I finally broke down and bought an Asus EEE PC netbook several weeks ago. I’ve been threatening to purchase one since they originally came out. I carefully compared what was available and got what I felt were the best features for the price. I settled on the 901 model. It had all the features I wanted while keeping the smallest possible foot print. Moving up to the 10 inch model seemed like it was defeating the purpose of a netbook. Moving up to a larger size lessens portability. Also opted for the linux version as opposed to the XP. You got a few extra gigs of storage for it and I figurd I could always add XP later if I really wanted. I liked the idea of knowing for sure all the hardware was linux supported and would work under Ubuntu when I installed it.
Battery life on this thing is great. The claim was six hours. I regularly get 4-5. Considering how much manufacturers usually exaggerate I think thats pretty impressive. Over all it doesn’t feel sluggish or low powered at all. The built in Xandros OS was interesting. Lot of web-based apps pre-linked like Google Docs. Out of the box this thing would probably be quite usable by my parents. Even though it’s purpose in life is to run web-based applications, I’m still impressed how well it does the job. Despite how functional it is out of the box, I went ahead put on a full Ubuntu install so I could be sure I was familiar with what was installed.
Though Ubuntu installed fine off a USB key, there were a few post install changes that needed to be made to perfect things. Wi-fi isn’t running right away, but there is plenty of information on the network for getting that running. There is a custom kernel for the Eee PC to take advantage of all of its features that I installed, as well as the interface from the Ubuntu Netbook Remix project. It’s a nice menued interface that provides something a bit different from the standard desktop we are all use too. There are good tutorials on how to do all this online, but they are just slightly out of date as newer versions of Ubuntu are now out. I plan to document everything I’ve done as usual for my own personal benefit, as well as all those who might be curious.
Bottom line is I’m extremely pleased with my purchase. My Eee PC has become as indispensable as my iPod. Its surprisingly fast. As portable as I could want it to be. Good enough for reading ebooks, news, and do a little retro gaming. Watching video is good too as long as the resolution isn’t HD, otherwise it gets choppy. Also usable enough to write this review and publish it on my blog.
Here is a gallery of the initial unboxing:
