery, a power supply, and documentation for the netbook. The manufacturer also offers a disc with a manual, a Microsoft software license and a warranty card.
Many users noted the presence of a folder for transportation. This is a fabric case without handles or locks. It looks like a folder and closes with Velcro. Made in black, and on the "tongue" flaunts the Asus logo.
Appearance
Description Asus EEE PC 4G should start with the appearance. Now such a model would not attract attention: the case is too thick and at the same time small. Rough lines are no longer in vogue, and the lack of graphic elements makes the design unremarkable.
The body is made of matte black plastic. There is a silver logo in the middle. Also visible are the large hinges that hold the two parts of the device. Next to one of them is the series - Eee PC.
There are no rounded corners in the case, so the appearance seems more businesslike. Most likely, because of this, many people think that the device is designed for businessmen. But if someone did not like this color scheme, you could purchase a netbook with a white case. In this case, the model looked brighter and more stylish.
There are several ventilation holes on the bottom of the netbook. There is a cover in the middle that gives access to the processor. To get to the rest of the system, you need to use a screwdriver. Thanks to it, you can easily unscrew the lid. The battery is hidden in a small plastic roller, and you can open it with a spring lock.
Body parts
The characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 4G netbook include the presence of various parts on the case. For example, it should be noted right away that the device does not have an optical drive. However, this is not surprising, since the dimensions of the case are so small that it is impossible to install a disc reader inside.
But on the right side you can find two USB ports, a VGA connector for connecting a monitor, and a card reader for various formats of memory cards. On the edge is Kensington Castle.
On the left there is a grate through which warm air comes out of the case, and cool air enters inside. There is also a network port for connecting an internet cable. A third USB port is available to the user, as well as two slots for a microphone and headphone.
Working surface
If you just open the Asus EEE PC 4G, you will not appreciate its technical characteristics, for this you still have to turn on the device. But you can look at the working area of the netbook and understand how ergonomic it is.
The keyboard takes up the most space. It is made of plastic, does not have an island structure and a separate digital block. Since the device is compact, it was not easy to recreate a full-size keyboard. Therefore, some had to get used to the absence of some keys for a long time.
The Latin alphabet is white here, but the Russian layout is green. Function buttons are blue. There is a digital block on the very edge, but it is inconvenient because it is not dedicated. The Enter button was also reduced in size.
But the manufacturer did not forget about the Fn function key, which in combination can help to adjust the screen brightness, sound volume, wireless network operation, etc. There are 80 buttons in total.
The keyboard takes up two-thirds of the working area, so the touchpad seems a bit cramped. It is located in the middle. In addition to the touch area, I got a silver button, which is responsible for the operation of the right and left mouse buttons.
To the left of the touchpad, there are stickers that describe the technical specifications of the Asus EEE PC 4G. On the right are indicators of the operation of various system options: battery charge, wireless network, Caps Lock and turning on the device.
As mentioned earlier, the keyboard took up almost the entire work area. If in ordinary devices there is a place on top where the manufacturer places the volume controls, the player buttons and, finally, the power button, then in the case of this model everything turned out differently: the power button was moved to the plastic roller in which the battery is located. Next to the right hinge that holds the screen is a silver power button.
Display
Since the specs and features of the Asus EEE PC 4G imply a compact size of the device, it was not possible to accommodate a large display. The user received a 7-inch screen. Now even tablets of this size are no longer popular.
The display resolution can be of two options: 800 x 600 and 800 x 440 pixels. Since at that time only a mirror coating was developed, it was decided not to install it in the budget model. And in many ways it helped the netbook become popular. Even now, glossy screens receive a lot of negative reviews, since they oblige the user to constantly be in the building and not work in nature.
The matte display does not collect glare and reflections. It is comfortable to work with, so this model received positive reviews on the characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 4G. The viewing angles were also quite good.
Audio system
Of course, the speakers of a netbook cannot be called such a big word. If you look for them visually, you might think that the manufacturer has forgotten about them, because their location is rather unusual.
It was decided to place the acoustics in the cover on which the display is located. This helped save space at the base of the chassis, but had little impact on sound quality and appearance.
The speakers were placed to the left and right of the screen. They stand out and visually make the display look even smaller. Due to the relatively thin lid of the device, the speakers are compact, which affects the sound.
But, despite this, the sound of music and other sounds of the system seems decent, especially if you perceive the situation objectively. The sound is loud and clear.
Specifications
It just so happened that in the review of the Asus EEE PC 4G, the characteristics and description of the device may differ. This is due to the fact that this is the name of the entire series of models. In fact, several netbooks with this name were sold at once. Some of them received certain "chips", others seemed absolutely ordinary office devices.
