Quick Review | Asus Eee PC 4G Surf (7" Screen, 800 MHz Intel Celeron Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB Hard...

Love it!! | Asus Eee PC 4G Surf (7" Screen, 800 MHz Intel Celeron Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB Hard Drive, Linux ...

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	• Asus Eee PC 4G Surf (7" Screen, 800 MHz Intel Celeron Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB Hard Drive, Linux ... Asus Asus average customer review:based on 140 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Even with No Ram Door this is a good machine

My girlfriend bought a white 4G surf for me recently and for those who have done the research, this case does not have a RAM door.
I ordered a 2G Ram chip and went through the process of taking apart the case (voiding the warranty) and removing the 512mb chip and replacing it with the 2GB chip. Everything worked fine.
Although I am an experienced Linux user and can upgrade the Kernel to see the full 2G I am leaving my machine in easy mode and as is I am only able to use 1G of the 2G. Since the chip was so cheap $34, there was no use to buy a lesser chip.
I do not see a reason to upgrade the kernel at this time. In fact I cannot see any performance difference between the 512MB and the 1G I am using now.

Since my girlfriend has the 4G Black with the new battery, I do notice the difference in battery life. It is easy to connect this to DSL and Wifi and this is the easiest version of Unix I have ever used. In fact its easier than XP or Vista as well.

So if you are a regular user, there is no reason to spend the extra $50 for the RAM door unless you can really find a need to use it (Upgrade to Kubuntu for example).

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Quick Review

If you just need the basics... Do NOT be afraid to switch to linux and the ASUS Eee PC. This thing is the bomb for the money. It's perfect for beginners and seniors. My mother has never used a computer and had it figured out within an hour without touching the manual. Yes the screen is small but it's sharp. Plug this thing into a fullsize monitor and it's even more fun. I love it! This was the best money I EVER spent on a linux box. I have an 8G SD card on board and a Western Digital USB hard drive for backups... and it's the perfect solution. My old computer is on it's way to the garage... WOW! Look at all this desk space I now have!

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Love it!!

I've had mine for just over 24 hours; suffice it to say...I love it. I got a little USB mouse for mine because I hate touchpads,and I've just been having a ball -- surfing and doing other little tasks.

I had tested this PC at a local Micro Center, and for a while I considered not getting it because of the keyboard being small and very hard to type on with 10 fingers without making errors. I even practiced for about 10 or 15 minutes in the store, and still kept making errors.

But I was hard-pressed to give up on the thing because I just loved its portability. So I went back the next day and started typing on it again, and strangely, I was improved. And I keep getting better and better on it (I'm typing this review on it with absolutely no problem).

I agree with other reviews that people shouldn't try to make it their main computer; (I myself have a desktop that is my main computer). Yet...you really can make this an acceptable substitute in lots of ways.

I absolutely love it. I've been playing with it constantly. I plan to use it to take notes in class.

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if only I had smaller fingers

The eee does live up to the hype. It's cheap. The screen is small but sharp and definitely usable. The factory Xandros, on the internal solid state drive (SSD) usually boots faster than my XP laptop comes out of standby. Xandros is a fairly restricted fork of Debian, but I was able to put Ubuntu on a USB stick (with the help of the fine folks [...]) and can boot that when I need it. (I might put it on the SSD, but I dunno if I wanna give up that very-fast-boot option).

The only real problem I have is with the keyboard. One problem is the layout: e.g. Home and End are keychords (using the Fn key). The bigger problem is the keyboard's (small) size. I touchtype and have fairly big (aka normal-sized North American?) fingers. When I touchtype on my ThinkPad, I do so with a fairly low error rate. When I touchtype on my eee, I get a lot of errors. Solutions are

* external keyboard. I bought a $[...] USB keyboard with touchpad which pretty much solves the problem.

* hunt'n'peck. This works fine for when I'm out-and-about and just wanna check email or view some webpages.

* wait for the eee 900, which is 9" wide and has a correspondingly larger keyboard (and screen, with higher resolution). By comparison, this eee (aka the "eee 700") is 7" wide. Unfortunately this wasn't an option when I got this eee, and the 9" is also $[...] more.

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Good concept but didn't work for me

I was going on a trip to Japan, and so was anxious to get the 2 lb. Eee-pc rather than lugging around my 7 lb Lenovo. For the most part the eee-pc worked fine. It boots quickly, has a good user interface (except the file manager takes some getting used to), connects to the Internet (wire or wireless like a charm). However, I don't like Mozilla as a browser because it doesn't provide some of the services when used with Microsoft exchange server mail I tried and failed to find and install an alternative browser like Netscape. Also, I needed a SFTP program, and failed to find one I could install. I guess I just don't get along well with Linux when it goes beyond pre-installed software.

The software included with the Eee-PC is worth the price of the machine itself -- The word processor opens and writes almost every format, the Presenter Program is compatible with PowerPoint, although has a limited number of designs (2). However, when I hooked the machine to an LCD projector we could get the screen to switch resolutions to give a full projection (may have been my lack of understanding, but we had to switch the presentation to a full-size laptop). I wanted to install the Open Office Database, but could figure out how to do that.

All the USB peripherals I used with the Eee-PC worked fine, including an HP all-in-one printer, external USB hard disk, and USB mouse. The weakest part of the machine and the reason I returned it, was the keyboard and the mouse buttons on the touch pad. The USB mouse solved the mouse button problem, but the keyboard was annoying, often missing letters or adding in double letters (bounce). I could have used a USB keyboard but that defeats the purpose of buying a 2 lb machine. So, I understand there is a slightly larger format machine coming out in the summer -- maybe that will do the trick if they can keep the weight down and install a Windows XP operating system, I'd buy it.

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