Asus Eee PC User Review

The Asus Eee PC's finally arrived in our office and I just had to open one up and have a play.

Opening the Box
The packaging is pretty straight forward with adequate protection for the unit but by no means the glossy packaging you would expect on a high end ultra mobile PC like the OQO or HTC Shift.

The box includes the Asus Eee PC device, the battery, power supply, quick start guide, warranty card, a full user guide, a support CD, Linux recovery CD to re-install the operating system and also a Windows XP installation guide, just in case you want to migrate the operating system.

Powering Up
The Asus Eee PC itself is pretty dinky and cute, I would say it's about two thirds the size of an average laptop and reminded me of one of those portable DVD players. The casing feels sturdy enough and the screen opens firmly with a decent amount of resistance.

The device starts up in about 30 seconds and there is a simple first run set up which includes a license agreement, keyboard country selection, entering a user-name and password.

Watch out when entering the date an time as the date is entered in US format so it's month first then day, also for location you can only choose Europe > London and no other UK cities but I think this is just a standard Linux thing - it's just to set your time zone anyway.

Internet Tab
And that's pretty much the start up done. You are presented with the simple tab based interface with the main sections being Internet, Work, Learn and Play. There are also settings and favourites tabs and a help button.

First things first, I am going to do set up a WiFi connection. Connection is pretty painless, hot-spots are listed, I choose mine and it asks for the WEP key, that's entered and pretty quickly I have internet access.

The device is set up by default to use a Local Area Network on start up so I switched that over so that the WiFi starts on boot - much better. You might find yourself having to go to the Network and Wireless screens a few times but once everything is set up it should just automatically connect to your preferred WiFi network.

OK, so that's me set and ready to go, let's give the internet a quick check. Click on the big Web icon and Firefox opens up. The first thing that struck about all the windows is that the look just like Windows XP windows - I was expecting something a bit more bespoke and Linux flavoured but perhaps they are trying to keep it looking familiar to what people are used to.

The Asus Eee PC home page comes up but I will of course need to check out www.powerupmobile.com. The screen resolution is 800 x 480 pixels which is great on a small 7" screen but it does mean that you will need to get used to a bit more vertical scrolling.

I checked a few sites jut to see what worked out the box. The new BBC site worked fine, I was able to drag and drop the fancy new interface panels so Javascript works no problem.

I then went on to check YouTube - the Flash video's worked fine with no need to install the Flash Player, which can be a bit of extra work on a standard Linux system. The only plug-in I did have a problem with was playing back an embedded QuickTime audio clip. Basically it's Firefox and it works like it would on Windows or Mac.

So the web works fine, while in the Internet tab I checked out what was underneath the other icons - the majority of them are links to web sites and open in Firefox - for example Web Mail is just links to Hotmail and Gmail, and Internet Radio links to MediaYou.net.

The other two icons include Skype, the well known VOIP service and Messenger - an instant messaging application which is actually called Pidgin - an open source Linux favourite.

It provides a list of known protocols including MSN, I enter my MSN details and my contacts are pulled in including their avatars, I click on my Mate Murray in Canada who has just started work, haha, and sent him a quick message. Easy.

Next I sign in to Skype - Skype on Linux and hense the Asus Eee PC is slightly cut down from the PC version but it pulls in my credits and users list. Fraser is online so I give him a call and have a quick chat talking directly in to the built in microphone.

Work Tab
That's the internet tab covered, next it's work, oh no. The device comes with Open Office applications; Documents - just like Word, Spreadsheets - Excel, and Presentations - Power Point. I'm starting to love the unpretentious simplicity of this device - everything just does what it says on the tin.

I didn't spend too long checking out these applications but Open Office is highly regarded as the leading open source office productivity suite - essentially it will do everything Microsoft Office will and you can move documents between both platforms easily. There is also Adobe Acrobat reader and the file manager/explorer is in here too.

Learn Tab
In the Learn Tab are a selection of educational games aimed obviously at children, for which the Asus Eee PC was primarily designed for. The games break out of the desktop much like a standard PC game and all feature kind of quirky but clunky graphics and sound effects.

The Linux penguin, Tux, also makes an appearance in all the games. There's a spelling/typing game, math (that's American for mathematics), drawing and a link to an educational web site called www.skoool.com.

Play Tab
The Play section might appeal more to adults than the Learn section, it appealed to me anyway. There is the obligatory Solitaire, no PC would be complete with out it. Frozen Bubble - a clone of the classic arcade game Puzzle Bobble - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puzzle_Bobble - I love it. Penguin racer which might be fun for a while and Potato Guy which will crack you up.

The Asus Eee PC play tab also includes an array of multimedia play back tools including a media player for playing back films. I tested a DivX encoded movie and that worked no problem - something that doesn't always happen with a new Linux installation.

I checked out the music player with a standard MP3 track and that all worked no problem too. It looks like the media player will automatically search the device for available audio files and you can build libraries and play lists as you would expect.

The photo gallery lets you browse through your images. On first run it seems to squash the image names together so the text on screen overlaps. There is a great thumbnail and zoom feature however that sorts out this problem and lets you enlarge the thumbnail images quickly and smoothly. You can open an image in full screen or run a slide show.

The video manager seemed little more than a file browser that then launched video files in the aforementioned media player. 

Settings Tab
The settings tab includes a small number of control panel type icons to change settings of the device. There isn't really that much you can change or set up though - volume, printers, date and time, touch pad, screen. There is an anti-virus system but being Linux based it should be pretty free from viruses.

The one area I thought would be better utilised is the Add/Remove software - on a Linux system like Ubuntu you can download a huge selection of free software via a desktop interface - the Eee PC's lists are empty, maybe this is something they are going to add in the future and it looks like it can be used to update existing software.

Favourites Tab
The favourites section lets you build your own customised selection of icons and applications and the help button opens up a local browser based help manual. It's so simple to use you probably won't need it, I didn't check a single manual or help page to get around the Eee PC and write this review.

Connectivity
The last thing to check out was the devices connectivity. There are 3 USB 2.0 slots, a mic and headphone socket, monitor output, LAN and SD Card socket. I tested the USB ports with my Microsoft wireless mouse. It instantly connected without hesitation.

Next up was attaching my USB backup drive. This also connected without problems even though it's formatted with an NTFS file system. I could move files around no problem between my Windows XP laptop and the Eee PC. The SD card reader also had no problem reading the MicroSD card from my Windows Mobile 6 phone (via an SD adapter).

The Asus Eee PC is an awesome ultra mobile PC, perfect for travelling and internet access on the move or multimedia player. It is also exceedingly easy to use and get your way around. Some of the features will appeal mainly to children but at the same time there are office and other applications that will appeal to adults.

On the downside the system seems quite closed and for the inexperienced Linux user there seems to be few ways to install your own software and extend the devices features. Hardcore Linux users however will enjoy pulling up a shell (ctrl+alt+t) and modifying the system as they wish.

At the end of the day however the Asus Eee PC will meet a lot of peoples needs, either as a quick and simple portable internet enabled multimedia device and at the same time appeal to Linux enthusiasts who can tinker away and hack the device to their hearts content.

The Asus Eee PC is available from PowerupMobile.com for £219.95  the 4GB hard drive version is available for £229.95.

Check out our Asus Eee PC deals here...

We are also running a limited time only offer where you can get an Asus Eee PC from only £29.95 when you sign up to T-Mobile's Web n Walk mobile broadband package.