The most budgetary version was the Asus EEE PC 4G 701. The characteristics of the model remained generally the same, but the netbook was deprived of a number of useful options.
Processor in the system
This version ran on a Mobile Intel Celeron M processor. This chip operated at a frequency of 900 MHz. All models in the Eee PC series ran on this processor. All chips had a L2 cache with a volume of 512 KB. Also for all devices the 910GML chipset from Intel was installed.
Netbook memory
The RAM could vary depending on the modification. The characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 4G 701 assumed the presence of DDR2 RAM modules with a frequency of 400 MHz and a volume of 512 MB. In other models, one could find RAM for 1 and 2 GB.
The hard drive also worked inside. The most remarkable thing is that the manufacturer decided to use not a classic HDD, but a newfangled SSD. At that time, this was a real innovation and significantly added to the overall performance of the device.
Although it should be said right away that the internal memory was only 4 GB, which today seems absolutely unrealistic. Even the 8GB versions now seem completely dysfunctional. Nevertheless, at that time it was a good indicator, but the statement that the user will be able to "play easily" with this model seems to be just a publicity stunt. However, let's not forget that the games were not so "heavy" then.
As mentioned earlier, there was a card reader on the right side. Its peculiarity is that it was a 3-in-1 module. It worked with all flash cards that supported Secure Digital.
Other device characteristics
It is worth mentioning that the system was paired with a graphics adapter. This is an integrated Intel GMA 900 graphics card with 64MB memory. The adapter allowed you to connect a third-party monitor to the netbook, and also switch the resolution from 800 x 600 to 1600 x 1280 pixels.
We continue our review. The Asus EEE PC 4G had better display characteristics. As already mentioned, the display has a diagonal of 7 inches. Installed matrix LCD. The standard resolution can be 800 x 600 or 800 x 480 pixels. In more expensive modifications, the situation does not change.
The built-in sound system from Realtek was responsible for the sound. The fact that the manufacturer provided two speakers at once is a great bonus.
Network technologies
To work on the Internet, it was necessary to equip the Asus EEE PC 4G with network technologies. The manufacturer installed a network card that worked on the new controller. There was also a wireless adapter. He coped with his tasks, although sometimes slowed down the loading of browser pages. It was necessary to place an adapter on the board for accessing wireless networks of the new standard.
In more expensive modifications, one could find built-in adapters operating at speeds of 10/100/1000 Mbps.
Multimedia capabilities
The netbook can hardly be called a multimedia device because it is equipped with simple components. Very rarely, buyers viewed it as a device for watching videos or listening to music. But thanks to two speakers, it became possible to enjoy the sound of your favorite songs.
There is also a built-in microphone, the hole of which can be found on the top bezel of the display. You can also see the webcam right there. It has 0.3 megapixels. Considering that current devices are equipped with 5-8 megapixel camera modules, this figure seems quite deplorable. But at that time, even it was enough for calls on Skype.
Testing
Help to understand everything about performance can not only feedback on the characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 4G netbook, but also the test results. Despite the poverty of the netbook market in 2008, it turned out to be easy to find competitors for the monitored model. For example, the Asus UMPC R2E laptop was not bad at that time.
There is a difference in the hard drive and more memory, while the processor and graphics adapter are practically the same. To make the testing fair, the second netbook model was taken with the resource-intensive Vista operating system.
Performance testing, again, hints that the Asus EEE PC 4G is not that easy. The netbook, unambiguously, is designed only for office work and study. He copes with other tasks very hard. Its performance is extremely low.
The video system also did not show good results and turned out to be weaker than the chipset. The video card cannot handle 3D. Therefore, in general, the system is saved only by the RAM and the processor at an acceptable frequency.
The disk subsystem of the device uses a 4 GB solid state drive. This is indicated not only by the manufacturer, but also by the analysis of the components. The SSD works like a clock. It takes only 4% of the CPU.
I remember that morning in 2009 well. I was 14 years old, and once again I slept through school - thanks to FIFA 2009 on PSP, which I hacked into all night. It became clear: either I will score on the games and restore the regime, or I will simply go stupid and undermine my health.
Then I made a strong-willed decision and put up a prefix for sale, which was less than a year old. It came with one disc, an expensive memory card (by the way, I bought it with the first money I earned), a plastic case, a charger and a box - it’s not surprising that the buyer was found on the same day.
I didn't have to bargain - after a quick check, they handed me six thousand, and the PSP, along with the "fifa", flew away to some guy. At first I was going to just put money in the piggy bank, but in the end I realized that I needed to buy another, more useful gadget.
