The Asus EeePc Netbook

It's ten times simpler to use than any Windows machine, starts up twice as fast (no crapware!), and is only about a fifth of the cost of other systems in its weight class. It's a little rough around the edges, but the Eee PC is a remarkably versatile machine for the price.

The designers at Asus had no easy task creating an attractive ultraportable notebook while also making it cheap to produce. The case seams match up with reasonably tight tolerances, plastics feel thick (though the pearl-like white plastics look cheap) and the display hinges are molded into body with the battery. Lifting the display cover you find the amazingly small keyboard surface and even smaller touchpad resting below the recessed display and speakers. In short, the build quality is quite high despite the low cost.

The design of the Eee PC is something truly unique in the market. Weighing in at just two pounds and delivering a performance level similar to a full-featured budget notebook, the only notebook that comes close to “directly” competing with the Eee PC is the Fujitsu LifeBook U810 tablet PC … which retails for more than $1,000 at the time of this writing. The next closest competitor to the Eee PC would be traditional ultraportables like the Toshiba Portege R500 ($2,000) and the Sony VAIO TZ ($3,000).

True, the more expensive rivals come preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP or Vista and feature a range of superior technical specs … but our review of the Asus Eee PC shows this tiny white titan packs an impressive punch.

The trade-off of the small form factor of the Eee PC is that its keyboard has to be shrunk into a very confined area. The keys are all extremely tiny, including the delete and return keys, although the left shift key and the space bar are of reasonable size. The gaps between the keys are less than 1mm. Even though the keys are very small and tightly spaced, I found that after using the device for a couple of hours, I began to make very few typing errors. I can type at approximately 80% of the speed I obtain on my desktop machine (using a Zippy WK-620 USB keyboard).

This entire review has been typed on the Eee PC without any feeling of being unduly cramped. Despite their small proportions, the keys feel firm and provide a sufficient level of resistance and feedback. Having tried Sony Vaio and the Gigabyte Ultra-Mobile PC, I wasn't expecting the Eee's keyboard to be any better. However, the keyboard wildly exceeded my expectations.


A couple of minor quibbles with the keyboard are the non-standard placing of the right skift key, and the pipe (|) requiring 3 keys to be pressed. The keyboard gets warm, but I'll expand on that issue later.

If you open the bottom panel on the Eee PC (which may void the two-year warranty) you'll find a standard DDR2 RAM slot and a PCI-E mini card slot for possible future expansion. We tested the Eee PC with both the standard 512MB memory and a 1GB memory module. Theoretically, a 2GB module of RAM should fit in the slot just as easily as a 1GB module did ... but we didn't have a 2GB module available in the office.

The speakers on the Eee PC are hard to miss. They are located to the left and right of the screen and, thanks to their black speaker grills, stand out in comparison to the rest of the all white notebook. The location might appear odd, but it provides a clear path to your head for maximum listening pleasure. Despite the diminutive size of the built-in speakers they worked quite well for watching movies, playing games, or listening to some music while moving from room to room in my house. With the volume set to max, the decibel meter registered ~75dB at one foot. The audio was only slightly distorting on high notes, but stayed mostly clear.

As is common with small built-in speakers, the high and upper midrange came through well, but bass didn’t sound nearly as impressive. Thankfully, Asus included a standard headphone jack on the Eee PC so it is quite simple to connect headphones or an external speaker system if you want a superior listening experience.