Sunday 6 January 2008

A break from RC - my new Asus EEE PC

As a complete change, here is my new toy - an Asus EEE PC. This seems to have been a huge hit in the US over the Christmas period, and having had mine for just two days, it's not hard to see why.

There are two great things about it - firstly its ridiculously small size - it fits easily in a small corner of a small backpack, with lots of room for camera, groceries, transmitter etc. And secondly there are no moving parts (except for a processor fan which is not always on anyway).

The EEE PC has built-in Wifi, three USB ports, an SD card slot (great for reviewing photos), a small but perfectly formed keyboard, and a 6.9 inch screen. And a solid state disk, so no whirly bits to go wrong. It even comes with a stetchy neoprene case.

Yesterday I took it to my local Costa Coffee for a test run. Surprised myself at how easy it is to use a public Wifi network, and in a couple of minutes it was all up and running. I finished off the Futaba 12FG review, checked my email, surfed the Futaba site, and remoted into my work machine - with not a glitch or pause. I could swear a neighbouring iBook owner was casting envious glances in my direction...

The EEE PC runs under Xandros Linux, and has a fast and easy to use front end and takes only about 25 seconds to boot up. It comes with OpenOffice 2 preinstalled (this is largely compatible with MS Office). And all for a bargain £220. Here's the link.

1 comment:

X Nitro RC Blog said...

My friend got 1 of these the other day, i love how small they are. I think i am going to have to get one myself as my mate doesn't seem to like me having his all the time.

I don't know why! ;)