Small, but (almost) perfectly formed...
6 February 2008, 1:44 pm
So I suck at self-control and patience, and splurged on an Asus Eee. So I’ve dared to leave the cosy confines of my bedroom, and relocate to the comfy reclining chair in the living room…
First thoughts are that this thing is small. Way small. I knew it would be tiny from the pics online, but you dont realise how small till you see it. Yes, that means that some webpages look poor (cos you have to scroll), and yes its kinda hard to type on the keyboard, cos i have chubby fingers. But you can scroll the pages (and tbh with firefox in fullscreen mode, its not too bad), and I think I’ll get used to typing; it’s certainly better than things like Graffiti used to be on PalmOS.
Other things are how easy to use it is. I was toying with the idea of putting Windows XP on here, but that kinda defeats the point. This has found my network shares on The Beast (my desktop) remarkably easy (and by the way the built-in speakers are better than most full-sized laptop speakers ive heard), and found the wireless flawlessly. It has everything I want to use (i.e. messenger, firefox, music and office stuff), and it runs really well. I’ll probably swap from the “Easy” UI to a normal desktop, but I’m not even sure of that…
I say “almost” perfectly formed… Thats because the screen could be larger without pushing the form factor up, or affecting the price too much. And because I’m not getting on with the trackpad too well at the moment, but then I’m yet to meet a trackpad that I do get on with…
So far then, this thing is great. It’s small enough to make carrying it to uni a practical idea, but big enough and well-featured enough to make it genuinely usable. I honestly can’t see the point - for me - of spending more on a laptop. I use my desktop for gaming or stuff like that, and I’d never use a laptop for that. Actually, for a hell of a lot of people, I can imagine something like this is all the PC they’d need…
It’s a slightly scary thought that this cheap little pc is significantly more powerful than the first PC I had as a kid. Huzzah for technology…
(btw, in the space of writing this post, my typing’s got much better. I reckon in a day or so it’ll be fine)
5 Comments:
Lucy on 6 February 2008 at 2:37 pm
“_____ is a gadget whore.”
You said it :-P
I just defer to the comment I made on Andy’s post… although I do concede that being smaller, it’s more easily portable than a laptop. Just if have to carry around everything else (like a hard drive) with you as well, it kinda negates the point. And I do own a laptop, not a desktop…
Lucy on 6 February 2008 at 2:38 pm
And I am incapable of writing a grammatically coherent paragraph…
dickie on 6 February 2008 at 3:02 pm
I dont need to carry anything extra with this. It has plenty of space for stuff as it is, and if I need more I can get a 4gb memory card for a tenner.
I know its all new and shiny, but I’m really impressed with how usable it is.
aiusepsi on 6 February 2008 at 4:10 pm
I actually hate you right now.
But yeh, the impressions I got from getting my hands on the thing were nearly the same.
The only things that are really wrong with it are the concessions to being small and cheap, like the screen and keyboard. And the screen is fine, and the keyboard you’d get used to.
And trackpads are just iffy in general, so…
Yeh, I want one. Just tricky as hell to find the damned things.
dickie on 6 February 2008 at 4:25 pm
Cardiff SU is getting a bunch more in tomorrow, apparently… :-P
To be fair the keyboard doesnt feel cheap so much, just cramped. You really do get used to it though.
Another problem is battery life. About 3 hours I got from first charge, but thats with music and wi-fi going constantly (to stream said music from my desktop). I’d say the battery is a bigger problem than the screen, but not a dealbreaker though.
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