Review: Miniature Laptop That Makes Sense

Modest Specs

The Eee PC is small: 8.9 by 6.5 by 1.4 inches deep, and weighs 2 pounds. By comparison, Fujitsu's petite LifeBook P1610 notebook measures 9.1 by 6.6 by 1.4 inches, and weighs about 2.2 pounds (incidentally, that notebook's starting price is four times that of the Eee PC).

The unit has a touchpad and one button with left- and right-click functionality; you can also double-tap on the touchpad to select an item, or double-tap and hold the button to drag an item. The right side of the touchpad can double as a scrollbar.

Along the right side, you'll find an SD/MMC card slot, two USB 2.0 ports, VGA-monitor port, and a Kensington Lock port. At left, you'll find (from back to front): ethernet, RJ-11, and a third USB 2.0 ports; and microphone and headphone jacks. At the bottom rests a reset button, which you'd use to jumpstart the system in the event the OS cannot turn off or restart. This model also includes integrated 802.11 b/g, a built-in .3-megapixel webcam for video recording or taking pictures, and a mono microphone.

The keyboard is small--it reminded me of the Fujitsu P1610's keyboard, actually. I have small hands, and I found I could type on the keyboard with only minor complaints (striking the wrong key here and there). Touch-typing was a bit challenging, though, and if you have large hands, you'll find the keyboard more difficult to use. Still, this keyboard sure beats trying to type on a cell-phone PDA, like the AT&T Tilt.

Is it Getting Hot in Here?

My biggest complaint about the Eee PC is that it gets toasty warm during use. And I don't mean warm just near the battery--it gets warm all over. The palm rest, the keyboard, the touchpad, and the touchpad's single select button all felt warm to the touch after just 30 minutes of use. Even the USB drive I plugged into the USB port became warm. The heat only got worse with time and further use.

Another issue: My test unit often emitted a low-pitched whirring and grinding noise. While no worse than a hard drive spinning up, considering this unit lacks a hard drive, the noise was disquieting. It was obvious in a quiet room (with only a desktop PCs own low-grade cacophony as background noise), and it was annoying to hear. Not to mention that the noise made me uneasy; I couldn't help but wonder which component was the source.

Sometimes, I found the operations a bit sluggish; mostly, though, I found the system's responsiveness acceptable. I had one weird issue when a pop-up artifact denoting the filename wouldn't go away. A quick reboot of the system took care of that. (From powered off to controlling the Asus Desktop screen takes less than 30 seconds -- an impressively fast boot-up.)

My final gripe of significance: In my hands-on experience, the battery gauge proved highly inaccurate. It reported 30 percent of power left after two hours and 30 minutes of light to moderate use; yet the gauge showed the battery as being practically empty, and it looked identical to when the system reported having 40 percent of power left. (Asus rates the four-cell battery for about 3.5 hours of use, depending upon your activity.)

Portable Computing for All

The Eee PC is no power system: You won't want to do video editing, or even image editing, on the device, and it's not going to serve as the multimedia center for your home. However, the Eee PC provides a high level of functionality at a highly affordable price. Furthermore, it does so while opening the concept of the ultraportable PC to the masses. The small keyboard and screen and the modest internal specs might be a deterrent for some, but for students and those of us who lust after lightweight portables for life on the go, the Eee PC can easily fill that niche. And then some.

Asus Eee PC 701

Ultraportable Linux-based system is light on computing oomph, but it ably handles productivity and light multimedia tasks.
$399
Current prices (if available)