Decent phones for six thousand did not exist then (now too few). I already had a player. Cameras were never exciting. It was useful to look at laptops - by, all from 15 thousand. And then I saw on the "Market" the column "netbooks".
I poked it purely for the sake of curiosity, but ended up in the world of hellishly cheap devices. For 10-12 thousand you could already get a good computer - with Windows, a 10-inch screen and 3-4 hours of battery life. But I only had six thousand, that is, half of the required amount.
My parents refused to help - they were not satisfied with my monstrous grades. I had to pick out the most budgetary option - it was found in some kind of left-handed online store.
It was the Asus Eee PC 701, and in the most flawed modification. 2 GB of internal memory (a nightmare), a slightly shameful blue case, a 7-inch screen, but most importantly - unfamiliar Linux instead of Windows.
But the netbook cost 6700 rubles... Somehow I begged for seven hundred square meters from my dad, ordered delivery, sat down on the sofa to wait. A courier arrived, and he stank of sweat, like a company of soldiers - it seemed that the dude did not even know about the existence of deodorant. I didn't want to check the gadget in such conditions, so I put in the bills as soon as possible and said goodbye.
In a small box was a tiny laptop. Before that, I had never seen him live, so at the first second I thought that they had planted a toy on me, and now I will not prove anything. But no - after I inserted the battery, the device obediently turned on.
The keyboard buttons and touchpad were designed for either gnomes or hobbits. The screen is for patient people: because of the non-standard resolution, the sites were displayed in such a way that they had to scroll not only vertically, but also horizontally.
At the same time, there was practically no negativity - I was wildly happy that I had my first computer of my own.
That's what excited the most:
1. The set was given a cover. Nice and soft daddy, in which the laptop fits just perfectly. It seemed that even if you drop a netbook packed in a case, nothing tragic will happen to the gadget.
2. Linux has been incredibly optimized. Built-in applications (Skype, ICQ, Mozilla browser, Open Office, video player) did not slow down or freeze. For all the time I rebooted my EeePC 2-3 times. Warm greetings to lagging Windows laptops with an Intel Atom processor.
3. Netbook fantastically cheerfully pulled social networks: VK vidos (varying degrees of frankness), applications in the same social network. I almost never played Happy Farmer, but I came up with a cheating tactic in online darts: I drew two dots on the screen, pointed the cursor there and knocked out 180 points 10 times out of 10. Two weeks of this kind of gaming took me to the first line in the ranking of several thousand Human. Then I calmed down with the games, remembering the fate of the PSP.
4. The computer was charged in 2 hours and kept the charge strictly for 2 hours at any load. Surfing, movies, text, normal standing on the table - it doesn't matter, it still lasted 120 minutes.
On that netbook, I constantly did three things: chat (either in ICQ or VK), watch movies (just packs) and enjoy pirated football broadcasts.
Even the great match Liverpool - Arsenal (4: 4, Arshavin's poker) I watched with the help of a small 7-inch screen.
Unfortunately, there were some things that were terribly annoying about the netbook. I didn't like that applications should be installed through some kind of repositories - on Windows it was easier with this. I was also angry that I could not play on Asus in FIFA - sometimes I still wanted to kick a virtual ball.
It is logical that after a year of use, I matured to install Windows. I did everything according to the instructions from some fan site, but the "Windows" started and hung. I decided that I had to reboot and the netbook would come to life. I pulled out the battery, put it back in - emptiness. Only a black screen and a burning light bulb.
The patient was not helped by any procedures - even in two repairs after the diagnosis, they admitted that they did not understand what the problem was. There is only one scenario left - to put the netbook in the ads. My little friend left for 2000 rubles - for spare parts. For another 700 rubles, I sold the most pleasant cover.
It turned out that a year with the EeePC cost me 4000 rubles. Did the gadget work out this money?
Definitely. 100% .
I still sometimes remember that computer and think how great it would be if something similar was released now - ultra-affordable, but compact, fast and reliable.
There is, but it costs $ 400 and is still far from our market.
It turns out that all the hope is for Chromebooks, but they are also in no rush to Russian counters.
In general, the EeePC 701 legendary and unique- it's a pity that this line of Asus has been closed for 4 years already.
Rate it.
Few could argue that Asus created something special when it launched the Eee PC series. But the idea of making a truly mobile and highly accessible computer has been well received by consumers. While the 2007 Eee PC 4G 701 was a success, questions remained that spoiled the overall experience. With the Eee PC 900, Asus has done its job almost perfectly.
