Asus Eee PC’s
I wasn’t actually aware of these little beauties until I read about Asus’ plans to introduce a greater range, adding desktops and PC-in-TV, but I am gonna talk about the notebooks that were released last November.
The Asus Eee PC is designed not as a full featured notebook, but more as a lightweight mobile PC (classed as a subnotebook). Weighing 0.92 Kg and being about half the size of a normal notebook. It comes with a 7″ screen and a solid state drive, meaning that it’s quick to load and ready to use in seconds. These subnotebooks are not designed to have the power of normal notebooks, but they are designed to allow productivity and creativity on the go, wherever you are. The Asus Eee PC is designed to be very easy to use, and portable, so that you can take it with you anywhere and work, create or play, regardless of location. These are ideal for children, looking to have their own small PC, which is fully functional, you can run normal pc software on it (I’ll explain more in a minute). Also great for people who like to work anywhere without carrying a bulky notebook with them. A couple of other features are that some models have a small webcam (nothing fancy but at least it’s there) and these little machines can output to an external monitor via a VGA output port. Also with 3 USB ports and a SD card slot you can add more storage space, and peripherals.
The specifications are highly limiting, but obviously with good reasons, these systems aren’t intended to do intensive tasks. There are various sizes of solid state memory capacities available, 2Gb up to 8Gb. Asus say that these computers can run Windows XP, I disagree, unless it is a seriously lightened version. XP alone will gladly eat the 2Gb and probably most of the 8Gb, so installing it would be tough, not to mention the processor means that it would run sluggish. This is why by default the Eee PC comes with Linux, however it has been made as easy to use as possible with clear menus. Now, Linux has a small installation size and will happily run on the specification of those PCs. Obviously running Linux means that you can’t run your normal Windows applications, but there are Linux alternatives which will work fine for what you will use them for. Running Linux also means that the system will cost you less money. The systems that will run Windows XP, should in theory be able to run a majority of aplications that would run on a normal Windows PC.
On the subject of price, because it’s portable you pay a small premium. Prices start at about $300 and go up to $500 (translates to £150 to £250, but this isn’t quite accurate). So it’s much cheaper than a bigger notebook. Once the solid state drive really takes off as a storage medium then I’d expect to see greater capacities available on these Eee PCs, maybe lower prices. Unfortunately the systems are flawed, there are bugs within areas of the Linux OS installed on the systems, although hopefully these will get sorted at some point.
So what do I think of these? The whole “Every child should have/be able to own a laptop” thing has some pro’s and some con’s. Manufacturers are trying to make simple machines which can do simple tasks and be sold at low prices to make them accessible to all. As for the Eee PC I like it, great for people to blog on the move, or take your work with you. These are obviously intended as a education tool for children, and assuming it was adopted and made use of properly it could well work. However, I know for a fact that you give a child a computer and they won’t really do work on it, they will distract themselves and usually education suffers.
[Sources: Wikipedia Page and Asus Product Page]
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