jamie goode's wine blog: My new toy, the eeepc

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

My new toy, the eeepc

I have a new toy: it's the Asus EeePC, which I've mentioned here before.

It's a tiny laptop the size of a paperback novel. It runs linux, has 4 gb solid state memory (no hard disk) and a 7” screen. It comes with most of the software you might need (open office applications, etc). It has 512 mb of RAM, three USB ports and looks beautiful. The keyboard, however, will take a while to get used to – at the moment my typing is a little slower than normal. I'll let you know how I get on with it.

I should add that this isn't intended to be a straight replacement for my laptop or desktop – rather, it complements it as a special occasion machine that I'll use where portability is an issue. To be honest, I'm growing a little tired of lugging a big bag with a laptop in it around with me, and I’m hoping that I’ll grow comfortable enough with this little machine that it will fulfil most of my portable computing needs.

One thing that will take a little bit of getting used to is the size of the screen, which is quite tiny. This makes working on images or anything that requires a good-sized screen very difficult. It will also take a little time to get used to linux: you can't just install programs with a few clicks like you can with Windows XP. For now, linux still seems to require a techie bent if you are to do anything serious with it.

Is the eepc a compulsory purchase? Too soon to tell. But I forgot to mention perhaps the best bit about it, which is the price. A shade over £200. [I got mine from ebuyer.com.]

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5 Comments:

At 6:26 PM, Blogger Peter May - The Pinotage Club said...

I'll be interested in hearing how you get on with it. A basic machine for writing and emailing that is easily portable and inexpensive is of interest to many of us.

I have not seen the achine and it'd be useful to see it next to a book or something to give an idea of its size.

 
At 7:24 PM, Anonymous Alex Lake said...

I'd be interested in battery life (while using wifi) and how does one charge the battery on the go?

 
At 8:03 PM, Anonymous Andrew Chapman said...

Very interested in how you get on - I've been doing quite a lot of reading about the eeepc and thinking about getting one, so interested to see how you get on. Just back from a day in London tasting '06 Burgundies (like you yesterday) and fed up with fielding emails during day via teeny tiny Blackberry on train journey there and back.

eeePC may be good for blogging about those Burgundies, and other tastings, on way home while thoughts/tastes are still fresh in minds/palate :)

Even a small 7" screen of this new toy has to be better than the Blackberry one - and keyboard of eeePC can't be smaller than that!

Luckily I have a techie on hand to take the worry out of Linux, if I go down eeePC route, otherwise that might be an issue (interestingly we run more and more open source software and, so far, no probs and less cost!)

Looking forward to see you blogging via your eeePC :)

 
At 7:02 PM, Blogger Jamie said...

will do that, Peter

Alex, don't have a good idea of that yet

Andrew, I'm getting on OK - using it now infact - been able to type long articles without too much problem, although you have to be nimble because of the small keys

 
At 2:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Alex Lake

How do you think one charges a laptop? You plug it into a wall socket like any other

 

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