Model history
The concept of a simple laptop with solid state drives and no moving parts is nothing new. In Series 5 Psion, the company introduced a handy device that could be used, for example, to type while sitting on a train. Then the manufacturer expanded the boundaries, presenting the world with the 7th series - a netbook.
The Psion netBook has managed to balance basic functionality, small size and long battery life. Over time, however, full-fledged laptops became smaller and lighter, and end users wanted feature-rich operating systems. All this led to a decrease in demand for Psion (although its EPOC OS operating system continued its life as Symbian).
For a long time, there were no devices like the 7 series and the NetBook. Fortunately, Asus realized that there was room in the market for a simple, affordable machine that didn't need to run the latest version of Windows - and the Eee PC netbook was born.
Frame
Those who have not heard of Her PC should be given some explanation. This is a very small device measuring 225x165x35 mm and weighing about 1 kg. With such parameters, the model really belongs to the ultraportable sector. Designed for on-the-go use, it doesn't take up much space in your bag. The netbook comes in two colors: pearlescent white and black, like Apple's MacBook. But this is the only similarity that binds them. The assembly of the case and hinges is of high quality, but there is no transport lock, so the device requires careful handling when transporting.
Display
Although the chassis of the Asus Eee PC 900 is the same as the 701, you just need to open the lid to see the first significant difference. The screen took a huge step forward and provided the Eee PC with an even more attractive look than its predecessor. The 7-inch display of the original netbook was 800 pixels wide and forced the user to constantly scroll to the side of the vast majority of web pages.
On the enlarged 8.9 ”screen of the PC 900, this problem has been corrected by increasing the image resolution. 1024 dots wide allows you to display web pages without the need for additional manipulation. The full display resolution is 1024x600 pixels. This means it uses a wide format like most full-featured laptops on the market.
According to user reviews, the screen quality of the Asus Eee PC 900 is excellent. The display, while not as bright and bright as the Sony TZ, is evenly lit, has wide viewing angles and doesn't suffer from dead pixels. It fills the lid of the netbook much better than before - it looked tiny then, with speakers on the sides and surrounded by a wide black bezel. Along with the improvement in functionality, the aesthetics of the model have also increased.
Keyboard
Considering the overall size of the Eee PC, it should come as no surprise that the keyboard is quite small. Anyone who can barely handle the reduced key size of traditional ultraportable notebooks will not enjoy the Eee PC. If the fingers are thin, then there should be no problems with the input. Surprisingly, there is a good stroke of each key and feedback after each press, which ensures that the finger bounces back and is ready for the next press. If there is a significant drawback, it is the reduced size of the enter key. While this can take some time to get used to, users would rather have a normal sized button.
Touchpad
Below the gap is the touchpad, which is another change from the Eee PC 701. Not only is it much wider, but it also supports multi-touch. You can zoom in and out by spreading or pinching your fingers. Laptop users who are accustomed to scrolling through documents using the right edge of the touchpad will probably be disappointed to learn that the Eee PC 900's touchpad does not support this feature. But don't despair, because the manufacturer has come up with a much better way. Instead of sliding your finger along the edge of the touchpad, the Asus netbook allows you to do so anywhere - just use two fingers. Scrolling works both vertically and horizontally.
Loudspeakers
Asus has been criticized for the huge speakers around the edges of the screen on the original model. This time around, the display bezels have narrowed significantly and the speakers have moved to the base of the netbook. The sound quality is good when the device is put on your lap, it becomes muffled.
Asus Eee PC 900: specifications
There are some big internal changes as well, although the processor is not among them. While many hoped that the model would receive an Intel Atom, this did not happen. The main platform has remained unchanged. Intel Celeron 900 MHz and motherboard on the 915GM chipset do not demonstrate performance miracles, but they do their job flawlessly. The RAM has undergone modernization - it doubled and reached 1 GB. The webcam has also been upgraded from 0.3 megapixels to 1.3 megapixels - perfect for those who want their friends to see them better while on Skype.
Another important update was the size of the data warehouse. The 4GB of internal storage on the 701 is now available in 12GB and 20GB variants. There is no price difference between the two, as the 12GB version comes with Windows XP preinstalled on the Asus Eee PC 900 and the 20GB version comes with Linux. The manufacturing company used the money saved by installing the open source OS to expand the ROM space. Of course, there is an option to purchase a Linux device and then just install Windows yourself.
Software
Users with a 20GB version running Linux are not sure if they need Windows XP. The beauty of the Asus Eee PC 900 lies in its simplicity, so there is simply no need to load a heavy OS, and most of the features it offers will be unclaimed. Except when you need to run Windows applications such as Microsoft Office, there is nothing that cannot be done with the Linux version.
