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ASUS EeePC 2G Surf (White) - Netbook
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| 1 Used |
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| Editorial Reviews: | | |  | | Easy to Learn, Easy to work and Easy to play!!!Share photos of your travels without waiting till you get home. Shop the world wide web without attaching any lines or wires. Learn through the latest technology without a technical manual. Play, relax, and entertain on the go with shock-proof design. Connect with friends and family with just a few clicks.Mobility & Reliability? At half the size of regular notebooks and weighing less than 1kg, you can take the Eee PC anywhere.? Bumps and shocks are no longer issues. With a dependable solid-state disk, you get unparalleled shock-protection and reliability.? Power-efficient design provides longer operating time when on the go.Ease & Technology? With a rapid start-up time, the Eee PC is always ready to get into action.? No technical manual required with the specially designed, user-friendly and intuitive graphic interface .Work & Connectivity? You?re always connected with built-in WiFi 802.11 b/g that automatically detects and connects to the Internet at any hotspot.? The Eee PC includes the documents and the e-mails software, and a suite of other productivity software to help keep you on track.? Upload photos and videos and share them instantly on Flickr or YouTube without waiting till you get home.Media & Entertainment? Enjoy music and videos with extensive support for a wide range of digital multimedia.? Log on to Skype or other network, and you can connect with friends anywhere, anytime.? Clear up wire clutter with the built-in card reader, webcam, speakers, and microphone. | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| | I feel a bit mean giving it only 4 stars as all the preceding reviews gave it full marks, but I am very pleased with it overall.
It's good points? Well it is small and light while still feeling robust - you tend to take it out and about more often than you do a laptop because it's not so much of a hassle. Firing up from cold is very quick, as is locking onto a wi-fi connection. There is plenty of useful software installed - the office features seem every bit as good as Microsoft - and the photo and video software seem to cope with anything I have needed so far.
It's bad points - well, yes it is small and fiddly and that affects the speed with which you can use it - scrolling across the screen on web pages gets annoying - you could reduce the size of the pages to fit but then you would have trouble reading them. Linux is not quite as intuitive for those of us brought up on Windows, but I'm getting used to it. You might think that with no moving parts battery life would be better than a full size laptop, but it isn't. Also remember that less software is compatible with Linux - it refused to recognise my Canon DSLR forcing me to buy a seperate card reader.
Overall, I would say that this is excellent value for money but remember it is not as easy to use as a full sized laptop.
| | Very nice, ultra-portable laptop | |
| | This is an excellent little laptop. In fact, "laptop" is maybe not the word - it's almost too small to fit well on my lap. Extremely handy for travelling.
The pre-installed Xandros OS is nicely optimised for boot speed, so it'll be up and running from cold in about 30 seconds. The packaged software's more than enough for office-type use, web browsing, etc.
I have mine set up to dual-boot, using an Xubuntu installation on an SD card. This works nicely with a little tweaking (boot isn't as fast, but you get more choice of free software from the Ubuntu repositories, and the Linux development tools I'm used to). I understand they can also run Windows XP (and possibly Vista), if you're that way inclined.
No real drawbacks I can think of - the small screen, and inevitably limited data storage space, are part of the spec. of such a device, rather than faults. I find it best to use external flash drives for file storage.
| | Perhaps my best buy, ever! | |
| | I bought the Eee as a second computer, since my regular laptop is just too heavy to be portable. In contrast, the Eee fits in a large handbag and weighs less than a kilo.
Having configured an advanced desktop as opposed to the more personal-organiser-style interface that is the default, I find that the battery life isn't particularly great - but it's pretty rare to be far from a power source for very long, and the Eee has so many features that make up for this.
The screen seems very small at first if you're used to a normal laptop/desktop, but once you're used to it it's perfectly fine even for web browsing and so on. Equally, you may make more typos than usual for a little while as you get used to the keyboard - but it's a million times easier than texting on a phone, and we're all used to that by now!
The preloaded Linux (Xandros) operating system is very easy to use and configure, even for a lifelong Windows user. In fact, it convinced me to make the switch to Linux on my main computer too. The tools available, such as the OpenOffice suite, are comparable to their mainstream counterparts, and can save into standard file formats such as .doc and .xls. Added to this, the machine has the advantage of far more powerful tools for configuration and programming than is available to the average Windows user, and a little research can help you get more out of your computer than you might ever have imagined. There's a ton of free online documentation for both Linux and the Eee specifically, so you're never alone if anything goes wrong. (Which it hasn't for me so far.)
You'll need some extra storage for your files. The SD card slot in the machine means that you can add a few GB of memory which just sits in the machine, and you can add USB devices if you need to.
This is a fantastic machine, and I have been thankful on so many occasions that I bought it.
| | Good, but not that good.... | |
| | I was a big fan of the 7" Toshiba Libretto from the 90s, so I couldn't resist the Asus, but its Linux OS is its weak spot. I'm well used to all three main OSs - Linux, Mac and Windows - so I wasn't daunted by the effort of having to enter Linux commands for some of the most basic things, like switching to advance desktop mode, or even installing an e-mail client, which is not preloaded on the 2GB. But it's odd to promote a laptop as "use it straight out of the box" when it's clear that you can't - just installing Thunderbird e-mail will require a lot of Google time on Linux forums for anyone used to Windows. (Or a Mac, come to that.) This is a lovely thing for a geek who likes tinkering (i.e. me) but I suspect it'll eventually become a pain for the casual user who just wants a piece of kit to do a job, and doesn't want to look under the bonnet every time they want to go beyond the pre-loaded option. The fact that my 2GB Asus came with instructions for installing XP seems an admission of that - and don't let anyone tell you you're too dumb for Linux if you do opt for XP. I found XP does basic things that Linux won't on this machine. So shell out for XP as well if you don't fancy having to learn Linux, or buy the version with XP already installed. The handbook, by the way, isn't a lot of use.
On the plus side - and there's a lot - it's very solidly built, the small hard drive is no problem because you can slap on so many USB drives or memory cards, and it's a lovely design overall. The screen didn't trouble me like it does some users, possibly because it's much the same as my Libretto.
But it isn't really a laptop substitute - treat it as a souped-up PDA minus a convenient phone. If you're looking for a cheap laptop (which is not cheap after you add in the various memory cards and drives you'll inevitably buy) rather than a mini-laptop, then just look for real laptops with full-size keyboards and all the trimmings in the £300 to £400 bracket. Because that's what you'll end up spending on the Asus after you've bought the extras you'll find you need.
The Asus is a lovely toy that can be made very useful, provided you either have the patience to scour the user forums and tinker, or are happy living with the desktop and options you're given - minus an e-mail client in the 2GB version, of course. All in all, I was reminded of the iPhone; lots of people want one, but it doesn't do as much as other less glamorous pieces of kit that are available. I look forward to future versions, though...
| | Best thing I have bought for ages | |
| | Its a lovely little laptop, really handy to take around with you. I spend most of y time on it when I am in bed as its so easy and light and searching the web is so much more fun. I have also become hooked on Frozen Bubbles one of the games but I can't get past level 70. A good buy
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