My Asus Eee arrived on Friday, and as promised, here's my review. It's bit long My Eee is the 4GB 512MB model.


When I first got my Nokia 770, I was completely smitten. I wanted to track down the designers and give them a big kiss. Here was a device that offered the desktop Internet experience on something that slips into the pocket of a pair of 501s.

Nokia had created an entirely new type of computer form factor. And that doesn't happen every day. They should have been given the Nobel prize or something. But from that day until this, I've believed that pocketable Internet computers will one-day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones are now.

I would like to say that the Asus Eee furthers the revolution. But I can't. The Eee is an achievement, of sorts, but it's not in the same league as the Nokia Internet tablets when it comes to innovation.

While the Nokia tablets are a completely new paradigm, the Eee is little more than a miniature laptop. Note that it's not a small laptop. It's a miniature laptop. Everything is reduced in size by around two thirds, including the keyboard, screen, technical specification when compared to a standard modern laptop, and even the price. No matter how you look at it, Asus deserves a pat on the back for this.

The problem is that a miniature laptop isn't much fun to use. It's exactly as you might imagine. The keyboard is small and, although you can get used to it, your fingers start to ache after more than a few paragraphs. I typed this review on the Eee and my left hand is hurting. Going back to a full-sized keyboard after using the Eee is pure luxury.

The screen is just about practicable but bear in mind two things here. Firstly, the beauty of the Nokia tablet is that you can simply hold it closer to your eyes to read the small but high-resolution screen. The Eee has the same 800x480 resolution as the Nokia tablets, across a slightly larger screen size, but will mostly likely be sitting on your desk or knees, just like any other laptop. Therefore it's much further away from your eyes, unless you hunch over it. Eye strain or back ache – it's your choice!

Secondly, it's only when using the Eee that you realize what an achievement Nokia's Hildon GUI is. It allows applications to not just fit on the tablet screen, but to fit comfortably. By way of contrast, the Eee utilises standard desktop apps. And things get cramped pretty damn quick. Switch on tabbed browsing in Firefox, for example, and you'll lose a significant chunk of desktop real estate. OpenOffice.org fits OK but you won't be using a lot of toolbars, or large font sizes.

The software is rough around the edges in many ways, some critical, partly because desktop Linux tends to be like that anyway, but mostly because this is the first iteration of the Eee OS. It will almost certainly be improved as time goes on (a software update feature is included). Then again, you can install XP on the Eee although you'll need an external USB DVD-ROM drive to get the drivers off the supplied disc. You'll also need one of the WinXP install discs that includes SP2 -- older WinXP install discs won't work.

Ubuntu installs fine but you'll need to use ndiswrapper and the Windows wifi drivers.

And that's the end of my complaints about the Eee. Everything else, including build quality, is pretty good. I don't like white laptops but the Eee is more pearl/cream than white. The speakers are pretty loud, the screen reasonably bright, and the CPU fast enough for practically everything you'd want to do on a computer this small. Programs start about as fast as a standard computer. Flash games work OK.

My complaints about the Eee are more philosophical. In short, I think it's going to damage the Internet tablet marketplace. To work out why, you have to ask yourself who's actually going to use it.

Children under the age of 12 will love it. It's like Asus has taken a standard laptop and scaled it down to their size. Children over the age of 12 might be more demanding -- the inability to play DVD movies might get on their nerves, for example.

Business workers? They've been able to choose Toshiba Librettos for some time. There's some PIM software included (Kontact) but, with its games and education software, the Eee is clearly more of a home user tool.

The nasty truth is that the ordinary people will buy the Eee because they think they're getting a cheap laptop. And the Eee isn't a very good laptop. In fact, it's a crap laptop, when compared to any other laptop out there. However, it's an excellent portable Internet device. It's ideal to have around the house for occasional browsing, watching movies or listening to Internet radio. Just like the N800, it's great to take with you to the coffee shop to check your email.

But as a main computer, in lieu of something else, it's just the wrong choice. Its size means it's annoying to use for more than a few hours. Websites don't fit onto its screen and you have to click and drag the scrollbars to see all of it (there's no click-and-drag here, as with the Internet tablets, and you can't zoom out!).

So people will buy the Eee and come to hate it, because it's only just capable of doing what they want* and can sometimes be very irritating to use. Yet it's unfair to blame the Eee for this.

And while this is happening, the image and reputation of personal and portable internet devices will become more and more tarnished. People will start to see the idea of small Internet devices as a failure when, in fact, it was one particular implementation that caused a misunderstanding.

Will the Eee be a success? I'm not as sure as I was. It's cheap and cheerful, and people are almost bound to flock to it for that reason. But it really should come with a label on the box that says, “WARNING: This is NOT a laptop. Do NOT buy if you require the functionality of a laptop.” Whilst ordering my Eee, I was seriously considering selling my MacBook and using the Eee as my main work computer. Now I can see how naïve I was. I suspect quite a few people will buy an Eee and then sell it on eBay when they realize it just isn't for them.