The Asus Eee PC 900 delivers lightning speed wherever Microsoft operating system users are accustomed to CPU heavy work. Unlike Windows, 1GB of RAM is enough for a well-configured Linux build, and the fast SSD ensures that the netbook will respond instantly to all commands.
Working with Linux
Navigating the Linux GUI is incredibly easy. The user deals with a desktop with tabs, clicking on each of them changes the icons on the desktop. The first is called "Internet" and contains icons related to access to the World Wide Web. These include an email shortcut that opens a page with various icons for email clients such as Gmail and Hotmail. There are preinstalled browsers Firefox, Skype and Google Docs. The messenger button will launch Pidgin, which is a multi-purpose instant messaging protocol. Users especially love the fact that all conversations take place in one window with tabs for each interlocutor - this is very convenient when desktop space is worth its weight in gold.
The Work tab gives you access to OpenOffice, which allows you to edit text, spreadsheets, and presentations that can be saved in MS Office format. There are also applications for reading PDFs, writing notes and Thunderbird, which will satisfy all your email needs. There is also a file manager, which basically corresponds to Windows Explorer and allows you to search through all folders.
The Study tab clearly targets the education sector, which is a large part of the Eee PC market. Here you will find games and software to help you increase your vocabulary, spelling, and even math skills. There is also a basic graphical application Paint, an analogue of the program of the same name in Windows, and the "Science" shortcut will open access to the periodic table and planetarium.
The Game tab contains entertainment programs such as a media player, audio file manager, and webcam utility. There is a voice recorder and a shortcut that will open up access to several preloaded games, including the obligatory Solitaire.
The Settings tab contains all system utilities and application settings. Here you can set the touchpad parameters, change the date and time, control the use of disk space and the operation of the anti-virus system. The button for removing and adding programs is located right there and allows you not only to install or remove applications, but also to check for updates for all available programs. Finally, the Favorites tab is where all your favorite links and shortcuts are stored.
Equipment
Asus has provided the netbook with a small neoprene sleeve that will keep the device's glossy finish during portability. There is also a network adapter, a user manual, whole sections of which are devoted to working with Windows, a system recovery DVD with drivers for XP and the Linux installer.
Connectivity
Despite the very small case, the manufacturer has managed to accommodate a surprisingly many ports in it. On the right is the D-Sub interface for connecting an external monitor. Next to it are 2 USB 2.0 ports and an SD card slot. Considering the cheapness of flash memory, it should be noted that the presence of such a slot means that even if the Asus Eee PC 900 runs out of memory, it will not be expensive to increase it. On the left is the third USB 2.0 port. That's more than most full-featured ultraportable laptops.
Headphone and microphone jacks are also located here. You can choose which headset to use: traditional or USB when working with a webcam in the pre-installed Skype application. Of course, there is a microphone built into the lid, but a headset will always be the best choice. The last port on the left is the 10/100 Ethernet connector. It is worth noting that the MacBook Air does not have one, despite the significantly larger size. Of course, the Asus Eee PC 900 also supports wireless connection. WiFi is implemented using the 802.11 b / g standard.
Battery life
One area where the Eee PC 900 really does not outperform its predecessor is battery life. With the improvements that the manufacturer has made, battery life remains the only gap in great design, but it is still significant. According to the manufacturer, the battery of the Asus Eee PC 900 allows the netbook to work for 2.5 hours. According to user reviews, the charge is barely enough for 2 hours. True, at full screen brightness and with the wireless connection turned on. Perhaps the optimization of energy consumption could extend the operating life to the time declared by the manufacturer, but even 2.5 hours is very little by today's standards.
Ideally, users would like to see at least 4 hours of battery life, especially considering that the Sony TZ Ultrabook lasts more than 6 hours. yourself. But this will not help much if you want to work in the garden or in a park where there is no outlet. Of course, you can buy a more powerful battery, but this will increase the cost and weight of the netbook. The Asus Eee PC 900 has a universal charger designed for 120 or 230 V, 50 or 60 Hz.
Conclusion
The manufacturer has made enough changes to make the netbook quite attractive for those who are considering buying a small, thin and light laptop. Of course, these improvements have increased the cost of the Asus Eee PC 900 - the price of the device has risen to 23 thousand rubles from 15,000.
The manufacturing company has done a brilliant job of updating an already excellent netbook. The engineers heeded all the comments regarding the original Her PC and tried to satisfy them. A 1024-pixel wide screen provides usability, especially if you spend a lot of time working with the browser. The additional RAM and internal memory were a welcome change and made the Eee PC a viable alternative to full-fledged laptops.
Despite the significant price hike, the small, lightweight and affordable Asus netbook is still a bargain.
