ASUS EEE PC
$499
http://www.asus.com.au
Ratings: 4.5/5
"PSST. You wanna buy a laptop for $500? Brand new, mate, still in the box and got a year's warranty. It's got wireless internet, it's got the works, mate."
You'd expect to hear this line from some dodgy-looking guy in the pub. But you can also hear a smoother version of it across the counter at Myer, where Australia's cheapest laptop is now on sale.
It's the oddly-named Eee PC, from Taiwanese tech powerhouse Asus. And despite a few rough edges, we found this $499 notebook to be a refreshingly unique product that's near-perfect for primary school students and as a second computer to use around the house, when out and about and even on holidays.
So how much notebook can you get for $499? Enough to do almost every day-to-day task: web browsing, email and online chat, playing music and videos and attending to the more mundane chores such as word processing. Ironically, even what you don't get in the Eee PC can become a selling point in itself.
You don't get a full-sized screen: the Eee PC's bright display is a mere 18 centimetres across. The rest of the machine is similarly downsized, from the keyboard to processing power. The result is the most portable computer we've ever seen. You can't fully appreciate its diminutive nature until you see it. Fold your Guide+Icon in half and the Eee PC is still smaller, while weighing a laughable 900 grams.
You also don't get Windows. Asus has adopted the free Linux operating system that's been slowly yet steadily growing in popularity over the past decade. This keeps the cost down and makes better use of its relatively modest hardware, which would creak under the weight of Windows. It does mean not being able to use your favourite Windows software but, fortunately, the Eee PC comes with dozens of programs, including the familiar Firefox web browser and Skype for online phone calls. Others on the roster cover email, instant messaging (for Windows Live, Yahoo and Google), playing music, video clips and organising your digital photos.
While there's no Linux edition of iTunes and the music software has an atrocious interface, it'll play your MP3 and WMA tracks and the video software works fine with DivX videos downloaded from the internet.
For the more practically minded, the Eee PC also includes Open Office 2.0, which is like a pared-back version of Microsoft Office. This can share files with the Windows and Mac editions of Office because it uses the standard Office file formats, although not the latest XML-based format of Office 2007. There are plenty of other free Linux programs but the process of finding and installing them is not for the novice.
Something else the Eee PC doesn't have is a big hard drive (let alone a CD/DVD drive). That spinning mechanism disk is replaced by a 4GB solid-state drive which uses the same "flash memory" as a USB drive. There's only 1.5GB available, as the rest is taken up by the OS and other software, so you'll want to add a high-capacity USB flash drive card to beef up your storage beyond documents and photos, especially if you're travelling.
The happy trade-off for using a solid-state disk is enhanced operating speed and extended battery life. The start-up time is 20 seconds and the resume time from sleep mode barely half that.
We clocked 3.5 hours of battery life while watching a video, which sounds disappointing until you realise that a tiny notebook means you also get a tiny battery. And the AC adaptor is the size of a mobile phone's charger, not a big brick of conventional laptops, so it's really not hard to take that along for the ride.
Its Tom Thumb size and white plastic shell might make it look like a toy, but it's the real deal. Inside is the same Intel Celeron processor as many low-cost Windows laptops, with 512MB of memory. The Eee PC has an SD slot for digital camera memory cards and three USB 2.0 ports, a webcam (albeit with a dinky 0.3 megapixel sensor) plus sockets for broadband and dial-up internet connections. The only hurdle we faced getting online was getting it on to a wireless network which had been locked down using the WPA2 security standard, as the Eee PC supported only the original WPA protocol. Switching the wireless router back to WPA set things to rights and we enjoyed decent wireless coverage around the house.
The downsizing of everything in the Eee PC takes some getting used to. While the screen is easy on the eyes and more than adequate for web browsing and video playback, its limitations become evident in programs like Open Office. There's room for only a dozen lines in a word processing document using the default 12-point typeface and you can forget about managing spreadsheets of more than a few columns across or 10 rows deep.
The petite keyboard is cramped but responsive, with a firm feel that indicates it should withstand the hammering of young hands. We were less enamoured of the tiny touchpad, which had a jerky response and often required more than one swipe to move the mouse all the way across the screen. That, plus the elongated single button that conceals two rockers for left and right-click actions, drove us batty until we plugged in a USB mouse.
VERDICT
Less truly is more, at least when it comes to the Eee PC. While Asus considers this mainly as a robust little laptop for kids, it's ideal as a second computer that can be shared among the family or taken on holidays.
Mobility & Reliability