If you're able to accept the Eee on its own terms, then you'll love it. You might want to wait a few months until the software bugs have been worked out, however. The bug with the constantly spinning fan is particularly annoying.


* If you can get hold of an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, then the Eee could feasibly replace a desktop PC if your computing demands are modest. The Eee includes a VGA out (not a D-SUB digital connection!), as well as three USB ports. Using the Eee in this way makes particular sense for people like students, who could take the Eee to college with them, and turn it into a 'proper' computer when they get home. A word of warning, however. The Eee couldn't run my 1280x1024 LCD monitor at native resolution because it set too high a refresh rate. This might be one more of the bugs that will get fixed over time.

Nicely done! Thanks for sharing this.

Yes, quite an interesting review. I had been thinking along much the same lines regarding the laptop replacement (Not that I have a laptop now, or would ever buy one. My NITs and my G5 suite me just fine. ), and kinda guessed that it wouldn't quite be up to snuff. While a very interesting concept, I just don't think it has quite as much of a niche as the NITs, there just isn't enough justification for another device below a laptop (although it might be interesting as a children's laptop).

I'd like to see better usage of the available space to include a larger LCD running at least 1024-pixels wide or better. Perhaps even more than that if they could stick resolution-independent UI on there.

For me, the deciding factor for any device in the "walk-around web" category is size—can it fit comfortably in my pocket and still be useful? The Eee fails size, all UMPCs fail size, and cellphones and PDA devices fail "useful". Nokia really managed to find a perfect new device category, let's just hope they stay competitive.

Very interesting review, thanks

My plan was to buy 2 EEs for my younger sisters and replace their desktop PC. Now I've got second thoughts.


I'd be interested in your experiences of XP on the EE, both on the internal screen and say an external screen.

goto eeeuser.com. XP FL runs smooth on it. And the wifi drivers are available for Ubuntu. The 770 or n800 doesn't fit in your pants pocket(front or back, unless your'e fat), and you can't sit down with the tablets in your pocket like a cellphone. Maybe if you wear a jacket a lot you can fit it there but there is no way comfortable or safe for the 770 or n800 to fit nicely in your pants pocket. Maybe the n810 will.

Ummm... the nokia IT's are just like a pda which have exisited since 1992, main difference is that it has a linux backbone. nothing special.

Its been happening. There is nothing awfully special about these so called "IT"'s. I guess thats why everyone's rushing out to get them. right? Its another pda with a worthless linux os, great, it has a bigger screen for good res internet browsing and open source if you know how to port apps. You can rave about it as long as you want but I still see no port of openooffice and I happen to see someone say that its so easy to port things over.. i guess not that easy. But surely older pda's have an office app on it, actually my 4 year old tiny cell phone has it.

I think you are wrong there. IF the IT's had not only Linux but more of a useful user interface, they would actually be useful and fun to use.
Yesterday i installed Penguinbaits KDE and it transformed my otherwise taskless IT into a almost full fledged Linux PC. With the possibility to run PIMs.
Nokia made the mistake here. I hope they will correct it in the future.

Ton.

I'm sorry but you're just wrong. I just spent a weekend away from home with the 770 in my jeans pocket the whole time. Other times I've had the 770 in one pocket and my folding BT keyboard in the other. This wasn't uncomfortable and I could sit down fine. For the record I'm average height and build.

This is like saying that modern PCs have existed since the late 70s, starting with the Apple I. This is faintly true but computers have evolved significantly. Well, the Nokia tablets have evolved both form and function into something new and exciting. If you can't see this then I feel sorry for you.

This is the point at which I started to think you were a troll. Why on earth do you frequent this forum if you hold this view?

Nearly everybody who owns a Nokia tablet has completely the opposite view to you. There is something special about Nokia tablets, but Nokia has so far marketed them at the geeksphere (just like PCs were first bought by geeks until the ordinary people moved in). The N810 is an attempt to break out from the geeksphere, but it will be followed by two more devices that take the Nokia tablets even more mainstream. All this info has been released via interviews with high-up Nokia people. And as for your last point, well, the Nokia tablets aren't PDAs. If you want a PDA then why don't you buy a PDA?

stop making this look special by giving it another name..."IT", its a PDA. lets call the iphone something other than a smartphone because it has a different os... no its just a smartphone still. Nokia marketing..."Let's just call it something new". its a pda with a sh*tty linux os thats all.

and well said.

Unless you don't sit on your a*s or you wear your jeans like a thug with your entire pants to the ground then I don't see how a huge folded BT keyboard and a thick 770 can be comfortable or not get damage while your entire body sits on it. I dunno man, its a long shot... that or you have alot of cushion(fat cells in the a*s) to make it comfy and pad the 770.